Smoked Cornish Hens report


 

Michael Vrobel

TVWBB Member
Smoked Cornish Hens report:
(Or, as my grandfather always calls them, "Little Chickens")

The Meat
I bought 4 frozen Cornish hens, roughly 1.5lb apiece, from my local grocery store, and thawed them for 2 days in the refrigerator.

Margarita Marinade
(My variation of a recipe from the book Smoke and Spice)
<UL TYPE=SQUARE>

<LI>1 cup tequila
<LI>1 cup triple sec
<LI>1 cup Rose's sweetened lime juice
<LI>0.5 cup canola oil
<LI> about 3 tbs onion salt
<LI> about 1 tbs cayenne

[/list]

I put 2 hens each in gallon zip lock bags, poured half the marinade into each bag, and marinated for 5 hours. (You have no idea how hard this part was. I didn't want to marinate the hens with this mixture, I wanted to marinate my tonsils.)
biggrin.gif

I turned them once when I remembered to after about 3 hours.

Final Preparation
When I was ready to start cooking, I took the hens out of the marinade. Then I chopped a lime into quarters, squeezed the lime quarter over each bird, and stuffed it into the chest cavity. Finally, I liberally applied ground pepper to each hen. (I assumed I had enough salt from the marinade, which may have been a miscalculation...)

Cooking Process
The recipe recommended cooking the hens for 2.25 to 2.5 hours at 250*F. My experience with the recipes in Smoke and Spice has been that their times are usually optimistic, so I assumed 2.5 hours at a minimum.
I started my WSM using the Minion Method, and waited for the smoker to reach 250*F (measured through the lid by a polder type thermometer.) Then I added four small chunks of cherry wood. I put the hens on the top grate, breasts up and facing out (in a pattern shaped like an X). They took up more room than I thought they would, and were close enough to the edge of the grate that I was worried about the "hot" section around the edge of the smoker. As it turned out, the hot edge worked to my advantage for browning the hens.

My temperature fluctuated between 240*F and 260*F throughout the cook; I never did get it stabilized, but I was able to keep it in range by tweaking the vents on the bottom of the cooker every half hour or so.

One hour into the cook, I took off the lid, and saw that the hens were browning nicely on side that was facing the edge of the grate. I turned them end for end, and flipped them, so the breasts were now down and pointing towards the center of the grate, and the legs were facing out. Then I mopped them with a spray bottle filled with:

Margarita Mop
<UL TYPE=SQUARE>

<LI>1 tbs tequila
<LI>1 tbs triple sec
<LI>2 tbs Rose's sweetened lime juice
<LI>1 tsp canola oil

[/list]


(As an aside: I've found that an oil mister to be very useful for spraying my mop onto the food; it seems to give me a finer mist than I can get with the cheap spray bottles I was using before).

Two hours into the cook, I took off the lid again, and the hens were browned pretty evenly. I turned them end for end to try to cook the breast section a little more; the breasts were now pointing towards the edge of the grate, facing down. I mopped the hens again at this point.

Two and a half hours: we're done. The hens look gorgeous; the skin is a dark, ebony brown, but not burned. This is the best looking poultry I've ever cooked on the WSM.

Serving
I cut the hens in half with my chef's knife, removed the lime wedge from the cavity, and put the halves on a plate with some rice pilaf and mixed vegetables. Man, did the plates look good!

Tasting and Judgement
(Apologies to Iron Chef...)
They tasted good, but not great. To my surprise, the skin is pretty crisp; I'm used to rubbery skin with chicken in the WSM, but this skin came out nice and crispy. The mop and/or marinade gave the skin a nice, sweet taste around the legs and thighs, but I didn't notice it around the breast section. The breast meat came out dryer than I like it; not bad, but not as juicy as I'm used to. Other than the sweet taste to the skin, I really couldn't taste the marinade. I was a little disappointed in the results. My tasting panel (OK, my wife and sister-in-law) told me it was great, and I was being too hard on myself, so I guess it came out OK.

Next time
Though the hens turned out well enough to do the recipe again, I'm going to modify it pretty heavily. I won't use the margarita marinade. I nearly cried when I had to dump it, and I really didn't notice it adding much to the taste after the cooking.
To help with the breast meat, I'm going to use a salt, sugar, and lime juice brine instead of the marinade. Also, I'm going to check the temp in the breast with a instant read thermometer at the 2 hour point; I think I could have pulled them off the WSM then. However, the extra half hour really helped with how the skin looked, so I'm hoping the brine will protect the breast meat so I can cook to 2.5 hours.

Also, to punch up the taste a bit, I'm going to change the mop to be sweeter (maybe just the sweetened lime juice with a little triple-sec), and put a more flavorful rub on the skin.

In summary: not bad, but the recipe needs a little work. That being said, if you want a meal from your WSM that has a really impressive presentation, give it a try. Those little chickens looked really cute AND delicious at the same time!

Mike
 
I'd skip the lime juice in your proposed brine. In my experience, citrus "cooks" the outer layer, and seems to interfere with the brine's significant moistening power.

Just my $.02. Your mileage may vary. Keep away from pets, open flames, and bad advice.
 
I agree, Mike. I was getting ready to make the same suggestion. Acids, if applied too long, will make the meat mushy as well.

That was a really good and well thought out post and I enjoyed reading it.

Rita
 
Mike,

I searched on this copy cat recipe site and found this recipe:

http://www.copykat.com/asp/copykatrecipe.asp?recipe=783

I have not tried this, but I have had Chili's Margarita chicken, and it was pretty good. It's certainly a simple recipe, I will give it a try soon and let you know how it goes.

Doug Wilbur

[This message has been edited by Doug Wilbur (edited 09-06-2001).]
 
Thanks for the feedback! I think you're both right about the lime juice in the brine. I'll stick to using it as part of the rub and in the mop.

Mike
 

 

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