Host: Did you know that the cornish game hen was developed back in the late 1950’s. The young chicken is the result of a crossbreeding to various other chickens. They’re mostly white meat, way less than two pounds. Not only do the hens taste great, they’re healthy too. Each hen is loaded with 51 grams of protein and has only 295 calories.

Food and lifestyle expert, Laura McIntosh is bringing it home with the stuffed cornish game hen, with a guest chef from Hawk’s Restaurant.

Laura McIntosh: Well, thanks everyone for joining us back. Michael is up next, he is going to cook a great recipe, cornish game hen. We would like to do a lot with birds, but this is actually cornish game hen.

Michael Fagoni: It is.

Laura McIntosh: Okay. To start this recipe, Michael, what do we do?

Michael Fagoni: Well, we’re going to start by getting up some olive oil.

Laura McIntosh: Okay. Turn out the fire a little bit. We had turned up the heat, we’re cooking.

Michael Fagoni: That’s right.

Laura McIntosh: All right.

Michael Fagoni: Now, we’re going to start by adding some garlic.

Laura McIntosh: And we love garlic. Garlic is flavor.

Michael Fagoni: So I will just get that going real quick and then we’re going to add the rest of our ingredients. Some nice chopped onion.

Laura McIntosh: All right, this actually, this is a stuffed—

Michael Fagoni: Stuffed cornish game hen, yup, we’re making a walnut bread stuff.

Laura McIntosh: Yeah, I like that. Wallnut bread stuffing, okay.

Michael Fagoni: And right now, we’re sweating out the aromatic ingredients.

Laura McIntosh: And sweating it, we don’t want to caramelize it or brown it, we want to sweat it, correct?

Michael Fagoni: That’s right, we want to cook it with no colors.

Laura McIntosh: Cook it with no color, okay.

Michael Fagoni: Okay. Now, we’ll have our celery.

Laura McIntosh: Okay.

Michael Fagoni: Get your little salt and pepper here.

Laura McIntosh: Okay. And do you always add salt as you go, Michael, just for that?

Michael Fagoni: Yeah, we like to season in layers.

Laura McIntosh: Okay.

Michael Fagoni: So this way, everything is nice and even when you’re done.

Laura McIntosh: Okay, great.

Michael Fagoni: Okay, so we’ll let that cook for about five minutes on a nice low heat and then we’re going to add our croutons.

Laura McIntosh: Okay.

Michael Fagoni: And so to that, we’re going to add just a little chicken stuck, which we want to moist in it. We don’t want everything to get saggy but we want to be nice and moist.

Laura McIntosh: Well, it smells delicious so far.

Michael Fagoni: We’re going to let this cook for about five minutes or so.

Laura McIntosh: Okay, that’s our stuffing, correct?

Michael Fagoni: That’s right.

Laura McIntosh: Okay,

Michael Fagoni: So we’ll come over to our bird. And let me just put a glove on real quick.

Laura McIntosh: Oh, yes. You really do need to be careful in the kitchen, wear your gloves. Or if you are doing this at home, then wash you guys. Make sure you wash those hands. Tell me when.

Michael Fagoni: That looks good. We just want to make sure that we got a nice crispy skin, put a little bit of oil on it.

Laura McIntosh: A little pepper?

Michael Fagoni: Yeah, just sprinkle a little bit of pepper.

Laura McIntosh: I like lots of pepper, I probably assume but—

Michael Fagoni: Very good. A little bit of salt.

Laura McIntosh: Well, you get to do the others.

Michael Fagoni: All righty, if you want to just put that.

Laura McIntosh: Yeah, you get the stuff.

Michael Fagoni: I don’t see a problem with that.

Laura McIntosh: Okay, good. So we stuff that and then we put in the oven. We’re putting this in the oven for?

Michael Fagoni: About 35 minutes. We’ll start it at 400 degrees and then well bring it down to about 325.

Laura McIntosh: All right, and we have one ready to go.

Michael Fagoni: We do.

Laura McIntosh: Let’s take it out, let’s show them.

Michael Fagoni: Okay, here we go.

Laura McIntosh: Look that. That’s gorgeous.

Michael Fagoni: Here you go.

Laura McIntosh: Yeah, that’s what we want, absolutely beautiful. You’re going to cut this for me because I want to see.

Michael Fagoni: You bet.

Laura McIntosh: Because at the end of the day, I want to see what it looks like inside.

Michael Fagoni: Okay. So we’ll just separate the legs. We want to just cut into the thigh on both sides and then we like to separate the thigh joint. So now, it’s nice and stable. Say, if you just go down the breast bone, so I would slice this, you get a nice breast.

Laura McIntosh: That’s so juicy.

Michael Fagoni: And then I will just take one of these legs off for you.

Laura McIntosh: Okay.

Michael Fagoni: Okay. So here is half of your game hen. This is enough for one nice order.

Laura McIntosh: All right.

Michael Fagoni: And we’ll just scoop out a little bit of the stuffing.

Laura McIntosh: Look at that.

Michael Fagoni: It’s really rich with the juices from the game hen.

Laura McIntosh: Now, in this stuffing, you brought it out, there is a few herbs in here.

Michael Fagoni: Yeah, we like to put a little sage and parsley in as well.

Laura McIntosh: Okay, and that’s also done on the stove top.

Michael Fagoni: That’s right. Right at the end, right before you stuff the bird, you want to put the herbs.

Laura McIntosh: An easy dish for you to do for tonight. Thank you, Michael, it is terrific.

Michael Fagoni: Thanks.

Laura McIntosh: Fun and easy to do.

Michael Fagoni: Yup.

Laura McIntosh: And nice and fresh.