Add rosemary, sage, thyme, lemon and butter and you can have the most delicious dish that you get to eat all yourself. Roasted Cornish Game Hens are one of our family favorites at the holidays and are the 1950s American phenomena you're going to want to keep handy for those meals and holidays when you want a stunning entree but want to serve guests individually.
Our recipe for Roasted Cornish Game Hens bring them to a whole new level of perfection - they're aromatic, picturesque and the perfect size for individual portions - which is exactly why they were developed.
Cornish Game Hens are a variety of broiler chicken that are produced from a cross between the Cornish and White Plymouth Rock chicken breeds. They are bred to develop a large breast for their size and can weigh up to 2 1/2 pounds each. Their development is credited to Therese and Jacques Makowsky in Connecticut in the mid-1950s when they crossbred Cornish game cocks with other varieties which included the White Plymouth Rock hen. The result was an exotic bird with a juicy breast that produced a single serving.
The Cornish Hen probably would not have become as popular as it did if it weren't for comedian Victor Borge who spied an opportunity and leveraged his popularity to promote the concept of transforming this new dish into a household meal.
What we love about Roasted Cornish Game Hens is that it is basically hands-free cooking - you prepare the birds and then let them roast unfettered - giving you time to prepare the other side dishes for your meal. You can roast several of them at a time - making it easy to serve an even or odd number of guests.
This is one of our favorite holiday dishes, and we hope you keep this recipe handy and enjoy the ease of making this vintage dish that first made waves in 1950s American households.
Serves 1 person per hen
Total time to make: 1 hour 20 minutes
RECIPE: Roasted Cornish Game Hens
Ingredients:
Up to 6 Cornish Hens, thawed
1 package per 2 hens of poultry blend: fresh rosemary, sage and thyme
1/4 lemon (wedge) per bird
Preheat oven to 350 degrees and prepare your roasting pan with rack.
Rinse each hen under cold water and pat dry.
Stuff each hen with a wedge of lemon and half the package of poultry blend. This should be about 2-3 sprigs of each herb per bird.
Season outside of hens with salt and pepper then dot with pats of butter. Use about 1 T of butter for each hen in total.
Place hens on roasting rack in roaster and set in oven.
Roast for 1 hour 15 minutes.
Serve immediately.