Orange Roasted Cornish Game Hen

nnerThis is our traditional Valentine's Day main entree. I've been making it for my husband for eight years now. Nine maybe? Something like that. He's in charge of being romantic and remembering dates, I do the finances.

This recipe makes enough for two people, sort of. If you eat light or have several side dishes this works for two. We have a family of five and I tend to make one game hen per person. There are leftovers this way, but the meat becomes a quick salad topper the next day.

My family loves this so much that I've added it to our regular night line up. A little prep in the morning and this could be an easy meal to toss together on a busy week night. As an added bonus, spring planting means I'll soon have my own fresh herbs to season this dish with.


Orange Roasted Cornish Game Hen
2 tablespoons chopped mixed fresh herbs (such as thyme, parsley, and mint)
2 tablespoons minced shallots -or - green onions
2 teaspoons grated orange peel
1 large Cornish game hen, halved lengthwise (about 1 1/2 pounds)
1 1/2 tablespoons butter, room temperature
1/2 cup low-salt chicken broth
1/4 cup orange juice
2 tablespoons sparkling apple cider -or- apple juice
2 thin orange slices

Preheat oven to 450°F. Mix first 3 ingredients in small bowl.

Add 1 tablespoon of softened butter to the herbs. Cream together.

Slide fingertips under skin of hen halves to loosen. Spread 1/4 of herb mixture under skin of each hen half. Rub skin with butter; sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Place hen halves in shallow roasting pan. Roast hen halves until golden and cooked through, adding broth after 10 minutes and basting twice throughout cooking time, about 30 minutes. Don't baste at the end if you want crispy skin.

Transfer hen halves to platter.

Pour pan juices into a sauce pot and put on burner over medium heat. Add juice, sparkling cider, and remaining herbs; boil until reduced, scraping up browned bits, about 2 minutes.

Season with salt and pepper. Spoon sauce over hen halves, garnish with orange slices, and serve.

Makes 2 servings.

The rest of our meal included Chilled Strawberry Soup, Orange Cream Filled Acorn Squash and Mashed Potatoes. The recipes will be up soon!


(adapted from Bon Appétit April 2003 recipe)

Potato & Cheese Soup - ish

So, yesterday on twitter, Sparky mentioned the wonders of Potato and Cheese soup. Being a massive fan of cheese-in-soup (actually, cheese in anything, but for now we'll stick to soup), my ears pricked up.

Lo, I said unto myself. It is unseasonably cold, and therefore miserable. What better way to banish misery and warm one's insides than with a lovely pot of hot, cheesy soup?

Alack, dear Sparky had not a recipe - so I turned to that trusty demon, Google. My favourites were the easy version and the complex version.

However, as you're all aware, I'm also in the middle of moving - and I had some corn that was begging to be used up. And I quite like corn and potato and cheese soup........

And thus it began.

The resulting recipe is some sort of weird cross between the easy version above, and the corn chowder, also linked to above.

The Recipe

2 white or brown onions
1 very heaped teaspoon of crushed garlic
2t cumin
olive oil for frying
3c chicken stock
3 largish potatoes, cubed to about 1cm3
400g can of creamed corn
420g can of corn kernels (which, I was disgusted to discover, is only actually 61% corn)
2c milk
salt (preferably of the sage, lavendar and rosemary variety)
~7 sage leaves
sprinkle of rosemary
2c grated cheese (cheddar or tasty)
sour cream and chives for garnishing

In a large pan over a high heat, saute the onions, garlic and cumin. Don't let the onions brown. Add the stock, and bring to the boil. Add the potatoes, and simmer for 10 minutes. Add the corn (both varieties, and I threw in the liquid from the corn kernels too) and simmer again for 10 minutes. Add the milk and seasonings (be generous with the salt, esp if you don't have the delicious sage/lavendar/rosemary variety), allow to simmer. Don't boil the milk too vigorously. Remove from heat, stir through cheese until melted, and serve garnished with a dollop of sour cream and some chives.

