Roast Peacock

We have a tradition of eating unusual meats for our family Christmas dinner. Although we celebrated Christmas several days early this year, because of other commitments family members had, we managed to keep the unusual meats tradition alive. One of our main entrees was roasted peacock. The picture of the peacock, below, is from Wikipedia.

Bereft of its beautiful feathers, the peacock, or at least the one we had, really looks like the emperor without clothes. 

It was on the small side, 3.8 pounds, and it looked scrawny and lean. 

I was a little concerned how it would taste. 

I looked up peacock recipes and all said that peacock is lean, needs to be cooked slowly, and needs to be kept moist. To keep the bird moist, I first rubbed the outer skin with butter. Then I stuffed it lightly with home made stuffing. The stuffing consisted of bread, torn into small pieces, mixed with sauteed wild pig sausage, a large chopped onion, rosemary, peacock heart and liver and chicken stock. The stuffing that would not go into the bird went into a separate container to be cooked separately. Then I liberally sprinkled the outer skin of the peacock with salt, pepper and cayenne pepper. To ensure it would stay moist, I draped cured bacon slices over the entire bird 

and then placed the bird in an oven bag, after first sprinkling the inside of the bag with flour and layering the bottom with chopped celery to make sure the bag would not stick to the bird. After sealing the bird in the bag, I made four or five holes in the bag to allow it to vent. I cooked it in the oven at 350 for a little over two hours. 

Then I removed the bag and bacon

and put the peacock back in the oven for about ten minutes. 

For such a small, scrawny bird, I was amazed at how much meat we got and at how good and moist it was. I figured the wings would be burnt to a crisp, but they were moist and one of my favorite parts of the bird. 

There is a lot of dark meat and it tasted amazingly like turkey. It was a very fun and tasty addition to our Christmas meal and gave us a lot of fun conversation as we both prepared and ate it.