TOWARDS A NEW PECKING ORDER

THE SAFE MEAT GUIDE: 4; POULTRY AND GAME

How mysterious is the advice for choosing a chicken, described in Dorothy Hartley's Food in England. She wrote, in 1954: "People who do not keep hens may not know why poultry is cheap at some seasons and dear at others. Chicks are generally hatched in spring, but some in incubators, before Christmas." Chickens were seasonal?

It is easy to forget the extert to which we've turned nature on its head within our lifetime. In the first half of this century a roast chicken was a special treat for Sunday lunch and turkey was a once-a-year experience. Last year we bought pounds 300m worth of turkeys alone.

It is fashionable to sneer at turkey and chicken, which are mostly reared intensively, but they are good value protein, satisfying health and nutrition requirements. Poultry is low in fat, especially if you remove the skin. The meat is generally immature and tender, so it cooks quickly, the number one requirement of modern life.

Poultry is safe enough. Some 2,270 cases of salmonella poisoning were reported last year, a few more than in the year in which Edwina Currie, then junior health minister, revealed the extent of salmonella in our chicken flocks. We've come to live with it. The salmonella is still there, but is easily killed by thorough cooking. The danger lies in the kitchen, if uncooked chicken infects neighbouring cooked foods, or chopping boards haven't been washed after use.

Poultry welfare is not only a moral issue; it's also important to the consumer because better-kept birds produce tastier meat. More and more people are reacting against intensively-reared broiler birds. However, conditions in which poultry (turkey, chickens, guineafowl, ducks, quail) are kept continue to distress thinking people.

Feed, exercise, age and hanging, contribute most to flavour in chickens. Factory birds are fed grain and extra protein in pellet form to speed up growth. A former neighbour of mine, a biochemist, worked for a chicken company a few years back. She was to formulate a balanced chicken feed, making up protein with recycled waste from the broiler house floor, slurry, feathers, dead birds. She duly achieved this, making the feed safe by sterilising it. They fed to it to the chickens but they got diarrhoea. Well, well.

More people are buying free-range chickens under the impression the birds do taste better, but how free is free is open to question (see How Free is Free-Range? on page 58). On the credit side, you can be pretty sure of quality feed and a degree of exercise with organic birds.

Certainly exercise, says Bob Kinnaird of Graig Farm in Powys, Wales, twice winner of the Soil Association's Organic Food Awards. He is sure it's exercise that bestows flavour. "I dislike intensive farming strongly," he says. "I believe respect has to be given to animals to enable them to carry out their function. Poultry is being kept in windowless buildings, 23 hours with the lights on."

He remembers consulting the National Farmers' Union about keeping chickens. "They told me I'd need a 60 watt bulb every 100m, something like that, and to make sure the birds don't see sunlight or they'll go mad. Well, there's nothing more natural than a chicken sitting in a dustbowl in the sun. But when 10,000 are penned together, two to every square foot, in a darkened room, and a ray of sunshine comes in, I bet they do go mad."

Bob Kinnaird buys his chickens from organic farmers who keep flocks of 300 or less, which reduces stress, and increases resistance against disease. Intensively-reared birds are routinely treated with coccidiostats to deal with bugs in their guts. "They never have a chance to let their immune systems take over. Drugs keep them alive for 42 days." Bob Kinnaird's organic farmers grow chickens to 16 weeks rather than six. After plucking, they are hung for a week to develop flavour. "I'm looking to the top end of the market, but I'm sure this is the way things will go."

This method is not so far from that used to produce the most prized chicken of all, the Poulet de Bresse, from north of Lyons, in France. Each bird is pampered and fed choicest grains to a decent age, and sold with its own certificating number. It has texture, some firmness, a marked flavour. But how much flavour can you take in a chicken? When it was on the menu at Claridges, chef Marja Lesnik told me customers sometimes sent it back: "There's something wrong with this chicken. It tastes too strong." Of course, sir, yes sir. We can send out for a broiler hen.

Ostriches are safe to eat, aren't they? We hope so. In the last week of our Safe Meat Guide, we look at poultry and alternative meats. When food historians look back on the 20th century, they may well point to the 1996 beef crisis as the point at which eating habits took a new turn. People emptied their freezers of beef, and stuffed them full of chicken. Tesco started selling ostrich. Pubs across the land tempted customers with kangaroo and crocodile (perceived as safe, except when alive). The blow to our beef industry has produced many new winners. None will be more grateful than the poultry sector, which is showing dramatic growth - the prepared chicken market rose from nothing 10 years ago to a current pounds 500m. Poultry is perceived as healthy. However, in proposing a New Charter for Meat, we call for assurances in safety, animal welfare, value, and above all, taste.

