I have a few 1-1/2 lb. Cornish game hens I’m thinking of putting in the deep fryer. I’ve looked online and eventually found instructions for doing this (though most concern putting them in a vat of boiling oil on the stove, which is not what I want). Has anyone done this? Would they be good with Shake n’ Bake on them? Should I fry them whole or maybe cut them in half? Just want to know if anyone’s cooked them this way.
Those birds are so tiny that I would fry them whole, with whatever coating you usually use on chicken. However, I haven’t tried this.
1 1/2 lb. Cornish Game Hens are quite large. Traditionally fried chicken was made from birds that size or smaller. Modern super-chickens are much larger, and difficult to fry properly without overcooking. Cut them into pieces, or just in half, use a traditional double coating. First soak in liquid, milk or water f’rinstance, then coat with flour. Let stand for a while to let the coating set, then dip in an egg/milk mixture and coat with seasoned bread crumbs. Fry until just done. Eat until only the bones are left, then find some more small chickens. Repeat.
The chickies I bought were, indeed, bigger than I thought they would be. I ended up baking them in the oven about half an hour, cutting in half, dipping each half in a chicken wing sauce, and my husband insisted on coating them with Shake n’ Bake. We put them 2 halves at a time in the deep fryer till they, well, looked done. And then did up a batch of shoestring potatoes. They came out pretty tasty! If I do it again, I’m going to try another sauce. (My favorite way to eat cornish hens is baked with rosemary and garlic, so I saved the biggest one in the bunch for another time).