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Stuffed Cornish Game Hens

Cornish game hens stuffed with rice, mushrooms, and a savory broth.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 507 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

The recipe

Oven375 degrees

Ingredients

Contains: milk (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Prepare the hens

  1. Remove giblets and necks from hens. Rinse hens in cold running water; pat dry.

  2. Rub outside of hens with 2 tablespoons melted butter. Sprinkle lightly inside and out with salt and pepper. Cover loosely and refrigerate.

Make the broth and rice stuffing

  1. Combine giblets, necks, celery, onion quarters, bay leaf, sage, rosemary, marjoram, salt and pepper in saucepan. Cook until tender, about 1 hour.

  2. Strain broth; chop giblets and necks (skin removed); set aside.

  3. In a 2- to 3-quart saucepan, cook onion and mushrooms in remaining 2 tablespoons butter until onion is soft but not brown.

  4. Add rice, reserved giblets, and 2 cups of broth. Bring to a boil; stir once or twice. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer 15 minutes or until rice is tender and liquid is absorbed. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Stuff and roast

  1. Lightly stuff hens with rice mixture. Pull neck skin to back of each hen. Twist wing tips under back, holding skin in place. Tie legs to tail.

  2. Place hens, breast side up, on rack in shallow baking pan. Cover loosely with foil and roast at 375 degrees.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

This recipe comes from the Recipes Wiki on Fandom and is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Our formatting and summaries are shared under the same licence.

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Sage + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together507 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Sage + rosemarytop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together465 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1,8-cineol (eucalyptus, camphor).

  3. Rosemary + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together178 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Pepper + sagetop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Pepper + marjoramtop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Rock cornish hens
Provide the main meat, which cooks through under foil as the stuffing heats.
Rice
Absorbs the broth and forms a moist, tender stuffing inside each hen.
Butter or margarine
Adds richness and helps the outside of the hens brown and stay moist.
Mushrooms
Add savory, earthy flavor and moisture to the rice stuffing.
Honey
Adds sweetness and helps the skin brown as it roasts.
Dijon mustard
Adds sharpness that balances the sweetness of the honey.

The step that matters

Stuffing the hens and cooking the rice. Stuffing must be loose and cooked through; packed stuffing can stay cold at the center while the bird overcooks. Rice should be fully tender and the liquid absorbed before it goes into the hens.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pepper, celery, sage, rosemary, marjoram, mushroom):

  1. Carrotbetter flavor fit
  2. Potatobetter flavor fit
  3. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, celery, sage, rosemary, marjoram, mushroom. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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