CRISPY ROAST DUCK

This recipe is taken from Alastair Little's Keep It Simple (Conran Octopus pounds 20). It makes the most of two birds, using the legs and giblets to make a confit which can be used in other dishes. With the breasts left on the bone you can make a delightfully sophisticated roast which bows towards China and France in its flavour and execution.

When buying the ducks, ask your butcher to remove the legs, the backbone from behind the breasts, and the wishbones. Get him to clean the gizzards for you and make sure that you get all the rest of the giblets (including the livers) and the necks and the carcasses. These parts will form the basis of the gravy which accompanies this dish, while the legs and the gib- lets can be used to make the confit.

Begin to prepare this dish in advance: it is best to glaze the duck and make the gravy the day before. If the gravy is refrigerated overnight, this enables you to remove the last vestiges of fat settled on the surface.

Serves 4

2 ducks, each weighing about 2.3kg/5lb

2 tablespoons clear honey

For the gravy: 12 bottle (375ml/13fl oz) red wine

1 onion

1 stick of celery

1 carrot

1 tablespoon sugar

1 tablespoon wine vinegar

sprig of rosemary

black pepper

55-85g/2-3oz unsalted butter

First glaze the duck (preferably a day ahead): dissolve the honey in four tablespoons of water, add a pinch of salt and bring to the boil. Do not reduce: if the glaze is too syrupy it will burn and become black and bitter during roasting. Paint this glaze over the duck breasts and leave overnight in a cool airy environment. This effectively 'wind dries' the skin. Alternatively, use a fan or hair-dryer on a cold setting for 10-15 minutes to blow dry the skin.

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4. Prepare the vegetables for the gravy and cut them into a mirepoix. Chop the duck necks and carcass bones into small pieces.

Begin by making the gravy (this whole process takes about 60 minutes, so it is a good idea to carry it out in advance): in a flameproof casserole or deep heavy roasting pan, brown the mirepoix in a little duck fat (or oil). Chop the necks and carcasses and brown thoroughly.

Sprinkle with sugar (this is essentially a caramelisation process), vinegar, some pepper and the rosemary and continue to brown, stirring continuously. Do not skimp on the browning, but be careful not to char the bones.

Add the wine and boil hard to reduce, scraping the pan as you do so, until the liquid has almost all evaporated. Add just enough water almost to cover the bones. Return to the boil and skim. Lower the heat and simmer for 30 minutes, until reduced by half.

Add a handful of ice cubes and skim the stock once more. Pass the liquid through a sieve and return it to a clean saucepan. This is the technique whereby the classic jus (French for gravy) of the French professional kitchen is achieved, creating the stock and the sauce simultaneously.

To roast the ducks: place them breast side up on a rack in a roasting pan and roast for 10 minutes. Lower the temperature to 170C/330F/Gas 3- 4 and continue roasting for a further 30 minutes. The skin will crisp and balloon in a spectacular way and go a glossy golden brown.

Transfer to a warmed serving dish and leave to rest for 5 minutes. The skin will deflate slightly (but remain crisp), so if you want to get your guests excited show it to them as soon as the roast duck comes from the oven.

Towards the end of the roasting period, reheat the gravy and before serving swirl in the butter to give the sauce its final consistency and gloss. It should resemble the varnish on a burnished mahogany table, not Bovril.

A note on carving: transfer the duck to a carving board (still in the kitchen). With the breast joint (neck end) towards you, locate the breast bone and run a sharp knife along it, pressing down vertically until you meet the ribcage. Prise away the breast, which will detach easily from the bone, and stroke the knife down to separate the flesh away from the bone, working the knife along the length of the breast until the shoulder joint is exposed.

Press firmly to cut through the joint and you will have a whole supreme of duck with a small nugget of partially cooked fat under the wing. Discard this piece of fat and transfer the carved meat to a warmed serving place.

Turn the breast so you are working on the left hand side again (left- handers reverse the process) and follow the same procedure with the second breast joint. A lot of juice will have collected around the supremes, which you pour into the gravy.

Serve as whole supremes or sliced, pouring the sauce around. Accompany with plain lightly buttered potatoes, noodles or rice as a simple foil to the rich complexity of the duck and gravy.

