Roasted Cornish Hens with Grapes pg.198

4 Toasts

Add lots of salt and pepper to these hens and the skin crisps up really nice. I was a little un-nerved when we had to tie the hen's legs with kitchen twine. I actully started feeling a little sorry for them. The leg stubs looked gross where they were cut and I was re-thinking the entire dish. Luckily I had some un-opened kitchen twine (left over from my brother's birthday baloon bouquet-I didn't end up using it, that's why the balloons end up blowing around the table at the restraunt)which made me stick with the plan and continue.

Ever try to figure out which side of a cornish hen is up? After tying, untying and re-tying I can tell you that to have a hen breast side up there is only one option, it is the only side that the legs are long enough to be tied on.

I was actully quite excited when I dropped by Meat On The Beach to pick up these free range anti-biotic free hens. I love this local shop for hard to find ingedients and fresh organic produce. They have all kinds of cuts of meat and a lot of pre-prepped sides. Bring your reusable bag and a little more money than you usually spend and you can have a great time at this little shop: people watching, eavesdropping and ogling the specialty ingredients and steep prices for prepared goods.

For this dish, the smaller then hens the better, they really took over the tray. Who would have thought that the grapes would be so tasty even though they look nasty cooked, and I felt like I was wasting perfectly good fruit.


As a side note, anyone have any of the following kitchen tools that we can borrow for upcoming receipes: Spring form pan, whisk or electric beater, baster, oven grill pan? If you have one of these we will trade you dinner for the use of the tool for the receipe.

My tip for anyone making this dish and using bigger hens is to turn the temp a little lower -say 400 and then leave them in a little longer. The grapes were charred along the tray edges because we extended the cooking time.

Hope you are having a good weekend - eat something good for me