Cornish Game Hens

[wh42]

After seeing Al's post about game hens I got to really craving some since its been years since the last time I had some. Decided to smoke a couple off for my two daughters and myself, stuffed with stuffing and apples. I didn't get a lot of pictures because they were helping, they're 6 and 4 so I have to help along the way. Anyway, on to the pictures and such!

First, I brined them for 5 hours in Pops brine with the addition of garlic, pepper, and thyme:

Proceeded to rinse them, pat them dry and let them rest in the refrigerator for a couple hours before stuffing them and seasoning them with a mixture of Montreal Chicken Seasoning and an Applewood seasoning. Got the smoker heated up to 275 with some chunks of applewood, smoked them for 2 hours before dropping the temperature to 225 for the last 45 minutes. The result:

Two very juicy and flavorful hens.

The girls also helped me make some Italian Herb and Cheese dinner rolls, which they absolutely devoured at dinner:

My oldest is still talking about how great this dinner was and how much she loves my cooking. I was very pleased with how these turned out as I haven't done whole chickens or anything and I wanted to make sure to get a test run done before Thanksgiving comes and I smoke off the Turkey for it.

 

[yankee2bbq]

Congratulations on being an awesome dad! The Cornish hens look great! Good job! Keeep on smoking!

 

[wh42]

My girls are my world for sure! I'm involved in every aspect of their lives, vice president of the Board of Directors for their school, president of the PTO, I do activities in their classes to get all the kids into cooking and baking, it's a blast.

I've been working on upping my smoking game as well, thinking on building an offset smoker since I do have welding experience. If there's food involved, I'm all for it, being a chef with 18 years experience and all hah.