ORVIETO CHICKEN

This ravishing main-course dish from Umbria, also from Alastair Little's Keep It Simple (Conran Octopus pounds 20), needs no accompaniment since the stuffing contains potato and provides a perfect foil to the chicken, which must be free-range and have its giblets. The quality of the local chickens around Orvieto - where Alastair Little first came across this recipe - is superb, with a flavour that more than matches that of the esteemed Poulet de Bresse (see Feathered Friends on page 58).

Serves 4 1 free-range chicken, weighing about 1.8kg/4lb, with its giblets

450g/1lb potatoes

1 onion

30 large garlic cloves

1 fennel bulb, preferably with plenty of stalk and leaf 225g/8oz good black olives

sprig of rosemary about 1.5cm/6in long

1 lemon

1 glass (150ml/14pt) of dry white wine

6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

salt and pepper

Clean the chicken liver by scraping off any green patches and threads. Cut the top off the heart at the point where it turns white and muscular. Clean the gizzard by cutting open. rinse away any stones or grit under the tap, then slide a small sharp knife against the tough wrinkly membrane to remove the two dark oysters of meat rather as you would when skinning a fish. Dice this meat, the heart and the liver.

Peel the potatoes and dice them into cubes of about 1cm/12in. Peel and dice the onion. Pull apart the garlic heads until you have 30 cloves. Peel two of them, smash them with the flat of a knife blade and chop finely. Dice the fennel. Pit the olives (the ideal tool is a cherry stoner). Pull the leaves of rosemary from the twig. Juice the lemon.

Preheat the oven to its highest setting. Put 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a saute pan and saute the onion with the chopped giblets for 5 minutes or so, until the onion wilts and goes translucent. Do not allow to brown. Add the chopped garlic, potatoes and fennel and saute for 10 minutes until the vegetables are nearly cooked. Season, mix in the lemon juice and allow to cool.

When cool enough to handle, stuff the chicken with the mixture and close with skewer(s) pushing through the legs and skin around the cavity opening. There is no need to sew it shut.

Season the outside of the bird according to taste. We prefer our chickens liberally seasoned, because the sea salt helps crisp the skin.

Arrange the bird resting on one side in a roasting pan and put in the oven. After 20 minutes, turn it the other side up. After 40 minutes, remove it from the oven (remembering to close the oven door to stop the temperature falling too dramatically) and position it breast up. Strew the garlic cloves, olives and rosemary evenly round the bird and drizzle with a little olive oil. Add 1 tablespoon of water and return to the oven for a further 20 minutes.

Remove and test doneness by inserting a toothpick or small skewer into the thigh: the juices should run clear, but do not worry if they are slightly pink. Put the bird to rest in a warm place for 15 minutes on a hot serving dish, with the garlic and olives scattered round. (Leave the oven on so you can put the dish back in if you find the thighs are still pink when you carve the bird.) Leaving the dish to stand is vital since this completes the cooking while all the juices go back into the flesh.

Degrease the roasting pan by spooning off the fat, tilting the pan and trying not to leave any juices behind. Over a high heat, tip in the wine with an equal quantity of water. Deglaze, boiling and scraping. This is an excellent way to make a simple gravy, which applies to virtually all roast chicken recipes.

Pile stuffing in the centre of the warmed serving plate. Using a serrated knife, carve bird into eight pieces and place neatly, skin upwards, round the stuffing. Pass the gravy in a sauce boat.

SPATCHCOCKED POUSSINS WITH PROVENCAL HERBS

This is from Marlena Spieler's The Classic Barbecue and Grill Cookbook (Dorling Kindersley pounds 14.99). In Provencal villages, dishes are cooked over an open fire of scented wood, then seasoned generously with local herbs.

60g/2oz unsalted butter

112 tablespoons flavoured wine vinegar, such as rosemary or garlic

4 garlic cloves, finely chopped

4 poussins, spatchcocked (see below)

salt, black pepper

2 teaspoons mixed dried herbs, including thyme, marjoram, rosemary, fennel and savoury

12 teaspoon dried crumbled bay leaves

15g/12oz fresh basil leaves

To garnish:

fresh rosemary sprigs

Spatchcocking: Using kitchen scissors, cut through the back of the chicken along both sides of the backbone. Discard the bone.

Lay the chicken on a surface, skin-side up, and press down firmly with the heel of your hand to flatten it out.

Thread several bamboo skewers to criss-cross through the flesh and hold the chicken flat while it cooks.

Light the barbecue or preheat a gas barbecue. Gently heat half the butter in a small pan, then add the vinegar and garlic. Cook for 1-2 minutes, then remove from the heat.

Sprinkle the poussins with salt and pepper, rubbing it in well, then brush all over with the flavoured butter and sprinkle with dried herbs.

Loosen the skin in places along the breast and thighs, making small pockets. Stuff a small nugget of the remaining butter and a few leaves of basil into each pocket. With a sharp knife make small slits over the rest of the poussin and insert butter and basil as before. Leave to marinate at room temperature for 30-60 minutes.

Barbecue over medium-hot coals for 20-30 minutes until golden brown on the outside, but still juicy inside, turning occasionally. The poussins are cooked if the juices run clear when the thigh is pierced with a skewer. Serve with a garnish of rosemary sprigs.

POACHED GUINEA FOWL WITH BASIL AND TOMATO VINAIGRETTE

This recipe is taken from Sophie Grigson's Meat Course (Network Books pounds 17.99). If you want to serve the guinea fowl cold for a summer lunch, Sophie Grigson suggests that you poach it, letting it cool in its poaching liquid so that the flesh stays perfectly juicy and succulent. Of course, poached guinea fowl can also be served hot. Either way, the scented basil and tomato vinaigrette makes a fine partner for this bird. Save the richly flavoured cooking liquid to make soup.

Serves 3-4

1 guinea fowl

1 onion, quartered

600ml/1pt chicken or vegetable stock or 1 generous glass white wine

1 carrot, thickly sliced

1 bouquet garni (see page 33)

6 peppercorns

For the vinaigrette:

25g/1oz basil leaves, roughly torn up

350g/12oz tomatoes, skinned, seeded and finely diced

1 garlic clove, roughly chopped

1 tablespoon lemon juice

a pinch or two of sugar

5 tablespoons olive oil

Put the guinea fowl into a close-fitting flame-proof casserole or pan with all the ingredients except those for the vinaigrette. Add some water, if necessary, so that the liquid comes about two-thirds of the way up the bird. Bring up to the boil, cover and simmer gently for about 1-114 hours or until the guinea fowl is very tender.

To serve this dish hot, lift the guinea fowl out of the poaching water and quickly remove the skin. Carve the bird at the table. To serve the dish cold, draw the pan off the heat and leave the bird to cool in the cooking liquid. Lift out, drain, skin and cut into pieces.

To make the vinaigrette, put all the ingredients with the exception of the tomatoes and sugar in a processor and whizz together until they are smooth. Stir in the tomatoes, then taste and adjust the seasoning with the sugar. Serve with the hot or cold guinea fowl.

How free is free-range?; The best birds are free-range, but the industry definitions aren't designed to make it easy for the consumer to choose.

FREE-RANGE EXTENSIVE REARING Broiler birds reared indoors in large houses for 42 days, to achieve their optimum growth-to-cost-of-feed ratio.

FREE-RANGE BARN CHICKENS Same thing. They are free to range in the barn. That sort of free range, with no access to the outdoors.

TRADITIONAL FREE-RANGE Birds grow to greater maturity, 81 days, and have access to grass for half their lives.

TOTAL FREEDOM FREE-RANGE Birds grown outdoors for second half of their lives, with a square metre per bird, access to pans at night where they are crowded in, by the thousand, 13 to a square metre. Killed at 56 days.

ORGANIC FREE-RANGE Reared with access to outdoors in small flocks (no bigger than 500, which is a small flock). No animal protein is permitted in their feeds. Veterinary medicines not used routinely. Birds allowed to mature to 90 days or more. The Soil Association can furnish details of outlets. It is at 86 Colston Street, Bristol BS1 5BB (01179 290661).

FEATHERED FRIENDS

CHICKEN

Boilers: All birds are broilers, but boilers are old birds from egg-laying flocks. Add character to a casserole. Almost worth buying to make stock.

Corn-fed: Fed on diet of 70 per cent maize, producing yellowish flesh. Do they taste better? Hmm.

Poussins: Babies killed at 28 days.

Poulet de Bresse: The most prized chicken of all, from north of Lyons. Grain-fed, best for texture, firmness, flavour.

Label Rouge: French specification representing a good grade. An OK bird but no Poulet de Bresse.

Cou nu: (bare-necked). Tasty, leggy, darker-meat chicken often from Les Landes in south-west France.

Moy Park: A reliable chicken from Northern Ireland.

