First New Recipe

Tonight, Alyssa and Deb came over for dinner in remembrance of summer dinners back in the carefree days before classes. I decided that this was a great occasion to try out a new recipe. My first endeavor was Savory Roasted Cornish Hens (ok, Chicken, whatever) with Roasted Garlic from The Healthy Kitchen by Andrew Weil and Rosie Daley. I first came across this cookbook at the Ross's vacation house in Galveston where I poured over the book, realizing that some day, it must be mine. Happily, I found it in a used book store in Washington, DC one day for $4. Can't go wrong there!

How did it turn out? Well, in Deb's words, "There's no way this can be healthy." It is such a filling meal with such complexity of flavors that you can't even begin to imagine that it's good for you. I'll put the recipe as is below, but here's what I would change: double the veggies. I made the full amount called for, and I felt like it only had 4 servings in the end, rather than 8. I only made one roast chicken, though, to be fair, it was of a medium size rather than a small size. It probably would have fed 6. As it is, I'll have a nice lunch tomorrow and have some left over chicken for soup, enchiladas, whatever delicious thing I might want to make with some shredded chicken... mmmmmmm..... The roasted garlic was probably the right proportion- we probably ate a head each with bread (sorry, Dan), so no need to up those proportions. We also had some delicious wine, some grand semolina bread, and a great salad with everything but the kitchen sink (and not as much lettuce- sweet! best kind of salad!), and some Ghirardelli cupcakes, which were also quite good. Thanks so much to Alyssa and Deb for coming over and being my guinea pigs! I know I'm supposed to check out all of these cookbooks but, with recipes like this one, I definitely want experiment more with this book!

I wanted to take pictures of everything and post them, but we were ravenous, and I only thought of the camera later, so... here's picture of some devoured roasted garlic to stare at while you're reading this delicious recipe.

Savory Roasted Cornish Hens with Roasted Garlic

from The Healthy Kitchen (serves 8)

4 Cornish hens or 2 free-range chickens

1/2 c. freshly squeezed lemon juice

4 tsp. lemon pepper

Salt

4 c. quartered plum tomatoes or whole cherry tomatoes (about 2 pints)

8 large shallots

4 large cloves garlic

2 c. chopped fennel

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 c. lightly packed chopped fresh basil

1 c. red wine

4 bay leaves

4 lemon slices

4 sprigs fresh rosemary

Roasted Garlic: 8 whole garlic bulbs, 1 tsp. olive oil, 3 Tbsp. water

Rinse the Cornish hens thoroughly, letting the water gush inside each cavity and drain back out. Rub the lemon juice, lemon pepper, and a little salt over the birds and let marinate for 1 hour or overnight. Put the tomatoes, shallots, garlic, fennel, a pinch of salt, and red wine together in a medium bowl and stir until everything is thoroughly mixed.

Preheat oven to 375F.

Place 1 bay leaf, 1 lemon slice, 1 rosemary sprig, and equal portions of the tossed tomato filling inside each hen. Each cavity should be full. (As mine was a little bigger than called for, I didn't fill them, and just followed the rest of the directions) Spoon the remaining filling over the bottom of a roasting pan. Set the birds on top, spacing them evenly apart. Spoon the lemon marinating juice over them, then sprinkle a little salt over them. Roast for 1 1/4 hour (For chicken, roast 1 1/2 hours.) The skins will be golden brown, and the juices will run clear when they are done.

Meanwhile, prepare the roasted garlic: cut 1/2 inch off the top of each garlic bub so that the cloves can be easily squeezed out after roasting. Put the olive oil and water in the bottom of a 9-inch baking pan. Arrange the garlic bulbs in the pan, cut side on top. Cover the pan with a lid or foil. (Oops- I forgot to do that) After the hens have been roasting for 30 minutes, place the garlic dish in the same oven and bake for 45 minutes.

Remove the hens from the oven to a platter or board and let them rest at room temperature for 15 minutes. (yeah, didn't do that either. Like I said before, ravenous) When the hens are cool, scoop the filling out from each hen and put it into the roasting pan with the remaining filling. Remove all the bay leaves and discard. Set the pan over low heat and simmer stirring and scraping up the browned bits, for 3-4 minutes. (wow, this sounds great too. What happened in our case was, it came out of the oven, and we attacked.)

Blah blah blah- plate it nicely and make everything look pretty. Or just devour. Serve with crusty bread for the roasted garlic. (this last paragraph is the Karen edit of the end of the recipe)

Anyway, that was my evening. I'm still working on those last two resolutions. One is definitely going to involve craftiness of some sort- I'll update you as I figure out the exact plan.

Have a lovely night my friends!