Cornish Game Hen with Rosemary, Lemon & Garlic

Credit where credit is due. This recipe was glommed from "The South Beach Diet" online subscription. I've been trying to eat fairly healthy stuff since the heart thing. The most amazing thing is that you can eat healthy and still have great food. This is a great example.

Serves 2
Ingredients
2 1¼-pound Cornish game hens, giblets removed
Salt and pepper
1/2 lemon, cut into wedges
2 fresh rosemary sprigs, plus additional for garnish
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup reduced-sodium chicken broth
12 garlic cloves, peeled

Instructions
1. Preheat oven to 450°F. Pat hens dry with paper towels. Season cavities with salt and pepper, then stuff with lemon slices and rosemary. Rub the outside skin of hens with oil; season with additional salt and pepper. Set on rack in roasting pan.
2. Roast 30 minutes; reduce oven temperature to 350°F. Pour broth into pan; sprinkle garlic around hens. Continue roasting another 30 to 40 minutes, basting with pan juices every 5 minutes, until hens are golden and a meat thermometer inserted in the fleshy part of the thigh registers 180°F.
3. Transfer hens to serving plates; remove stuffing and discard. Serve with roasted garlic. Garnish with additional rosemary.

O.K. That was the South Beach version. Here's the Survival Cooking version:

The reason it says "giblets removed" is that we (heart people) aren't supposed to eat organs. I say giblets are not the end of the world. Especially when the giblets are the size of pencil erasers, like in Cornish game hens. So let's not be worrying about that. They're great to have with a chicken/turkey/game hen.
I didn't like the idea of throwing away ½ lemon for this, so I'm going way out on a limb, and using an entire lemon cut into wedges. I'm going a little easy on the salt, but that's personal preference. I'm not using fresh rosemary, but dry instead, and I'm skipping the garnish. Who am I trying to impress? This is survival cooking remember?
The garlic I'm using is the garlic shown here. (see the list of stuff to have) This is the handiest garlic to use that I know of. I don't feel the need to have a garlic press, thank you. So I'll be using about 2 tablespoons of this stuff instead of the 12 peeled cloves.
The Chicken Broth is easy. Use this or something like it.


Survival Cooking. bill brower, 01-May-2005

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