Devereux: A new breed from Barry Clark's Hereford Duck Company (he created the Trelough Duck, a gourmet choice); Trelough House, Wormbridge, Hereford HR2 9DH (01981 570767).

Organic: Bob Kinnaird (see main story) gives his chickens quality feed and allows plenty of exercise. Contact: Graig Farm, Dolau, Llandrindod Wells, Powys, LDI 5TL (01597 851655).

TURKEY

The success story of our time. It's a bootiful tale, too, Bernard Matthews breeding his first flock in the bedrooms of his 16th-century manor near Norwich. More substantial than chicken, the meat is extremely versatile since you can buy individual cuts instead of the whole creature: portions, rolls and roasts. White-feathered turkeys used to be the things but now purists are looking to more traditional breeds and are prepared to pay more for a Cambridge Bronze or Norfolk Black. Order from a Q Guild butcher or Kelly Turkey Farms, Springate Farm, Bicknacre Road, Danbury, Chelmsford, Essex, CM3 4EP (01245 223581).

GOOSE

Traditional British table bird. Resists intensive rearing. Yields pints of unfashionable but wonderful white fat, which used to be a prized cooking medium for potatoes. Delicious. Mail order geese: Holly Tree Farm Shop, Cheater Road, Tabley, Knutsford, Cheshire, WA16 0EU (01565 651835). Seldom Seen Farm, Billesden, Leics, LE7 9FA (01162 596742).

DUCK

More correctly duckling, since they are killed young after fairly intensive rearing. Due to a large rib cage, a duck serves only two. The British farmed duck, a Pekin or Aylesbury cross, is very fatty. The French use ducks with larger breasts, the magrets, a favourite being the Rouen duck. The newly-bred British Trelough duck is more in this style (see under Chicken, above, Barry Clark's Hereford Duck Company).

MALLARD

Wild duck; a gamier, less fatty option. Treat like a game bird. Tasty but possibly tough.

GUINEA FOWL

An increasingly attractive alternative to chicken, with its firmer texture, drier meat.

QUAIL

Poultry in miniature. Quick to cook, ideal for grill or barbecue, finger food.

PHEASANT

A shame such a magnificent bird should produce such ordinary meat. The birds are hand-reared on grain until October, when they are released for sport - no time to develop the taste of the wild bird (an old bird with flavour is, alas, tough).

PARTRIDGE

A wonderful roasting bird. The French swear by the red-legged (French) partridge, the English by the grey-legged (English) partridge. Wrap with a bit of bacon fat before roasting, to baste.

PIGEON

Also known as squab. Pigeon is usually wild; squab is fat, young, hand- fed. Chefs with attitude import squab from France. Breast of squab is dark pink, chewy and juicy, and slightly bitter to the taste. Wild birds are probably best slow-casseroled.

OSTRICH

Dense, dark, silky, like a less fibrous fillet of steak; very low in cholesterol. Contains 20 times less fat than rump steak, but is as high in iron. The meat of the future if they can find their Bernard Matthews. An increasing number of British farmers are breeding ostriches, but as there are no abattoirs here to do the business, they cannot sell the birds they cull (young males). Most ostrich has been imported from South Africa, but Tesco has now opened up a chain of supply from the US. Not cheap yet (the price will eventually tumble), ostrich steaks work out at around pounds 8 a half-pound, burgers half that.

GAME

Venison: Dark meat is generally chewy, but steaks are reasonably tender, and other cuts stew well. Deer from the wild are no longer considered an attractive option, on safety grounds or on eating quality. Farmed deer are consistent. The common strain is the larger red deer, though the smaller roe deer is prized for flavour.

Hare: Your local game dealer may have hare, which is becoming rare, but not so rare as the traditional British dish, jugged hare, in which the copious blood from the animal is stirred into the sauce. A roast saddle of hare is excellent eating.

Rabbit: Welsh-Italian restaurateur Franco Taruschio elevates tasty wild rabbit to gourmet status at The Walnut Tree Inn near Abergavenny. But most rabbit sold today is intensively farmed, and bland.

Wild boar: This strong flavoured meat makes rich, savoury winter casseroles. You can also buy wild boar sausages. Stocked by specialist farm shops. For mail order contact Barrow Boar, Foster's Farm, South Barrow, Yeovil, Somerset, BA22 7LN (01963 440315), or The Game Larder, Rushett Farm, Chessington KT9 2NQ (01372 749000) for all kinds of game.