Smoked Cornish Game Hens

[dreys50]

I saw a basic recipie in a package of cherry bisquettes so I decided to give it a try. Its just my wife and I so I did 2 hens for a sunday dinnner.

I stuffed each with a mixture of anchovies, lemon zest, garlic butter, fresh parsley, and a little bit of bread. Put that in the food processor and filled each bird.
I tied some fresh rosemary on the outside and that was that.

Smoked for 2 hr 20min/250 degrees. It took about 3 hrs to get to an IT of 170.

Just something simple and quick that turned out perfect and juicy.

[ArnieM]

Boy, that's a bunch of rosemary!  They look good.  No brine either?

[Tenpoint5]

They do look good

[TestRocket]

Did you run out of thyme?  :D

[dreys50]

Boy, that's a bunch of rosemary!  They look good.  No brine either?

No brine at all. Just stuffed and cooked.  It was 3 branches of rosemary per bird, but the plant I have has some irregularly large leaves that lack pungency/potency.

[SouthernSmoked]

Looks very good... How was it??

[dreys50]

It was great, perfect in our opinions. Nice and juicy. The skin was done nicely and took on the flavor well- I forgot to mention in the first post I rubbed with olive oil.

I like things pretty smokey so next time I will probably do a full 3 hrs of smoke, or just use something with a bolder smoke flavor.

[ArnieM]

Glad to hear they came out good.  Cooking at 250 probably helped the skin out some.

One of my favorites on poultry is apple or a mix of apple and pecan. 

Your stuffing sounds interesting too.  Care to post a recipe?  I like anchovies though "someone" here doesn't.  But, they almost disappear, except for some flavor, when mixed up in things.

[Habanero Smoker]

Looks good. I just would be concerned using bread as part of your stuffing, would make sure the cavity is not stuffed to much, and the temperature of the stuffing was at least 165°F. When cooking at low temperature, that type of stuffing is an ideal incubator for bacteria.

[KevinG]

Gotta agree, I don't even stuff if I'm cooking in a regular oven anymore. Just too risky.

[dreys50]

The stuffing was extremely basic. For 2 birds:

1 3oz jar of Anchovy filets
2-3 cloves garlic
1/2 stick of butter (unsalted)
coarse chopped fresh parsley
zest of a small lemon
half slice of italian bread (optional)

Blend or combine in a food processfor and you're all set. I dont recall the volume of stuffing I came out with, but I just split evenly between the brids, about 1/3 of the cavity was full. I had added the bread to gain more substance to it, but it probably should be omitted as pointed out by members here. We had no trouble - this time. In hindsight a handful of brown rice or something would have probably been awesome.

Outside of the bread I would say the amount of anchovies and butter can be altered to preference. I tend to go lighter on butters and creams in recipes. The anchovies provide a richness, in addition to the obvious saltiness, and I heard no complaints about them.

I used Cherry wood this time, but I'm a big fan of Pecan and next time I will likely do a blend of the 2.

[ArnieM]

Thanks for the recipe.

[Habanero Smoker]

Looking at the recipe, it is pretty much what I stuff my cornish hens cavities with, without the bread. The bread can become a problem. I usually will throw in some herbs and pieces of citrus.