Roasted Spatchcock Poussin with Bulgar Wheat salad

This is a lovely transitional autumn dish for those days that are bright and warm before winter really sets in. It has a Mediterranean feel to it with the middle eastern style salad and the Italian style Poussin. It would be delicious over summer too cooked in the oven then finished off on the barbecue as spatchcocking the Poussin means it can be cooked pretty quickly. If you haven't spatchcocked a bird before, there's a great BBC video on how to do it - it isn't hard as long as you have a large, sharp knife :)  I used two small Poussins, one per person, but you should adjust the number of birds to suit the number of people you're feeding. You could also use Guinea fowl too which would work equally well.

Ingredients
For the roast Poussin
2 small Poussins
A small bunch of fresh thyme
3 lemons
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
12 garlic cloves
Salt and Pepper
250ml white wine
250ml chicken stock

For the Bulgar wheat salad
50g Bulgar wheat per person
250ml chicken or vegetable stock
1 tablespoon olive oil
½ a red pepper
1 small Courgette
2 sticks Celery
2 small tomatoes or one medium
3 spring onions
1 preserved lemon or half a roasted lemon from the roasting tin.
A small bunch of fresh coriander

Method
First preheat the oven to 220°C. Next, spatchcock the Poussin using the technique from the video link above. This will take about 10 minutes.

Once you've completed that, prepare the marinade. Peel and crush the garlic cloves with the flat of a knife and add them to a casserole dish. Next halve and squeeze the lemons and add them to the dish (if you're using roasted lemon instead of preserved, put one half lemon in the dish to the side without squeezing it). Place the Thyme in the dish with the garlic and lemon halves and place the Poussin on top. Finally, drizzle the olive oil over the birds, drizzle the lemon juice over and season with salt and black pepper. Cover with cling film and leave to marinade for at least an hour at room temperature.

While the birds are marinading, make the salad. Measure out the Bulgar wheat in a cup and add to a saucepan, then add 5½ times the volume of cold stock to the pan, bring to the boil, cover and simmer for 15 minutes.

While the Bulgar wheat is simmering, slice the peppers and cut each slice into 2 or 3, peel and chop the celery into ½cm cubes, slice the Courgettes using a potato peeler and cut the slices into three even pieces and roughly chop the tomatoes. Add the olive oil to a pan and heat it until it's smoking, then add all the veg to it and stir fry until they are softened and slightly coloured. Drain in a sieve. Prepare the rest of the ingredients by peeling and slicing the spring onions, chopping the coriander leaves roughly and by thoroughly rinsing the preserved lemon (to get rid of as much salt as possible), slicing into thin slices and halving the slices. Keep half the lemon for the Poussin. Once the Bulgar wheat is cooked, drain it and leave to cool for 5 minutes, add it to a bowl then mix in the roasted veg, onions, coriander and preserved lemon. Cover with cling film and set aside. This salad can be served warm or cold depending on taste. I prefer serving it slightly warm so I leave it next to the cooker to keep it warm.

Now pop the Poussin in the oven and bake for 40-45 minutes until it's cooked all through and the skin is nicely browned. Once it's finished cooking, place the Poussin on a hot serving plate, cover with tin foil and let it rest. While the Poussins are resting, make the sauce by adding the white wine to the casserole dish and deglazing the pan. Add the stock and boil rapidly to reduce and get rid of the alcohol. When you have reduced the sauce by ½, strain though a fine mesh sieve, adjust for seasoning and add a small amount of sugar or honey to take off the bitterness of the lemon - careful, you'll only need about a teaspoon of sugar!

To serve, put the Poussin on a warmed plate and add some sliced preserved lemon pieces and a little sauce.  Add a tablespoon or two of sauce to the salad and serve with the Poussin.  Add some good company, a couple of glasses of chilled bone-dry white wine and enjoy!