Utilizing products that are available to us or just trying to give them a home.

Thinking about what we can do with a product is a important step of our job in order to keep waste and cost down, while maintaining the products integrity as something amazing.

I recently hand several guinea fowl on hand to implement somewhere, some how, but how??? Guinea fowls are in the same family of the pheasant and are a wonderful ingredient if used properly.

We currently are running a Chefs Table dinner that is tied into our 75th anniversary of the Hotel, the dinners are based on classic preparation aswell as past menu items over the Hotel history.

I wanted to do something somewhat classic and include these guinea fowls.

Coq Au Vin, this classic preparationof a chicken slow cooked in a stew of red wine, bacon, mushrooms, and pearl onions. This combination of flavors and the depth that in portrays is just the right fit for what I was looking for on this menu aswell as it goes great with the season.

How should I start?

The initial idea of just chopping up this bird and stewing it really turned me off, as I knew there is a much more refined way that I can do this, while still maintaining the heart of this classic dish.

I began with removing the skin (in whole), flesh and bones from the bird as shown. Next I marinated the separated white meat and dark meat parts in a blend of red wine etc. for 4 hours in cryovac to ensure the incorporation of flavors. Next I took the skin of the fowl trimmed it down and rolled the dark meat inside using activa. I remarinated this in the red wine mixture and recyovaced. Next I used the idea of the bacon (coq au vin) and rolled the breast is this again cryovacing to incorporate flavors. I cooked the dark meat at 66C for 6 hours in thermobath and the White meat at 70C for 1.5 hours.

The result was an amazing combination of flavors between the dark meat and white met there were 2 very distinct flavors but still blended well together. To keep with the tradition if the dish I used bacon lardons, beech mushrooms, and cipollini onions to finish the dish. There is always improvements to be made but it was definitely a success.

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