| Rock cornish game hens - need suggestions
Posted: 9/1/2007 9:42:22 AM | I already know you can pretty much just cook these like a chicken, but I have never tried stuffing one.
I have two 22 oz hens, some stale bread, smoked oysters, mushrooms, and fresh basil out the wazzoo (basil is doing really well in the garden this year!).
Can anyone help me get creative with stuffing ideas/recipes, and cooking instructions?
I wanted to make something different for the hubby, but that is a challenge because I am always experimenting and he gets served something different so often that it has become normal! | |
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| Rock cornish game hens - need suggestions
Posted: 9/1/2007 10:14:29 AM |
you can pretty much just cook these like a chicken
This is true, because that's what they are...baby chickens (don't be horrified. People eat veal and that's just a baby cow). Some sources indicate these little birds are 'game' hens (sort of exotic, eh?), but having grown up in Arkansas, which used to be billed as 'the chicken capital of America', and having worked in many poultry processing plants when I was young, I can tell you, there is nothing very exotic about these critters. In the early days, they probably did crossbreed specific types of chickens, but nowadays, many are just young chickens. Regardless of their history or background, you can use any stuffing that you would for any other bird. Don't be intimidated by the supposedly fancy name. It's only a chicken. 
You can Google Rock Cornish Hen recipes and you will get quite a bit of information. This recipe sounds interesting, but I've never tried it. I'm a vegetarian...that's what happens when you work in food processing as a teenager!  Good luck!
Blueberry Stuffed Cornish Hens
Ingredients
8 Cornish Hens, thawed
Salt and pepper
1/4 cup oil
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup Angostura Bitters
4 cups fresh blueberries
4 tsp sugar
1/2 cup butter or margarine
8 small bay leaves
Instructions
Sprinkle game hens inside and out with salt and pepper. Mix oil, lemon juice and Angostura Bitters and brush game hens with mixture inside and out. Fill each bird with 1/2 cup blueberries and 1/2 tsp sugar. Sew or skewer opening and place on a shallow pan. Spread soft butter over breasts of birds and place bay leaf on butter. Roast in a preheated 350 degree F oven for 1 hour or until leg is easily moved. Makes 8 servings.
Yield: 8 servings
Credits
Recipe from: Author unknown | |
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| Rock cornish game hens - need suggestions
Posted: 9/1/2007 12:33:22 PM | Little chickens! I had no idea! I almost feel cheated... Can you still get the real deal easily? I would expect the flavor of a game bird to be quite different.
Anyway, I would watch the oysters in a bird this small; you could end up with a bird that tatstes excedingly like oyster. One of my favorite things to do with these little hens is to take a favorite L'Orange recipe commonly used with duck and apply with a water chesnut dressing. | |
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| Rock cornish game hens - need suggestions
Posted: 9/1/2007 1:38:37 PM | ^^^Imagine his surprise when he learns that potatoes au gratin are just scalloped potatoes with cheese or that fancy roux is just butter and flour. And you might never want to order steak tartre in a restaurant!
from wikipedia:
"A Cornish game hen, sometimes simply called a game hen or a Cornish rock , is an immature chicken of the Cornish variety, or of a crossbreed between the Cornish chicken and another breed. The Rock Cornish game hen, the most common game hen crossbreed, is a crossing with the Rock chicken. As is common in the poultry industry, storebought game hens may be either male or female specimens, despite the common usage of the word "hen" typically denoting a female.
The Rock Cornish game hen was originally bred by Jacques and Alphonsine Makowsky in Connecticut in 1950. By crossbreeding the short-legged, plump-breasted Cornish chicken with various other chickens (including the White Plymouth Rock variety) and game birds, the result was a small bird with all white meat, enough for a single serving. Originally marketed as a temporary substitute for a flock of guinea hens that the farm lost in a fire, it soon became more popular than the guinea hen.
Despite the name, game hens are not hunted as a game animal, and are instead raised in chicken coops as are normal chickens. They are, in fact, chicks that are fed a highly nutritious diet and slaughtered four to five weeks from hatching.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture requires that all chickens sold as Cornish game hens be no more than 2 pounds in ready-to-cook weight.
The birds are often prepared by baking in the oven whole, with spices or seasonings added to taste." | |
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| Rock cornish game hens - need suggestions
Posted: 9/1/2007 2:09:40 PM | Thank you everyone!
I ended up making a stuffing with the bread, mushrooms, basil, onion, and just a few of the oysters (rinsed and chopped fine).
