My girlfriend and I are looking forward to a nice, small, cozy, intimate Thanksgiving. Just the 2 of us…and our 5 collective dogs and cats.
We’re planning on having cornish gamehens as our main course, so I’m open to suggestions for how we should prepare them. I’m find all sorts of delicious preperations online, but I’m interested in what my fellow dopers recommend.
Thanks in advance!
Here’s how I always make them. It’s simple and delicious.
Rinse the hens inside and out, toss the giblets out, then lightly S&P the cavity. Make about a cup of stuffing (homemade or just use Stove Top), chop up 1/2 a small apple and mix it into the stuffing along with a handful of raisins and 1 1/2 Tb chopped walnuts. Stuff the hens, preheat the oven to 350, grease a baking pan with butter and put the hens in breast side up. Drizzle 3 Tb melted butter over the hens and sprinkle with salt, pepper and rosemary. Cook them for an hour and 15 minutes, basting them with the butter 4-5 times. Viola!
Enjoy your Thanksgiving.
I don’t have a link to it but Ina Garten’s show on the Food Network had a recipe for game hens. Go to foodtv.com and look for her show, I think it’s called the Barefoot Contessa.
I was actually just going to post a thread about this… thanks, honey! 
I usually choose quite a simple method: Wash and pat dry. Gently use your fingers to loosen the skin over the breast meat and down to the drumsticks. Mix whatever herbs you like (I prefer mainly rosemary) into softened butter, and push the herb butter under the skin. Rub a little more butter over the skin, and sprinkle with salt to help it crisp it up while it roasts. I put the pair of them on my roasting rack over a pan to keep them from getting soggy in the drippings.
I like cooking cornish hens this way because my husband and I can each make one using our own preferred seasonings, as opposed to cooking a whole chicken and having to agree on which seasonings to use.
You could do a miniature turducken; you know, that three-bird Cajun thing. Bone out and stuff a robin, and put that inside a boned out Cornish hen. Put that inside a pheasant, boned out except for the legs.
I once drove through Columbia, SC, where a sign told me I was in the Squab Capital of America. They raise and butcher pigeons. I’m not really sure what the difference is between a squab and a Cornish game hen.
Thanks for the suggestions everyone.
So far this is the recipe that she and I are leaning toward. Using the crockpot is enticing as it would allow us to a) be our lazy selves b) do most of the work on Weds night and go back to bed after dumping it all in the crockpot on Thur morning c) concentrate our cullinary efforts on the various side dishes we hope to have.
Another crockpot possibility is this one with cherry sauce.