For 4 people: 2 small guinea fowls, salt, pepper, 30 g butter. 50 g smoked bacon, 1 shallot, 200 g small lentils, 1/2 l stock (or water), spice bundle of parsley stalks, thyme sprigs and 1 bay leaf; zest of 1/2 unsprayed orange, 1 tsp mustard, 1 dash thick cream or 2 tbsp crème double.
Prepare the guinea fowl, salt, pepper and brush well with softened butter. Roast in a suitable dish at 250° in the oven for about 45 minutes. After that, let them rest for a short time in the open, turned-off oven. Keep brushing with the butter while roasting.
For the lentil vegetables, dice the bacon, render in a saucepan, and sauté the diced shallot in the fat. Add the washed lentils and cover well with water or stock. Add the bunch of spices. Cook gently. The small Le Puy lentils, which do not need to be soaked, are cooked after about 25 minutes if they were fresh lentils. So taste. Eventually the liquid should be almost cooked off and the lentils cooked but not too soft.
Salt, pepper, stir in the finely chopped orange zest, mustard and cream. Serve with the quartered guinea fowl.
Class poultry in Gross-Zimmern and in the Frankfurt Kleinmarkthalle
<.x>N</x>Great-grandmother still had to walk the long way from the edge of the Odenwald to Frankfurt with the heavy pannier on her back. That is less arduous today, and so the Mann family from Groß-Zimmern (near Darmstadt), now already in the 4th generation, supplies the foodies in the big city on the Main. Among other things with guinea fowls. The birds with the magnificent plumage are hardly susceptible to poultry diseases, and their meat is characterized by a light, delicate gamey taste. The guinea fowl originates from West Africa and reached Greece and Rome via Egypt in ancient times - only to disappear from European kitchens with the fall of the Roman Empire. Until Portuguese merchants brought it back to France in the 16th century. Later, guinea fowls appeared in Germany and their "long-lasting, miztönendes Geschrey", as it is called in an old book, resounds then also on the farm of the Mann family in Groß-Zimmern (A kilo of guinea fowl costs 9 €).
The Manns sell their products in the Kleinmarkthalle, from the farm only after advance order. There, you can see the flock of geese in the meadow from afar; Angus cattle and lambs graze. Chickens, corn poulards, ducks, turkeys and Araucana chickens, whose green-shelled eggs are in great demand because they contain hardly any cholesterol; all these feathered creatures scratch in the straw and are allowed out into the meadows. The guinea fowls, however, have to stay in the coop because of the danger of escape. Meanwhile, capons are available, but only from November to January; they are noble, have juicy meat and are not cheap.
The strong farmer's roosters turn out to be a guest surprise of a not everyday kind. Even more amazing: "Redbruts". Up to 3.5 kg bring the hens, proud 4.5 kg the roosters on the scales.
Family Mann has in the season also game from local hunting to offer. Not only deer, wild boar, hares and wild rabbits, but also rare delicacies, such as roe deer liver, coots; now and then partridges. Connoisseurs enquire in good time, as they also pre-order in good time when meat from whole milk calves is announced once a month. Meat and sausage from Schwäbisch-Hällisch and the rare Hungarian woolly pigs, the Mangalizas. Kids and dairy lambs in spring.
Farmers Harro and Klaus Mann
Brunnerstr. 20
64846 Groß-Zimmern
Phone: 06071-41473
Fax: 74244
Opening hours: Sales: only on order ex farm or Kleinmarkthalle Frankfurt am Main (gallery): Fr 7.30 - 18 Uhr, Sa 7.30 - 16 Uhr.
from Waldemar Thomas