I have been meaning to make a dish with cornish hens again for quite some time. Back in college, I used to buy and cook with them often because they were just a mini chicken, and more times than not, I was cooking for one, so cooking an entire hen for myself made more sense than a whole chicken. When it comes to cooking game hen, I like to get a nice sear on the exterior before finishing them in the oven, just so that the skin can get golden brown, just like how I love in a rotisserie chicken. Very few things beat crispy chicken(or game hen in this case) skin. Unless you’re vegan. In which case, I’m sorry, I’m sure there are alternatives like crispy tofu skin. How I get a good sear on the hen itself is by butterflying them – removing the spine of the bird allows it to all lay flat on the skin side, so I can get more skin to searing hot pan contact. That and less bones means less cooking time. I am still roasting the spine, separately from the hen, just because I am using that spine to make the jus, along with the delicious pan juices, just to make a quick pan sauce out of the delicious browning and fond we developed on the bottom of the pan. Now, I’m sure someone might be judging me for the lack of components on this recipe(we literally just have game hen and a sauce, not even a veg or starch), but I actually served this with an entirely different dish, so I just did not want to make too much food across the two. If you want this to be a well-rounded dish, I recommend serving this recipe with either a pomme puree or even with some buttery garlic rice, or even just with some kale/green leafy vegetable that you can just sweat out with the sauce. This is a fairly blank slate recipe, but the hen itself was quite tasty and everything you could want in a roast chicken-type of thing.

Makes 1 serving:
For the game hen:
1 cornish hen
3 tbsp chicken schmaltz, in two parts
salt
pepper
2 sprigs of thyme
2 cloves of garlic
1 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice

Using kitchen sheers, start by cutting out the spine of the hen – this will help it sear evenly and cook quicker. Coat the exterior of the hen in one part of the schmaltz and season generously with the salt and pepper. Heat up a cast iron pan on medium-high heat, and place in the hen, skin side down. Press the hen for 3-4 minutes, just to allow the skin to crisp, then allow the hen to continue cooking(without pressing down on it), skin side down for another 5 minutes. Add in the schmaltz, hen spine, thyme, and garlic, allowing the schmaltz to melt on low heat. Baste the hen in the rendered fat, 20 times in total. Then flip the hen, and baste for another 20 times. Transfer the hen to a roasting sheet and bake at 400 degrees F for another 20 to 25 minutes. The interior of the hen should register 155 degrees F. Right after roasting, squeeze fresh lemon juice over the hen to finish.

For the black garlic jus:
reserved hen spine
reserved cast iron
2 cloves black garlic
1 tbsp cooking sake
1/2 cup chicken stock

With the cast iron, with the cooked hen spine, roasted garlic, and thyme, add in the black garlic, cooking sake, and chicken stock. Stir everything together on low heat, scraping the bottom of the pan, just to get the fond dissolved into the stock. Reduce everything down by 2/3 into a thickened, glossy sauce. Pass everything through a sieve to remove any solids.