.raspberry glazed cornish hens.

Happy Monday! Can you believe we are only 12 days away from Valentine's Day? Insane. I hope you are all gearing up for our little Valentine Cook-along. I am so excited about this. I really am. I made the raspberry cornish hens over the weekend and they were delicious and so moist. Perfect with some risotto on the side. Perry gobbled up the risotto. I should have made more but who would've thought a 14 month old would have eaten so much?

This is not a difficult thing to make. Marinade, Roast, and serve. Pretty simple. 1 cornish hen will feed almost two people so depending on how large or small your appetite, you can buy one and share, or make two. (I made two because were feeding two adults and two small kids)


In a bowl, put 1 cup raspberries (I used fresh. If you use frozen, thaw first), 1/2 cup rice wine vinegar, 1 Tbsp sugar, 1/4 cup lime juice, 3 minced cloves of garlic, 3 Tbsp fresh chopped mint, 3/4 cup olive oil, and some salt and pepper.








Use a potato masher to smash and mix everything together.











If you've never bought cornish hens before, you can find them in your freezer section next to the frozen chicken breasts, or turkey. They should look similar to this.

To thaw, let them sit in your fridge for a couple of days. Do not sit them out on your counter to thaw unless you want a good case of salmonella poisoning.









Cut off the bag in your kitchen sink. There will be a lot of juice/blood in the bag. Rinse the hen off with cold water. Make sure you rinse out the body cavity too!

Remember when handling poultry, you need to wash your hands with soap and warm water before doing anything else. This can spread salmonella to kitchen knobs, counters, etc.




Put each cornish hen in a large ziploc and pour in some of the marinade. Seal up the bag, pushing out as much air as possible.

Put in the fridge and allow to marinate for at least 4 hours.







These little guys will need about 1 1/2 hours to bake. When it's time, dump the chicken with the marinade into a baking dish and put in a 350* oven.

While they're roasting, pull the pan out about every 20 minutes and baste the hens with the juices in the pan. Keep doing this until they're cooked through (the breasts should not be squishy when pushed -- that's how you'll know they're done).

If the legs or wings start overbrowning (read: burning), put pieces of foil on them. This will protect them while the rest of the bird roasts.


This is what your hens should look like when they come out of the oven. Beautifully golden brown.

Allow to sit in the pan for about 5 minutes to "rest". This will get all of those juices to go back to where they're supposed to be.

When ready to plate, make sure you let them drip off as much of the juice from the pan as possible. Garnish with some fresh raspberries.



Printable version:
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dg2vfjqm_1305gth7sg7