Quote from: Peripatetic Phil on January 11, 2022, 07:38 PM
Well, let me be honest, I wouldn't buy a "cheap chicken"...they lack flavour.

I know we are past the point of needing to agree to disagree. I buy the cheapest possible chickens and portions from Lidl and Aldi. They have more than enough flavour for me. As I found, the guinea fowl from Tesco was almost identical to the chicken, which means it had more than enough flavour, too. So why pay 4x more for a guinea fowl at Tesco or 5x more at Waitrose? Most reviews at Waitrose are along the lines of your findings. I wonder if they believe too strongly in the saying that you get what you pay for. As I also said, our taste discrepancies are hard to reconcile.

Quote from: livo on January 10, 2022, 11:02 PM
I wouldn't worry about it George. Even Phil's guest said it was just like chicken.  Buy chicken and be done with it.  It's cheaper and it also tastes like chicken.

I am not worried but mystified at how 4 people can have such different opinions on how guinea fowl tastes. It's like Phil and his wife seem to love guinea fowl and feel it's worth a price something like 4x more expensive than a cheap chicken.  But their new recruit and myself take a view that it is so close to chicken it's not worth paying a penny more. I am tempted to get another one from Waitrose but, even if I tried to cook it just like Phil does, I doubt if it would change my opinion. Has anyone else reading this, ever tried guinea fowl?

Quote from: Peripatetic Phil on January 09, 2022, 10:05 PM
Well, I cooked another guinea fowl today

Where do you get your guinea fowl? Perhaps you know where to buy superior birds to those found at Tesco.

Robbo - it sounds interesting but I have no idea what's involved so will need to look it up.

Quote from: Peripatetic Phil on December 27, 2021, 11:54 AM
As to flavour, nothing like pheasant, and far closer to (a more delicate, more tender and moister version of) chicken.  Do try one — I am certain that you will not be disappointed.

I bought a 1kg guinea fowl from Tesco for £8. It turned out as identical as I could tell to chicken so, given I can purchase a perfectly good fresh chicken from Lidl for £2 per kilo, if not less, I regard it as a complete waste of money. Sorry but I simply can't see the appeal. Still, I wouldn't have known if I hadn't tried. The best poultry I had by far over the Festive period was a pre-spiced and stuffed chicken in a roasting bag from Aldi for 75% off so I think it cost about £1.15. It was so good, I may buy another for the full price of about £4.50

Quote from: Peripatetic Phil on December 27, 2021, 11:54 AM
Do try one — I am certain that you will not be disappointed.

Given your recommendation, I certainly will. Do many/most supermarkets sell them or where do you look - a butchers perhaps?

Update: I found guinea fowl are sold by Waitrose and Sainsburys, for a start.

Quote from: livo on December 27, 2021, 01:36 AM
George, I'm certain there are hundreds of YouTube videos and food blogs online giving recipes and instructions on how to prepare, season and cook a Christmas (or Thanksgiving) turkey.  Your plate, and the bird in the background, looks really good to me anyway.  I have cooked frozen and packaged turkey breast (just breast) that, when done as per the instructions, is moist and delicious.  Perhaps, even the use of a simple oven bag or maybe a foil covering for the initial cook would have given some improvement.

Livo - thank you for your kind comments. It may sound arrogant but I don't think I have much to learn about cooking turkey. I know the options and what I am doing. I may try brining again but for a shorter period. I think if the turkey is cooked upside down, the fat permeates into the breast and helps it stay moist. Better still, I may try buying a small turkey leg or breast to see what I can do with that. Even a turkey crown strikes me as far too large and often ridiculously expensive. I expect the results will be better than cooking an entire bird, like it sounds you found out. One approach for a family or group dinner, may be to place a whole turkey in the centre of the table as a centrepiece with all the trimmings but to plate up breast meat and/or leg cooked separately because it will almost certainly taste superior. I base that on cooking chicken breast in the oven for between only 6 and 10 mins for it to be perfectly cooked, unlike BIR style pre-cooked chicken. Seasoning is far easier, too. How can a poultry breast cooked for 2 or 3 hours come out very well at all?

Phil - the only game bird I have tasted is pheasant, four or five times. I find it edible but don't like the taste anywhere near as much as chicken or turkey. Is the taste of guinea fowl similar to pheasant?

How did your Christmas cooking go? I planned to have chicken thighs cooked to perfection for a roast type meal on Xmas Day but, on impulse, I decided to buy a small, Bernard Matthews frozen turkey from Iceland on Xmas Eve. It needed 2 days to defrost, so I am having it today (Boxing Day) instead. I just placed it in the oven at gas mk 4. The wrapping says 2hrs 21 mins so that's what I will allow. I didn't dry it, smear it with any kind of oil or fat or do anything to it at all. What's the point of seasoning with salt and pepper, let alone adding onions, stuffing, lemons or anything in the cavity? It doesn't make any more sense to me than the way BIRs are supposed to pre-cook chicken in liquid. No wonder most chicken apart from tikka is pretty awful in a BIR.

Update: image added. Conclusion: turkey is only potentially good for presentation. Despite no pre-treatment, my turkey ended up looking suitably bronzed. But the breast meat in particular is relatively dry with little going for it. I don't accept that the addition of bacon or something on top, would have altered the position much. Brining can make it more moist but, in a previous year, I found it alters the texture too much and I didn't like it.

Quote from: Secret Santa on December 16, 2021, 03:14 PM
Takes me back about 40 years to my repair days.

I'm impressed!

Phil - how on earth did you find, or know about, the mace site? Amazing! What sort of request did you make? That they provide access to the video they may already have, and/or that they allow us to upload our copies? They know the tape type used, so if their copy is from a master, it will be far clearer than from my grainy VHS tape.