They are stuffed and cooking with a little broth in the crockpot now and smell very good. Too hot here today to turn on the oven, so I opted for the crockpot.
We shall see how they come out! | |
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| Rock cornish game hens - need suggestions
Posted: 10/3/2009 2:04:24 AM | Game Hens with Flaming Cherry Sauce
2 Cornish Game Hens
seasoned salt and pepper
2 tablespoons butter or margarine, melted
1/2 teaspoon each, seasoned salt, ground ginger and paprika
Cherry sauce (recipe follows)
2 tablespoons brandy
Preheat oven to 350. Rinse hens and pat dry with paper towel. Sprinkle inside cavities with seasoned salt and pepper. Place hens slightly apart, breast side up, in a roasting pans.
Combine butter with 1/2 teaspoon seasoned salt, ginger and paprika; brush over hens using it all. Bake hens, uncovered, for about 1 hour or until leg joints move easily; during last half hour baste birds several times with pan drippings. Meanwhile, prepare cherry sauce; keep warm over low heat.
When hens are done, discard excess fat from pan and stir juices into cherry sauce. Arrange hens on serving plates; keep warm. To flame birds, warm brandy in a small container, ignite and pour, flaming, into sauce. While still flaming spoon sauce over birds.
Cherry Sauce (I also love to use raspberries or blackberries. You can make syrup using equal parts sugar, crushed berries and half as much water, heating until sugar dissolves)
Drain 1 small can (about 8 oz.) pitted dark, sweet cherries, reserving 1/3 cup syrup. In a pan, combined reserved syrup with 2/3 cup water, 1 chicken boullion cube, 1 small onion (cut into wedges), 8 whole cloves, and 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon. Bring to a boil, stirring; then reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, for 10 minutes, strain, discarding cloves and onion.
Return sauce to pan. Stir together 1 tablespoon each cornstarch and water until smooth; stir into sauce and cook, stirring until it boils and thickens. Stir in cherries (or berries), 1/4 teaspoon grated lemon peel and on tablespoon lemon juice (or two drops lemon extract). | |
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| Rock cornish game hens - need suggestions
Posted: 10/3/2009 12:49:13 PM | This will REALLY get your guests going....... Everybody has heard of "beer can chicken"..... Well, get some small 8 oz. cans of apple juice, do exactly the same thing as doing beer can chicken, except do it with cornish game hens and apple juice cans.........
It really does work. AND they get this incredible taste from the apple juice.
I wonder if anybody pakcages beer in small cans.
Paul K | |
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| Rock cornish game hens - need suggestions
Posted: 10/3/2009 1:56:46 PM | Here's a recipie I love. The sauce is great on braised pork spareribs as well. I'm a "dump cook"--dump in some of this and some of that--so I've tried to give you measurements as near as I can guess.
2 game hens
1 stalk chopped celery
1/2 small onion, chopped
1 small clove garlic, minced
2 tbsp oil
3 slices day old white bread, cubed to 1/2 inch pieces.
2 tsp poultry seasoning (or to taste)
1/2 tsp. seasoning salt.
1) Saute celery, onion and garlic in the oil until the onions are opaque.
2) Mix with bread and seasonings and test for moisture. If it clumps when lightly squeezed in you hand it's moist enough. If not, add a bit of water, just flicking it from the ends of fingers dipped in water. It's really easy to add too much.
3) Wash and lightly salt the inside of the hens and stuff with the bread stuffing. Close and tie openings.
4) Dust skin of hens with flour, rubbing it in. This will make the skin crispy. For other baked chicken or turkey recipies I also sprinkle the outside with garlic salt but not in this case.
5)Place breast side up on a rack in a roaster large enought to accomodate the hens.
6) Roast at 350 degrees for 1 to 1 and 1/4 hours or until the leg can easily be moved up and down.
7) Make the sauce right after the birds go into the oven--you'll want it for basting during cooking.
Sauce
1 cup chopped rhubarb
1/4 cup water
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinamon
a pinch of ground clove
a pinch of powdered ginger
1/4 cup sugar
1) Put all the ingredients except the sugar into a saucepan large enough so that the mixture has enough room to double it's size, for boiling safety.
2) Heat to boiling, stir once, cover and reduce heat to low.
3) Cook 5 to 8 minutes or until rhubarb is tender.
4) Stir in the sugar.
5) Baste the hens with the sauce frequently during the last half hour of cooking.
Serve remainder of sauce with the hens.
Enjoy!
Strawberry Girl | |
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