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Steve Drake's Recipes from the May Market

Guinea fowl with asparagus ribbons and St. George mushrooms

4       Gineau fowl breasts
8       asparagus spears (fat)
250g st. George mushrooms
200ml chicken stock
50ml   double cream
½        lemon
Salt, pepper
Pinch chopped parsley

Using a peeler and holding the asparagus flat on the surface make ribbons, like tagalateli, cook in boiling salted water for 30 seconds only.

Season the guinea fowl breasts with salt and pepper and place in a medium hot frying pan, skin side up and then into a medium hot oven for6-8 minutes.  Remove from the oven and squeeze a few drops of lemon juice over.

Drain the fat from the pan and add the chicken stock and reduce by half, add the cream and a pinch of salt.

Gently sauté the mushrooms in a frying pan with a little butter.

Divide the asparagus between 4 plates, with the guinea fowl sitting on top, sprinkle the mushrooms over and pour the sauce around.  This is supposed to be a fairly quick and simple recipe, however to add a little depth we could use whole birds, keep the legs for another meal and make a good guinea fowl stock from the bones, from which we would make our sauce.

 
STRAWBERRIES MACERATED WITH LEMON THYME AND YOGHURT SORBET  

1 large punnet of strawberries
Few sprigs lemon thyme
½ lemon
1 vanilla pod
230g sugar
400g water
50g milk
200g natural yoghurt

To make the yoghurt sorbet, take 30g of the sugar and mix with the yoghurt and milk, stir together and churn in an ice cream machine in the normal way.

To macerate the strawberries take the remaining sugar and add it to the water with the vanilla pod and juice of lemon, bring to the boil and add the lemon thyme, picked, washed and chopped. Leave until cold so the lemon thyme can infuse. 

Cut the strawberries into quarters and remove the green stalk, gently wash and dry and place in a bowl, pour over the lemon thyme syrup just to cover and leave to macerate for a minimum of 1 hour.

To serve divide the strawberries between 4 martini glasses with 2 tablespoons of syrup in each and a scoop of yoghurt sorbet on top, as an extra sprinkle with a shortbread crumble.

For this pudding it is important to use very ripe, almost over ripe strawberries, which will give you the most incredible flavour.