Single-serving birds! Mostly breast meat! Cuter than chicken!
Ingredients:
1 Cornish game hen per person
Fresh rosemary
Fresh green onions
Salt and pepper
Olive oil
Preparation:
Preheat oven to 400. Take giblets out of hen and discard. Rinse hen and pat dry. Remove the skin (cut the skin across the breast and peel the skin off the entire hen - trimming away any excess fat). Stuff with rosemary sprigs and green onion stalks. Tie legs together with kitchen twine and tuck the wing tips under the bird. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and drizzle with olive oil.
Cook & Serve:
Place bird in iron skillet (or on a wire rack on a baking sheet) and bake for 1 hour or until chicken is browned and your thermometer says 165 degrees -- test in both the meatiest part of the thigh and the breast. As always, a couple minutes under the broiler will brown up the meat, if it's cooked but not quite golden. Remove from oven and let stand five minutes to let the juices settle. Snip the twine and serve.
For serving:
- These little hens look lovely when served on a bed of vegetables. I accompanied it with roasted sweet potatoes (1 raw potato, peeled and cubed), chopped broccolini (about 1/2 cup) and 1 Tablespoon of minced rosemary, mixed with a splash of olive oil, salted then roasted alongside the hen in the skillet for an hour.
- You can baste these hens with a sauce every 15 minutes as they bake. Try the Cherry Sauce for Meat under Soups, Sauces and Dips on this site. Or a good bottled BBQ sauce.
A Little Backstory:
Long ago, I made these for a birthday party dinner for my ex, and served them with sugared grapes. It felt so fancy and extravagant! Silly. A Cornish game hen is, basically, just a tiny chicken. And no harder to make on a random Tuesday than a baked chicken breast or a casserole. No sense saving the good stuff for holidays and company.
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