Cornish Game Hens. Neither Cornish, nor Game Bird

My bird game was never great – but went for it, and finally got it. I’ll show you the way.

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Recipe

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The Prep Table

I’ve done wings, chickens whole, chickens spatchcocked, thighs.. none of which really struck home where I thought, “I have to make this again”.

Stubborn or stupid, I went back at it with Tyson’s “Premium Cornish Hen”. A quick Google search will tell you it’s neither of that, but just a small chicken. Hindsight – two pack, should’ve done it two ways – but I was super excited to finally give that Meat Church “Holy Gospel” a run.

Really wanted to do the smoke this past weekend, knowing I had a busy week coming up, but I couldn’t find a damn thawed out one to save my life. So the frozen pack was purchased and thawed out until mid-week.

Due in part mostly because my past bird smokes weren’t exciting, I went with a simple brown sugar/salt brine. No herbs, no spice — just salt and sugar. For the record, every previous smoke was scarred with that rubbery skin that really takes a 10/10 juicy bird and knocks it back to a 5 instantly.

Dumped a pile of sugar and salt into the pitcher and stirred it up until dissolved. This is where I opted for forgiveness, since I used my vegetarian wife’s tea pitcher for this prep. I rolled the dice, said some prayers to the Gods, and hope she would see past my “mistake”.

Stuffed the two birds into the bath and back into the fridge for about 2 hours. Once the two hours expired, pulled them out and rinsed them down. We went from frozen, to thaw, to bath, to rinse, so I’ll make mention that only cold water is used – didn’t want to add too much temperature changes pre-cook.

While these birds were bathing, I prepped up some pumpkin seeds and smoked em. Couldn’t sit still and was excited to roll smoke.

After the two hours, the birds were rinsed and patted dry, and went back into the fridge. If I didn’t already mention it, the rubbery skin was on the back of my mind throughout, so I thought to dry out the skin by drying them up and letting them rest. (Spoiler: it worked)

During this roughly 3.5-4 hour prep – I burned off the rest of the competition pellets from the last smoke and was happy to load up some Pecan for this one.

I actually do change the wood up from time to time. My main grill is a RecTeq Bull that holds 40 pounds of pellets. I have Competition blend, Char Hickory, Hickory, Apple, Cherry, Pecan, and Mesquite all loaded up and ready to go. It’s a delicate balance to try to empty the hopper without throwing blanks into the auger – but when you supplement the warm-up time with a small smoke – works out great.

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The Process

Bird has been brined and the smoker is still running hot from the pumpkin seed roasting. Knocked it back to 275 and waited for it to get to temp.

I know, the smoke zone does not include 275. Higher temp, crispier skin, right? We’ll see. I’ve done it low and slow, and peeling off the skin to eat the meat – while good – could be better. While I was waiting for it to get to 275, time to season up the bird.

Bold, uncharacteristic move – I layered some mayo on the bird. If you know me, I hate mustard, no matter how many times I’ve been told you won’t taste it on a pork butt. I refuse mustards. But mayo? Figured a little oil and egg wouldn’t hurt the skin and might help it out. I know – again – about the skin.

I transferred them to a grill pan, threw a last dusting on it and let it go for about an hour and half. The tricky part for me, and with a phone-a-friend, decided on the following: Pull it shy of 165, crank the grill to 500, and finish it off. Lets that fat in the skin render, cooks it at a higher heat, and hopefully won’t dry it out. The drying of the meat wasn’t too much of a concern, since I relied on the brine to have done its job.

As described, once the breast and thigh hit 155ish, I pulled it and wrapped it in foil while the pellet smoker got to 500 (~10 minutes). I did lose some temp, but I knew it’d be made up quickly.

After the grill got to 450+, I was eager to throw the birds back on. I dripped a whole lot of juice on the driveway, and the above picture was the result. This was a happy accident, as I was pleased to see so much juice when it neared the end. My favorite picture was after a flip or two on the grill at about 8:30pm at night

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The Result

Stuck the Thermapen into the breast and thigh and they were in excess of 165 and it was time to go. Got them on the cutting board and let it rest for few. The result?

First thing I did was rip the leg off and took a bite. Couldn’t be happier that I bit through the skin, and it tore away when pulled. It didn’t slide off, tough to bite through – none of that. It was exactly what I wanted out of this cook.

The Holy Gospel Meat Church Seasoning was very very similar to my homemade rub, which was a pleasant surprise. Not that mine is super unique, but it’s good to know the flavor blend is highly sought after. The seasoning was great, the skin was great, what about the meat?

The meat was juicy, flavor, and the pecan wood really blended well. I put a small dab of the homemade barbecue sauce on the plate, but I honestly only used it once. I didn’t need anything additional. Thought about the time I made that Alabama White Sauce.. but nothing was really needed. Put this on a plate for someone, let them pick a sauce if they want — I needed nothing. I was so pleased with this smoke after having so many misses.

Sum it up, higher temp smoke, finish it off hot. Dry after the brine, let the skin lose some moisture, and maybe that mayo oil/egg did something after all. Took a lot of thought on this one – but really knocked it out of the park.

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The Recipe