Cornish Game Hen Recipe with Apricot Glaze (2024)

FAQs

What is apricot glaze made of? ›

In a saucepan, mix sieved apricot jam, sugar, and cognac. Cook over moderate heat for 3 to 5 minutes, until thickened and sticky.

Roast, uncovered, basting frequently with butter for 1 hour (if hen weighs over 1lb 2oz, roast 1 hour and 15 minutes) or until internal temperature on instant read thermometer reaches 180°F when inserted into inner thigh.

Remove giblet bag from cavity and reserve for making sauces, etc. Heavily brining or marinating product is unnecessary as Cornish birds are small and meat is quite succulent. Source: “The Big Thaw — Safe Defrosting Methods for Consumers,” USDA.

A BASE GLAZE is a mixture of these three basic groups: SILICA, FLUX AND ALUMINA.

Glaze: there are more than 3 basic components in glaze, these are: silica, alumina, flux, colourants and modifiers. The common ingredients in glaze colours are, “ copper oxide", “copper carbonate", “cobalt oxide" and “ iron oxide.”

You can also keep some of the pan drippings and reheat the chicken in a skillet with the drippings to prevent it from drying out.

An instant-read thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the thigh, near the bone, should read 165 degrees F (74 degrees C). Remove from the oven, cover with a doubled sheet of aluminum foil, and allow to rest in a warm area for 10 minutes before slicing.

Allow your hens to sit out of the fridge at least an hour before cooking to come to room temp then preheat the oven to 350°. Quarter up the onions, peel the garlic leaving it whole, and quarter the lemon (remove zest before cutting).

The meat is tender and flavorful, and absolutely the best I've ever had! Don't leave the hens in the brine for too long, or the meat will be too salty.

How do you get the gamey taste out of Cornish hens? ›

The distinct game flavor of either birds or animals will be milder after soaking the meat overnight in the refrigerator in either a salt or vinegar solution. 2. Vinegar solution - 1 cup per quart of cold water. Use enough solution to cover the game completely.

Place the hens in the brine, cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours or overnight. Remove hens from the brine and rinse well inside and out; pat dry.

Place hens in a roasting pan, breast sides up. Place 2 thyme sprigs and 1 lemon half in cavity of each hen. Loosen skin from breast, and place remaining thyme and the parsley underneath.

To combat this, you'll season the hens with an herb butter that you'll rub between the skin and the breast meat, then roast them on their sides rather than breast-side up. Roasting Cornish hens on a wire rack set inside a baking sheet also helps elevate the birds so that the thighs cook as quickly as the breasts.

Cornish Hens are just baby chickens but they taste completely different. They present really well when serving and cook in a short period of time. I like serving them for dinner parties or for the holidays. Typically 1/2 a Cornish hen is enough for one person but someone with a good appetite could eat a whole one.

Glazes need a balance of the 3 main ingredients: Silica, Alumina and Flux. Too much flux causes a glaze to run, and tends to create variable texture on the surface. The texture may vary from shiny, where the glass is balanced, to matte where the excessive flux oxides may form visible, possibly lumpy, crystals.

Silica (or industrial sand) is the key ingredient in glass, raw clay, and ceramic glazes. Silica can be obtained naturally from quartz, sandstone, sand, or flint, or it can be manufactured as silica oxide. When making your own glazes, products like quartz, flint, and pure silica can be added as the glass-former.

A glaze is made up of three parts. A flux/melter that lowers the melting point, a refractory/stabilizer that bonds the glaze to the clay, and a glass former like silica. This creates the base and then a stain is added to give the glaze its color. It's a bit like mixing paint and a bit more like a chemistry experiment.