8.07.2012

Plum Crazy Cornish Game Hens


If you can believe it, we haven't yet told you about all of our New Orleans food adventures. But we'll come back to it. Now that we are home, we've been cooking again and the idea for this recipe was a bunch of beautiful red plums Chris brought home from the market. He had gone out to get produce and when he got home, he laid it all out on the table. It was a hodge-podge of fruits and vegetables, and for some reason, I honed right in on the plums and the red peppers. Weird mix, eh? That's why we're calling this recipe "Plum Crazy Cornish Game Hens."








It was definitely an experiment, roasting the plums, peppers, and some onions right in with the hens in a cast iron pan. We prefer to cook with red bell peppers over green; green peppers seem to take over everything else in a dish with their strong flavor. Anyway, the plums and peppers mixed in with the pan juices to create a side dish that was sweet and sour, soft and crunchy, all at the same time. We weren't really sure how these flavors were going to be together, but we loved it with the game hens. Crazy!








Plum Crazy Cornish Game Hens


Ingredients:


2 Cornish game hens
kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 red plums, chopped
1/2 onion, chopped
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 tablespoon honey



Heat a cast iron pan at 450 degrees for 45 minutes. Splay the game hens and season them, inside and out, with salt and pepper. Carefully add them to the heated pan, breast side up. Drizzle the hens with olive oil and cover the pan with foil. Roast for 30 minutes. Toss the chopped plums, pepper, onion and honey in a large bowl. Season with salt and pepper. Add this mixture to the pan with the hens and stir to coat with the pan juices. Roast for 15 minutes uncovered, or until hens are cooked through. If hens are not brown enough, place pan under broiler for 5 minutes. Remove hens from pan and allow them to rest. In the meantime, over medium-high heat, reduce the plum and pepper mixture to desired consistency. Serve alongside roasted hens.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a great fruity kick to roasted chicken!

Tiffany said...

What a great use for plums! :D

Jocie's Mom said...

Brilliant! I love that you went super nuts with the plums and peppers...not sure I'd have gone for that combo on my own but yours looks fabulous :)

Carole said...

Amy, fantastic and exotic! Thanks for helping to get the collection off to a good start. Cheers

angela@spinachtiger said...

Great idea. Sometimes it takes this kind of ingenuity to spice up a plain ole bird.