Thursday, June 30, 2011

Cornish Game Hens for Dinner!!! Oh Yeah!!!


I know you probably are saying to yourself that a lot of my post titles are associated with "dinner". Guilty as charged. I love to BBQ and Grill every chance I can, so in order to give my wife a break, I do as much cooking as I possibly can. And when I cook, it is usually outside on the BBQ pit.

On this occasion, I decided to smoke up some Cornish game hens. It had been a while and I love these little buggers because they are so juicy and tasteful.

Cutting through the chase, here is what I did....

All rubbed down using a salt, black pepper and garlic powder blend. And I don't tie my birds. I like their wings flopping around. Looks kinda cute like a floppy-eared puppy.

Got the lump charcoal burning down in the chimney starter.

Set up for indirect smoking. As you can see most of the charcoal and wood chucks are on the left side. I place the hens on the right side of the grill.

Temperature gauge on the lid reads 270. That's close enough for me.

I always place a turkey fryer gauge at the grill level due to the difference in temperature between the grill height and the grill lid. Here the temp reads 310 which is a 40 degree difference. That makes a big difference in cooking time and will affect the final outcome if you are not careful.

Hens after about 50 minutes. You can see the turkey fryer gauge probe on the upper portion by the game hens neck.

Turned the hens to the backside to brown up the bottom.


And here is the final outcome after about 1 hour and 50 minutes grill time. They were cooked just right. Nice and juicy. Game hens are quick to cook internally so be ever vigilant.

It was another good night on Guam.

Until next time....

4 comments:

cowgirl said...

They look sooo tasty Rueben!! Great looking birds!! :)

Rueben said...

Thanks Cowgirl. You know how game hens are. Very juicy and tasty. Even I would have a hard time ruining one of these. Thanks for stopping by.

Perry P. Perkins said...

I don't smoke these critters nearly as often as I should...but I'm gonna now!

What was your wood of choice, here?

Man, those look awesome!

-Perry

Perry P. Perkins
Author
“La Caja China Cooking”
“La Caja China World”

Rueben said...

I'm with you. I don't smoke these birds enough also. They are excellent for smoking though.

My wood of choice for these Cornish is Maple wood. But when I can't find maple, I will use hickory or apple wood.

I prefer a mellow wood smoke for these birds so I make the needed adjustments depending on the wood that is available.

Looking forward to your post on smoking these birds Perry.