Simple Grilling Recipe, Cornish Hens

Updated June 3, 2017


If they haven't already done so, many folks break out the grill and start grilling this time of year. I'm not going to give all of the specifics for this recipe, but rather give you the ingredients, which you then can adjust to your own tastes and for the amounts you fix. I've had this recipe for nearly 20 years, but I don't know where I got it, and I likely changed the original anyway, something I'm wont to do.

This is for some good spicy grilled Cornish hens, or chicken. Now, if you don't like spicy, don't stop reading, just adjust the heat level. The best way to grill the Cornish hen or chicken is to cut it in half or butterfly it. Combine the following in a bowl for each hen or chicken:

4 tablespoons thick ketchup
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper or to taste
1 teaspoon diced fresh hot peppers of your choice and to taste (some like milder types, some like in between Serrano peppers, some like to go for it and use habanero peppers)
a sprinkle of chili powder (whatever type you like)
1 small clove of garlic, minced

Mix it all together and use it to cover the bird halves or butterflied bird. Cover and put in the refrigerator, preferably overnight, but for a couple of hours, at least. Take the bird out of the refrigerator about a half hour or so before you grill it. Scrape as much of the coating off of the chicken as you can, but keep the sauce to baste it during grilling. Place the bird skin side up on the grill and don't go mow the lawn, or it's apt to burn. After about 15 minutes turn the bird over to the other side. Eventually you want to get the skin side back up and baste it with the sauce mixture. Heat the remaining sauce to serve on the side. Remember, any sauce you used on the raw bird must be cooked sufficiently to kill any bacteria. I don't want the "salmonella police" grilling you over unsafe food handling practices. Cooking the sauce will also soften the peppers and garlic and give the sauce a better taste.

I used a butterflied Cornish hen

WORD HISTORY:
Hen-This goes back to Indo European "k(h)an," which meant "to sing." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "hanjo," which meant "hen, female bird," but the idea behind the word was "singing bird." This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "henn." By the way, the same source also gave Old English "hana," which meant "male singing bird." While this male form died out in English, it is still alive in close cousin German, which has "Hahn." Old English "henn" then became "henne,'' before the modern version. The other Germanic languages have: German "Henne," Low German Saxon "Henn," Dutch "hen," West Frisian "hin," Danish "høne," Norwegian "høna," Icelandic "haena," and Swedish "höna."