Makes 5 generous servings.

The Results

Taaa-sty. Exactly what I felt like, for which I was glad. Those of you that have tried it will recall that the corn chowder soup is somewhat Asian-styled - clear broth, corn, etc. This soup is like the non-Asian version. The milk and different proportions makes it creamier and less broth-like, and (strangely) altogether more like what I would consider a chowder to be... Most odd.

My only complaint was the type of potatoes I used; no idea what they were, but they held their form well throughout cooking, which is excellent for baking, but not so good for a soup where you want them to starchify the soup, making it even thicker, and releasing the potato flavour into the whole soup, rather than greedily confining it to the potato chunks.

Still. Definitely something I'll make again :)

Returning with Risotto...

So, yes, it's been - lots - of months since I've been here. I've been doing my masters degree this year, and it's all been rather insane.

However, I finished yesterday (woo hoo!!), so I am back! :D

To celebrate, I actually felt like cooking for the first time in ages last night, and despite the warmth of the days recently, the nights have been lovely and cool - so risotto it was :) This meal was especially exciting because it gave me an opportunity to use fresh herbs from my very own herb garden for the first time! Hoorah!

The Recipe
1 large sweet potato
1/4 of a butternut pumpkin
olive oil
salt
1 small onion
1t of crushed garlic
~7 medium mushrooms
1c arborio rice
3 stock cubes dissolved in 4c water
~1.5T sweet chilli sauce
3 smallish sprigs of fresh greek oregano
3 twigs of garden thyme
1/3c grated parmesan cheese

...My mouth is watering just typing out the ingredients! Hoorah that I have left overs for lunch :)

Roughly dice the pumpkin and sweet potato. You can make the cubes whatever size, but bear in mind that a) smaller cooks faster and b) they will shrink quite a bit upon baking. Mine were ~2cm cubed. Microwave on high or steam for 5 minutes. Spread onto olive-oiled tray, sprinkle liberally with salt, and place into a hot oven (200C).

Place stock in a covered saucepan and keep on a low heat constantly, to keep the liquid warm (it will cook quicker/easier when added to the rice if it doesn't have to heat up first).

Finely chop the onion. Fry in oil with the garlic until translucent. Slice mushrooms, saute with onion until cooked. Add the rice and 2 ladlefuls of stock. Stir well.

Add sweet chilli sauce.

Add a ladleful of stock periodically, whenever the mixture starts to look a little dry - if you can scrape the rice away and see the bottom of the pot for more than a second, it's ready for more liquid.

Once all the liquid is absorbed, add the (finely chopped) herbs and stir through. Remove from heat if it's starting to dry out. Stir through the baked pumpkin and sweet potato, then stir through the cheese.

Serve hot :)

The Results
Okay, so risotto is a fairly standard meal in our house over winter. That said, we didn't have much this year, as I've been pretty slack when it comes to cooking. But regardless, I've made squillions of varieties of this recipe: and this, officially, is the best. My husband, who is not free with compliments, said he'd gladly pay $40 in a restaurant for this risotto :)

I attribute the great success to two things:

Firstly, instead of taking the quicker cop-out method of just grilling (broiling) the vegies, I actually baked them with salt and olive oil and all. Much, much tastier.

Secondly, the difference that fresh, home-grown herbs make is absolutely INSANE. And Greek oregano is my new favourite: besides the amazing salty-savoury complex flavour it adds to the dish, it's purple and fuzzy! What's not to love?!

Hehe.

As I was making this, I lamented that I didn't have any feta cheese to add, being the feta-addict that I am; but it turns out that it really didn't need it. The flavours were beautifully subtle and complex, and husband was absolutely determined that I must have used more herbs than I had (I'm usually prone to throwing in at least 5 or 6).

So, an all-round fabulous success, and definitely one I'll make again, instead of my usual 'what do I have in the cupboard' approach :)