On Saturday, Walt went to the open-air market in "downtown" Saint-Aignan and bought a pintade — a guinea hen — for our Sunday dinner. Yesterday we roasted it in the oven using the stove's rotisserie feature. As a side dish (or maybe it was the main dish) he made a recipe from Richard Olney's Provence: The Beautiful Cookbook — a Tian de courge, or winter squash gratin. The recipe is below.
A tian is a Provençal gratin dish, and I thought this one was amazingly good. It's made with pureed winter squash — ours was a potimarron that grew in our garden, but butternut or even pumpkin pulp would be good — and with leeks cooked in olive oil, eggs, cream, parmesan cheese, and a grating of nutmeg. The leeks especially, but also the parmesan and nutmeg, add a lot of flavor and make the squash puree really delicious. The topping is grated parmesan and panko (Japanese breadcrumbs).
Walt modified the recipe slightly, because he started by roasting the squash in the oven and then mashing and whipping the squash pulp into a smooth puree, instead of cutting the raw squash into chunks and cooking them down in a pan with the leeks. You can do it either way. We had some julienned and steamed collard greens as a garnish.
The pintade came out really good too. I put sage (we have a plant out back), parsley (growing in pots on the terrace), a dried cayenne pepper, some allspice berries and black peppercorns, a shallot, and two garlic cloves in the cavity. The bird cooked on the spit, turning over a pan of water so that it steamed and roasted at the same time, keeping the meat moist. We ate half of it...
Basically a savory pumpkin pie without the pieshell. A couple of weeks ago, I roasted chunks of butternut with some onion and potatos under the chicken that was on the rotisserie. Delicious, but we had too much left over and didn't really want to just eat squash and Paul wondered if it was pie season. So I got out the cheesecloth and squeezed what liquid was left from the squash and made a pumpkin pie. It was good, but there was a hint of the chicken taste in it.
ReplyDeleteNo added sugar in this tian/gratin either. We have so much pureed pumpkin/winter squash pulp in the refrigerator that we'll be eating a lot of these or pumpkin pies all winter. Did I blog about the pumpkin brioche that Walt made? That was really good.
ReplyDeleteOh, my! Both look so good!
ReplyDeleteThe tian I can easily make. The pintade, not so easily. We roasted a pintade when we were in Quebec last month, but I haven't found anyone in Maine who raises them. And I can't seem to interest any farmers in raising them.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, a pumpkin brioche sounds great. I don't remember you writing about it.
I will write about the pumpkin brioche if Walt doesn't.
DeleteBob, I've been googling around to learn more about buying guinea fowl in the U.S. There's a place called Helder-Herdwick farm in the Albany NY area that raises the birds. Its web site says it is in the process of relocating its operations to York County, Maine. Is that close to you at all?
DeleteWow! York County is just south of us. I will have to look into this. Thanks for finding it.
DeleteI once bought a pintade here from Whole Foods, which was raised at a farm in North Carolina, and only available during the holidays. It was extraordinarily expensive and not particularly good. On the other hand, there's a farm in Quebec that we stopped at twice in the past year and bought pintades and roasted them at our Air BnBs.
And I look forward to the pumpkin brioche info.
I think there are several distinct breeds of pintades. Some might be better to eat than others. Maybe the people in N.C. hadn't figured that out. I don't know if my great-aunt who lived in the Charlotte area and kept a gaggle of guinea hens ate them, but I think she certainly used the eggs in cooking. I remember her shooting a big snake out of a tree in the middle of the night once when we were visiting her and complaining that it had been eating the guinea hen eggs.
DeleteIt makes sense that there are multiple breeds of guinea hens, just as there are multiple breeds of chickens. And by the way, I've been in touch with the farmers from NY, and they're hoping to move to Maine by next Spring; and raising pintades! It's about 45 minutes to an hour from here.
DeleteThat tian looks like a good candidate for a Thanksgiving side dish. And the guinea hen. Well, there is no where I know of that I could buy one. There are a number of things you write about which I'd love to try, but they are not available here. I wonder how they raise guinea hens in France. On my grandfather's brother's farm they just ran around and didn't live in the coop. I am not sure whether they were fed by my aunt or simply foraged for themselves.
ReplyDeleteOn my grandfather's sister's farm in South Carolina, not far south of Charlotte NC, a big gaggle of guinea fowl ran free that way. I don't know if my aunt and uncle fed them or if they were just fended for themselves. There are farmers raising guinea hens in N.C. and I think you can order one. But I also think they are very expensive over there.
Deletemiam miam...
ReplyDelete