Welcome to the summary page for FabulousFusionFood's Cook's Guide entry for Guineafowl along with all the recipes employing Guineafowl presented on this site, with 30 recipes in total.

This is a continuation of an entire series of pages that will, I hope, allow my visitors to better navigate this site. As well as displaying recipes by name, country and region of origin I am now planning a whole series of pages where recipes can be located by meal type and main ingredient. This page gives a listing of all the Guineafowl recipes added to this site.

These recipes, all contain Guineafowl as a major wild food ingredient.

The guineafowl (also known as guinea fowl or guineahen) is a family of birds in the Galliformes (chicken) order that are native to Africa. One species, Numida meleagris, the Helmeted Guineafowl has been domesticated and is now bred world-wide and throughout Africa for its meat.

Numida meleagris is a large (53–58 cm) bird with a round body and small head. They weigh about 1.3 kg. The body plumage is grey-black spangled with white. Like other guineafowl, this species has an unfeathered head, in this case decorated with a dull yellow or reddish bony knob, and red and blue patches of skin. The wings are short and rounded, and the tail is also short. Various sub-species are proposed, differences in appearance being mostly a large variation in shape, size and colour of the casque and facial wattles.

It is a gregarious species, forming flocks outside the breeding season typically of about 25 birds that also roost communally. They eat insects and seeds. The species has been widely introduced into the West Indies, Brazil, Australia and southern France (where it is known as pintade). It is also grown commercially in the UK and the USA.

The meat has the same consistency as chicken, but has a slightly gamier taste, something approaching Norfolk Black turkey (but not quite as rich). In Africa it is ether roasted (barbecued) or cooked in stews. Indeed, it is a very good stewing bird and goes very well with beans.

I like guineafowl meat (a neighbour had a small flock when I was growing up) and the recipes below are classic guineafowl dishes from across the globe.

For information about roasting guineafowl (and many other meats) to perfection, see this site's Guide to Roasting page.