Timing is everything, or so the saying goes. In the case of this particular dinner, I would say a double oven is everything. Aaron and I would have eaten much earlier had I two ovens instead of one. And if I had shopped for all the dinner food before the evening of - that would have helped too. However, let it be known this is the best dinner I have ever made and eaten after 10 pm.
On a previous grocery trip, Aaron and I were buying some chicken breasts. From a few chicken rows down, Aaron spied them. Two little Cornish hens waiting to be cooked. Aaron, having never had Cornish hen and hot off our Thanksgiving chicken victory, asked if we could buy them for a future meal. That future meal turned out to be our Christmas/Aaron's birthday gift exchange. One of us found this recipe for Roasted Cornish Game Hen with Panzanaella Dressing and Sauteed Broccolini and thought that was a decent celebratory meal. After a lot of bread cutting, herb chopping, single oven ballet and recooked chicken due to medium rareness (good in steak, not in chicken), here is what we ended up with some time after 10 pm...
It was just as good as it looks in the picture, maybe even better. The dressing was my least favorite, in part because I do not own a bowl large enough to toss the bread, tomatoes and herbs without flinging them across the kitchen. So, some bread had no seasoning, other pieces where heavy laden with rosemary. It was a powerful taste that I feel could have been dialed back a few notches, but something I would be willing to try again in a smaller batch.
The chicken, after being cooked through, was quite tasty and succulent. My garlic paste did not pan out as intended due to some tough cloves that refused to be transformed into paste form, so that could use some tweaking next go round. There was just enough rosemary in the chickens' cavities to lend a nice aromatic note to the meat without overpowering it. Definitely something to revisit and play with in the future.
And the broccolini. I had forgotten how tasty sauteed broccoli was and now I think I may have to make a batch a week for munching. The finely sliced garlic sends the broccolini over the edge into "eat me daily" deliciousness.
3 comments:
It looks beautiful! I think cornish hens taste a little gamey (hence the name) so I don't love them, but I think they look so elegant. Maybe you need to consider getting a mini food processor to make your garlic paste! I really like broccolini too!
And to think that we wouldn't have even gotten the broccolini if I hadn't spotted it and said, "Hey, why not do this?" :-P
And to think that we weren't planning on getting the broccolini until I spotted it in the store and said, "Hey, we can get this too!"
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