Guinea Fowl in Salt Dough Crust by Sonia Ezgulian

Europe 1 00:37, 17 December 2023

Chef and author Sonia Ezgullian offers you her version of the Christmas guinea fowl: baked in a salt dough crust and served with carrots and potatoes. A delight for a minimum of effort!

Ingredients

Serves 6

1 guinea fowl

8 fingerling potatoes from Le Touquet

4 carrots

4 garlic cloves

1 purple onion

2 pinches turmeric

For the salt dough

500 g flour

500 g coarse salt

2 egg whites

10 cl (100 g) water

4 pinches thyme, leaves removed

Peel the onion, potatoes and carrots. Plunge the potatoes into a pot of water with the turmeric. Precook for 10 minutes and let it brown in the cooking water while you make the rest of the recipe. Cut the carrots into chunks and the onion into quarters.

Prepare the salt dough: mix the flour, coarse salt, egg whites, thyme and water. The dough should be soft enough to work with. Roll out two discs of dough, place one of them on a sheet of parchment paper. Place the guinea fowl on top, season with pepper only. Slip the turmeric-coloured potatoes, carrots, onion wedges and garlic cloves into the guinea fowl (i.e. without peeling them).

Cover with dough and seal the two pieces of dough by pinching the edges. Collect the paste ornaments, roll them out again and cut out decorations: feathers, flowers, leaves, etc. Brush them with a little water and attach the decorations to the rind of the guinea fowl. You can prepare the guinea fowl a few hours in advance. Preheat the oven to 180°C. Bake the guinea fowl for 1 hour and 30 minutes.

Remove the guinea fowl from the oven, let it rest for 15 minutes, carefully cut a lid and present the guinea fowl (and its fragrant scents) to the guests; Remove the rest of the salt dough, cut out the guinea fowl and divide the pieces with the cooked vegetables.