Rock Cornish Hen with Peri-Peri

almost 2 years ago

It was all about trying something different. I wanted to make rock cornish hens for the family, but, I wanted to try something a little different with them before I committed to cooking four of them and serving it for dinner. I do have my pride and it had potential to fail. I prefer my failures to have a softer blow to my ego than dinner that went south. Of course I am kidding, my kids have eaten many failures. Some they didn't even know it.

I prepared the hens in two different ways, so there are a couple of things I would want to do differently next time. Despite that, they were both delicious and I would be happy to eat either again. In spite of it being a cooking chicken kind of post, there is #alwaysaflower to color my world. For me, for you.

The first hen was marinated approximately 24 hours in peri peri sauce. I did this by rinsing the bird in cold water and patting it dry, then putting it in a quart-sized bag with enough sauce to generously coat the bird. I then closed the bag, removing as much air from it as I could. .

This method allows me to use a lot less sauce than if I did the same in a bowl since the bag hugs the sauce close to the skin (rather than having to put enough to cover it) and does not allow air to dry it out

After 24 hours, the bird was removed from the bag, put in a baking dish breast-side-up (with the wings tucked close to the body and the drumsticks tied together) with some small potatoes, and cooked at 350F for approximately 1 hour, basting twice with butter in between. I removed it a couple of minutes early, put some extra sauce on the chicken, and put it back in the oven for a few minutes to almost caramelize the sauce a bit. (it doesn’t really caramelize because there is no sugar in it, but looking for that effect.)

I did not time everything correct, so the chicken ended up sitting in the oven for some extra time, hence the slight shriveling in the pictures, but the drippings coated the potatoes in delicious flavoring, but a lot of it dried out and stuck to the pan. The Cornish hen doesn’t have as much fat content as a regular chicken, hence no drippings.

The taste was good, but the presentation was a fail. I will have to figure out better string to tie the drumsticks. the potatoes were delicious and I will try it next with the rice. This was the next day, otherwise I might have tried to cook them at the same time.

Let's try this again, but with rice! After rinsing the bird in cold water and patting it dry, I attempted to inject the peri-peri sauce into the hen for marinating, but the sauce was too thick to go through the needle. I ended up freeing the bird most of the way from its skinsuit and putting most of the sauce between the skin and the meat. I also marinated this one in a quart-sized plastic bag without air, but I put it in a bowl to keep the hen upright, keeping most of the sauce in its skinsuit. This one was also marinated in the fridge for approximately 24 hours.

This bird was stuffed and cooked on a bed of red/white/brown/wild rice mix, which I cooked beforehand with a small amount of salt and oil (~1 cup cooked rice) and allowed to cool to room temperature.

After 24 hours, the hen was removed from the bag and put in a 6" pie dish, breast-side-up. It was then stuffed with the rice and the remaining rice was used as a bed. The hen's wings were tucked close to the body and the drumsticks were tied together (to help keep everything moist by not having anything sticking out). I also added a splash of water to the rice and a small amount of bacon grease to the top of the bird. It was cooked at 325F for approximately 1 hour, basting twice with butter in between. The final basting was done with the peri-peri sauce and it was put back in the oven at 350F for about 10 minutes.

20220604_175159 chicken.jpg

While it was on its final basting (with the sauce), I sautéed some asparagus with garlic with a splash of olive oil. Yummy delicious!

Overall, I liked it with the rice better. The rice picked up the drippings and excess sauce wonderfully, permeating the entire bed. Next time I would massage the sauce out from between the skin before cooking (or just marinate like normal) and I would also want to cook the hen while raised slightly above the rice (either on a -very- small rack or a can with holes in it), since it did not get as crispy while cooking on the moist rice as it did the potatoes. The small dish also helped corral the drippings so that they did not go to waste as they did with the one cooked with potatoes.

I am not a regular food person as you can tell. :) Maybe some day, just not this day. Done and done...And just like that, this post is over. Come back tomorrow and we will do it again!

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The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost