Roast Guinea Fowl with apologies to Gordon Ramsay

There's nothing more I love than cooking something and making up the recipe as I go along.  For this supper video I admit I was inspired by a Gordon Ramsay article I'd read a few days beforehand.  But I couldn't find it when a guineafowl appeared in Abi's 'fridge.  So I stumbled through with what I could remember and with what ingredients were to hand and it ended up really delicious (if not quite 3 Michelin star quality).  Oh, and whilst waiting for it to cook we had an umami moment...

Truffle Omelette

After the sumptuous dinner at The Harrow I was kindly given a couple of small truffles by the Trufflehounds to play with at home. I picked up half a dozen fresh eggs laid by my mother's hens in Dorset and packed them into a small tupperware box along with the pair of truffles hoping that magic things would happen to the flavour of the eggs before I turned them into an omelette. A couple of days later I took a sniff and was almost overwhelmed by the scent, or should I say fumes, reminiscent of shoemaker's glue. Others with me suggested petrol and ethanol. Not necessarily very appetising but certainly intriguing and somehow compelling (if not downright addictive).



After four days I sliced the truffles thinly, sweated them in butter and then poured in the seasoned beaten eggs to make a scrambled omelette which three of us ate straight from the pan.





The truffles had definitely perfumed the eggs (the inside surface of the shells was very aromatic) but that gluey, estery smell did not transmute the flavour; instead, the truffles were pleasantly nutty and slightly 'high' hinting at decay and earth, the eggs a lovely rich umami accompaniment.