Cornish Hen!

Yesterday Carmella and I made quite a nice Friday Night dinner.

I had bought two cornish hens at the grocery store in Squamish, and decided that we should eat one of them yesterday. A cornish hen is like a small chicken, but somehow it's not a chicken but a game hen instead. I figure that they're small and maybe more wild? Possibly they're free-range chickens. I actually have no idea.

I purchased two of these game hens, and put one out to thaw. By the time Friday night came around, it was ready to go. I purchased all the necessary extra ingredients as well. It was cooking time!





It came all wrapped in thick, tight plastic, much like milk bags that you get in Ontario. I had to open it with a stout knife. As soon as I did, a bunch of blood and fluid rushed out and onto the counter. It wasn't pleasant. I prefer to have my meat prepared where I don't have to be reminded that it was alive at some point!





Since I was making the game hen for two, I was instructed by my recipe to cut it in half along the breast bone. I'd never done that before, but I got a large knife and had a go. It took a lot of sawing and hacking, but eventually I divided the game hen into two equal parts.

My recipe was called Herb Glazed Cornish Hens with Pasta. Carmella helped me create a concoction of

melted butter
salt
pepper
garlic
thyme
oregano
basil
sun-dried tomatoes
parmesan cheese (not the canned stuff!) <- The recipe said that!

We loaded it all into a blender, and blended it until it was paste-like and smelling terrific.

While we made that, the cornish hens were baking in the oven. We'd spread browning agent (it's actually full of healthy ingredients) and a mix of olive oil and lemon juice onto the hens. We took the hens out after thirty minutes, smeared our blended paste onto the hens, and then baked them for about 8 minutes more.

When they came out, they looked like this! (edit: Carmella is correct when she says the Hen wasn't done - just look at that raw-looking leg! I probably took this picture halfway through the baking process, when we took it out to baste it with our herb paste, so you can be confident we weren't feeding ourselves with forks full of salmonella!)



This is the final product. Carmella brought over some organic wine, and it tasted great. We added some of the herb puree to some pasta, and laid the hen halves on top. It looked excellent, but tasted better. The skin was very tasty as well, and the meat was moist and good.

I was happy to make this with Carmella, because it's nice to make something semi-complicated that turns out well. With Carmella's help, I was a success in the kitchen!