Beer Brined Cornish Hens with a White Sauce Glaze and Bacon Cornbread Stuffing

Stuffing is one of those coking topics that can be very personal.  Most people remember how Mom made their stuffing at the holidays and there can be no better.  Period, end of story.  The debate rages on in our house.  My stuffing, which is a hybrid of my Mother's recipe and Hope's stuffing, 100% her mothers method.  Where is this leading?  Well, I picked up a few cornish hens last weekend and wanted to experiment with the stuffing.  Hope wanted none of that.  She wanted her Mother's stuffing, end of story.  The good thing about cornish hens is that there are two birds, so everyone can be happy.  Once that was decided, I happily set to experimenting in the kitchen.  These hens would take a long, lazy spa treatment via a six hour beer brine.  Then, with some leftover homemade cornbread, I prepared some stuffing.  Once the birds were seasoned and in the smoker, I finished mine with a Alabama White Sauce glaze.  Off to the kitchen we go.

For the brine, I used my standard recipe, with a twist.  For the liquid, I removed 48 oz of water and substituted four bottles of beer.  You could use any type of suds.  I used Yeungling lager.  After preparing the brine and allowing it to chill overnight, the hens hung out at the spa for about six hours.

Next, I whipped up a batch of Alabama White BBQ sauce from myrecipes.com.  My only changes to this recipe are:

1.  Add a pinch of cayenne pepper.
2.  Remove the sugar and substitute half of the water with apple juice for the sweet component.

For the stuffing, I decided on a bacon, mushroom, cornbread concoction.

1 day old wedge of cornbread, crumbled
1/2 rib of celery, diced
2 tbsp of sweet onion, diced
2 strips of bacon, diced
1/4 cup of mushroom, diced
1 clove of garlic, minced
1/4-1/2 tsp sage, depending upon your taste
Salt and pepper to taste

I started to brown the bacon, then added the celery, onion, garlic, and mushroom to sauté.  Once the mushroom had started to caramelize, I removed from the stove, placed in the bowl with my crumbled cornbread, added my sage, salt, and pepper, and mixed well.

Once the six hour spa treatment was over for the hens, I rinsed them well with cold water and patted them dry.  I then stuffed mine with the cornbread stuffing mixture, massaged the outside with some olive oil, and seasoned with some Dizzy Pig Raging River rub.

The hens went into a smoker that was rolling along at 350 F with a mix of apple, pecan, and hickory wood in the ash pan.  After one hour, I applied the Alabama White Sauce to my bird twice to make a nice even glaze. After thirty more minutes, the hens were at 165 F internal temperature.  Ready to remove from the smoker and eat.

Overall, I like how this hen turned out.  The sauce mixed well with the rub.  The meat was tender and juicy.  I was surprised at how much flavor the beer added to my standard brine.  It wasn't over powering, but it was detectable.  I just may have to try a variation on this recipe in the future.

Hope, on the other hand, liked her plain stuffing and unsauced bird...

Thanks for stopping by,

Bill

Something Simple: Toasted Cumin Cornbread

Sometimes in your travels you come along culinary hacks that are so simple, yet add so much to the final product.  This was the case this past year while traveling in India for business.  When you visit customers in India, it is customary to sit down, have some refreshment and talk about the weather (yes, it is very hot and dusty here.  Have you ever seen snow?), family (yes, a wife, two stepchildren, and three dogs), and politics when they find out you are from the United States (yes, our federal government does act like petulant children and I am 110% sure I would be fired if I acted like that in the workplace).  Anyway, because India was once colonized by England, there is a large English influence in some aspects of life.  One of those influences comes in the Indian choice of snacks.  Snacks generally consist of a tin containing assorted butter cookies, potato chips, crackers, and tea.  During this one visit, a place of crackers that looked like Ritz crackers appeared.  Upon closer inspection, I saw some seeds baked into the cracker.  I was intrigued, so I grabbed one and nibbled.  My American geared brain was thinking caraway.  I was so wrong.

My Chinese colleague tried one of these crackers at about the same time.  We both looked at each other and said "cumin?" at the same time.  Cumin is prevalent in Indian cuisine.  I should not have been surprised.  But, this simple ingredient took a run of the mill cracker and turned it into something that I had to battle my colleague for the rest of the plate.  Is there a big box grocery store in Chandigarh on the way to the airport that I can stop and get a box?

Since this visit was around day three or four in India, I was in full Food Fantasy mode, centering mostly around BBQ and pizza.  Getting around India is truly Planes, Trains, and Automobiles.  You fly to a general area and drive no less than two hours to your destination.  So, on the three hour drive back to the airport, I was thinking of ways to introduce toasted cumin into something crispy and savory.  Cornbread came to mind and just last weekend I put my idea to the test.

I kept this dish simple. Simple can be better sometimes.  I thought about introducing caramelized onions and jalapeño peppers.  But, I decided against this and went with my standard cornbread recipe, toasted cumin included.

My recipe is my mothers recipe with some minor tweaks.  It is a standard Southern buttermilk cornbread that is savory, not sweet.  There is more cornmeal than flour.  Recipes that have equal or more flour than cornmeal in the recipe just turn into corn cake in my opinion.  One final note, fresh buttermilk gives you a fluffier final product.  Using old buttermilk produces a denser, flatter final product.

Homemade Toasted Cumin Buttermilk Cornbread

1.5 cups Cornmeal (I use Quaker yellow)
1/2 cup Self Rising Flour
1 tsp Baking Soda
1 Egg, beaten
1.25 cups Buttermilk
4 Tbsp Vegetable Oil (I tried cutting this in half.  It works, but is a bit dry.  Go with 4 Tbsp)
1/2 tsp toasted cumin seed

Preheat your oven to 400 F.  While you are waiting on your oven, mix together your dry ingredients in a mixing bowl. Beat your egg in a separate bowl, then add to your dry ingredients with the buttermilk stirring until all the dry ingredients are wet.  Do not over mix your batter.  Then, I took my cumin seed and lightly toasted them in a sauté pan on low heat until fragrant and browned.  This takes about five minutes depending upon how low your low is on your stove top burners.  Very intoxicating if you like cumin like I do.

Before toasting.

After toasting.

Next, add the vegetable oil to the cast iron skillet and place in your hot oven for 3 to 4 minutes. You want your skillet to get hot, but you don’t want the oil to start smoking.  I usually let it sit in the oven for two minutes.  Remove your skillet from the oven (remember, hot cast iron looks like cold cast iron, wear an oven mitt) and move your skillet around to make sure all surfaces of the skillet are thoroughly coated with the oil, including the sides.  Next, pour the excess oil into the batter and stir, then pour your batter into the hot cast iron.  Next, I evenly topped the batter with my toasted cumin and placed the pan in the oven.  Bake for 25 minutes or until lightly browned.  A toothpick inserted into the cornbread will come out clean when done.

The final product.

I served with lots of butter and some chili (more on that later) on the side.

Yep, it was everything that I expected.  So simple, yet it adds a nice subtle flavor to the cornbread.  The Youngest scarfed half of the pan himself.  Next time, I am going to incorporate the toasted cumin into the batter before pouring into the skillet.  I may even add some jalapeño and caramelized onion as well.

Thanks for stopping by,

Bill