Greek Roasted Cornish Hens with Lemon Rice

Every once in a while, I pass by Cornish hens and wonder how I could make them into a savory dinner option. While looking through Pinterest one morning as I was drinking my coffee, I came across a recipe for a chicken and rice dish from Recipe Tin Eats which sounded tantalizing for One Pot Greek Chicken and Lemon Rice. With some improvising, perhaps my idea for Greek Roasted Cornish Hens with Lemon Rice would work! So let’s begin this quest!

With a pair of kitchen shears, I cut out the backbone. This process called “spatchcock” , is the poultry version of  butterflying. Think about this: both dark and white meat sit level in the baking dish on top of vegetables, herbs, or in this case, a savory rice. Those flavors will permeate the meat while cooking because of their proximately to those flavors. The poultry juices, will in turn,  infuse the rice or vegetables.  Before marinating, remember to pat the outside and inside  dry with paper towels.

To make the marinade, zest one lemon and juice enough lemons to have 1/4 cup of juice; two  lemons should do the trick. Whisk in the pressed garlic, dried oregano, and salt.

Place the Cornish hens in a large Ziploc bag and pour marinade over them. Refrigerate for 20-30 minutes.

Drizzle olive oil in the bottom of a large saucepan. Place hens as flat as you can in the pan over medium heat. Here I did both at once which was a little tight. In retrospect, I would do one at a time in the skillet I used for the rice. Stay turned for a possible revision.

Flip over after about 5 -7 minutes and cook the other side.

Here’s the end result.. Look at the hint of golden color! If you could only smell those flavors! Place on the side on a serving dish while preparing the rice.

Drizzle some additional olive oil in the bottom of a skillet heated to low and saute until translucent.

Stir in the rice with the herbs until fragrant and distributed throughout rice.

Add in the chicken broth,  water, chardonnay, reserved marinade, salt and pepper. Simmer for about 5 minutes.

Because of the size of the birds, I chose to use a larger dish to spread them out. I did spray the pan with olive oil prior to pouring in the rice mixture.

Place them in the pan and spread them out as best as you can.  Cover and seal edges of pan with foil. Bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes. Remove the foil and cook another 10 minutes.

Upon removing from the oven, sprinkle with chopped oregano leaves if you have them available and more lemon zest if desired. Doesn’t this look gorgeous! I can guarantee to you the it smells amazing too! Lemon and herbs are such a great combination to awaken the senses. Allow it to rest for about 5 minutes. So while you wait, browse the pictures below because I couldn’t decide which ones to use..

 

Prior to removing from the dish, slice down the center of the breast. This will give you 4 serving pieces plus make it easy to remove to the serving dish.

After removing the hens, stir up the rice with all the herbs and roasted hen juices.

 

Greek Roasted Cornish Hens with Lemon Rice is  perfection! Actually, it’s my husband’s dinner and I wouldn’t allow him to eat any of it until I had the perfect pic. I’m such a tease! Whoops! It appears I forgot to add the veggies! Oh, well! This will have to do!