Cornish game hens tonight..crispy skins on mes.

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tpalmen

Newbie
Original poster
Oct 14, 2013
5
11
View media item 262192
Dry rub of paprika, onion pwd, sugar, s/p, cumin.  Rest in fridge for couple hrs.  Put in mes cold then set to 275 with hickory chips and mesquite.  Lots of smoke, added more chips after about one hour.  Basted hens with an orange juice reduction at ~140 degrees.  Cooked to 165 after about 2 hours and here's the result. Skins are actually crispy and the meat was oozing juices, so yummy.
 
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Thanks, this site has a lot of traffic..I posted late and still got looks.
 
They look great. Does your MES run a true 275° or a little hotter?...JJ
 
Those look awesome!! I like the idea of the orange juice reduction. Seems like it would almost give a caramel/honey glaze effect depending on how much it was reduced. Thanks for the idea!!
 
Very nice! I've been toying with tossing some game hens into my MES. The crispy skins don't surprise me at all. The very first thing I smoked was a chicken and it came out beautiful with a crispy skin, that is until I tented it in foil to rest. The condensation turned the skin to rubber.
 
Those looks amazin! Do not believe I ever saw game hens that big! Oooooo.... is that your smoking notebook there too? 
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I haven't checked the actual temp vs digital reading, on my to do list for next smoke.  The hens were under 2 lbs, the picture just made em look bigger.  What I did for the reduction was 1 shallot as small as I could dice it sauted in butter until soft.  I added 1 cup chicken stock and juice from 3 oranges (just under a cup).  Reduced until slightly syrupy.  Off heat.  Added 2 T apple cider vinegar and splash of tabasco.  Good stuff.
 
 
Please pardon my ignorance, but WTF is an MES?
LOL - this literally made me laugh. And no, I'm not laughing at you, it's just that not too much swearing goes on in this forum so the "WTF" kinda caught me off guard. Thanks for the chuckle Desert.

Yeah this forum has lots o' acronyms (SPOG) and initialisms (ECB, WSM, etc..) It took me about 4 months to finally say AMZNPS correctly every time!

This should help you out. http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/a/acronyms

Lastly, thanks TPalmen for the reduction recipe. Sounds and looks SO GOOD!
 
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