Guinea fowl with girolles and rice

There are still various mushrooms on the market, some late ceps, cantherelles, the black “trompettes de Maures” (also called trumpets of death) and the yellow girolles.
I do like mushrooms, especially ceps, but I find most of the mushrooms a lot of bother to clean.
Girolles go well with poultry, so I bought some of them for this recipe.

Ingredients

• one guinea fowl
• 200 grammes of girolles
• four strips of bacon
• 200 grammes of rice
• chicken stock (cube, sachet or left-over)
• butter
• pepper, salt
• mixed herbs

Steps

1. Preheat the oven to 175 °C. Tie layers of streaky bacon over the fowl’s breast to prevent if from drying out during the cooking and also to retard the cooking of the fillets a bit as the legs need more time.
2. Put water in a cooking tin and add some herbs, put a grid or a perforated lid on the tun and put the guinea fowl on top. The evaporation of the moisture will keep the meat tender while the herbs add a touch to the taste. The water will also prevent the dripping fat from burning.
3. Put it in the oven for about an hour, and turn every 15 minutes. I usually add a probe to the meat and set it at 88 °C for poultry. The alarm went off at 55 minutes, so an hour is a good indication of time.
4. Clean the girolles with paper tower and avoid as much as possible to use water.
5. Cut the girolles and set aside.
6. Heat the stock.
7. About 10 minutes before the end of the oven time, put butter in a frying pan and toss in the girolles. Mix with a spoon and turn the temperature lower after five minutes.
8. When ready, take the fowl from the oven and set it aside for five minutes
9. Put the rice in the stock.
10. Take off the bacon and the skin and carve the breast meat from the bones.
11. Cut off the legs and wings. Slice the breasts.
12. Make a foundation in a dish with rice, add the breast meat and the girolles.  
13. Add pepper and salt to taste.
14. Serve.