cantdog
Waybac machine
- Joined
- Apr 24, 2004
- Posts
- 10,791
I made Cornish hens marinated in cream today.
You split the birds down the back, along the edge of the backbone. Using a very sharp knife remove the ribs, backbone, clavicles, pelvic bone, breastbone and cartilage, and so on. The wings and legs will still have bones in, but nothing else, when you're done. The resulting bird lies flat, like an equal-area projection of the earth's surface lies flat. You marinate for an hour or two in light cream.
Mix a cup of flour with the following:
a teaspoon of salt
half a teaspoon of fresh ground pepper
nutmeg
a half teaspoon of ground cloves
2 teaspoons of fresh thyme leaves, which is a pain in the ass to strip from the twigs
eight crushed and minced juniper berries
This is what you dredge the birds in, shaking off the excess.
Then melt a lot of butter and fry them shallow in butter to a good brown, then flip and fry them on the other side. Go with a low heat, the way you do for schnitzel. Low heat and longish cooking time will cook them all the way through and give you a good golden brown instead of a burnt coating.
Serve them on toast slices which have been spread with red currant jelly, and drizzle the whole thing with a cream sauce (béchamel) to which some Madeira has been added, during cooking.
The goddam things are yummy.
ETA: the flour mix, as written here, will coat four birds. Adjust as needed. One slice of toast with currant jelly per half bird.
You split the birds down the back, along the edge of the backbone. Using a very sharp knife remove the ribs, backbone, clavicles, pelvic bone, breastbone and cartilage, and so on. The wings and legs will still have bones in, but nothing else, when you're done. The resulting bird lies flat, like an equal-area projection of the earth's surface lies flat. You marinate for an hour or two in light cream.
Mix a cup of flour with the following:
a teaspoon of salt
half a teaspoon of fresh ground pepper
nutmeg
a half teaspoon of ground cloves
2 teaspoons of fresh thyme leaves, which is a pain in the ass to strip from the twigs
eight crushed and minced juniper berries
This is what you dredge the birds in, shaking off the excess.
Then melt a lot of butter and fry them shallow in butter to a good brown, then flip and fry them on the other side. Go with a low heat, the way you do for schnitzel. Low heat and longish cooking time will cook them all the way through and give you a good golden brown instead of a burnt coating.
Serve them on toast slices which have been spread with red currant jelly, and drizzle the whole thing with a cream sauce (béchamel) to which some Madeira has been added, during cooking.
The goddam things are yummy.
ETA: the flour mix, as written here, will coat four birds. Adjust as needed. One slice of toast with currant jelly per half bird.
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