Game Hens In The Montana Rain

About author / Sarah Christine Bolton

Coffee addict; professional food writer; food fusion. Her slow cooker recipes go above and beyond your normal crockpot fare.

My family used to go on long camping trips in the Montana mountains. We would load up our ancient travel trailer with fishing tackle, tents, and water, and pull it up old logging roads until we found the perfect camping spot, usually beside a “crick” as creeks are called in the west. Besides the rainbow trout that we caught, the best meal my mom would whip up was Cornish Game hens and cornbread. Something about the idea of a tiny, individual chicken was fascinating to me as a child.

One cold, rainy fall day, we were camping and my grandparents came to visit us for the day. My mom crammed several game hens into a rusted pan, seasoned them with salt and pepper, and slid them into the propane oven. A pan of cornbread followed. As the rain drizzled against the roof of the trailer, we pulled tender meat off the bones and soaked up the juices with crispy cornbread.

As a child, I honestly thought Cornish game hens were baby chickens, a sort of veal of the chicken world. Luckily, that isn’t the case, otherwise I might not be able to enjoy them. There seems to be a little confusion about who originally bred White Rock hens and Cornish hens and when it happened (either 1955 or 1965), but the original intention was to breed a small chicken with mostly white meat suitable for a single serving.

Since those camping trips, I’ve cooked them only a couple of times. Once for my husband-to-be, who was concerned that the hens miniature size wouldn’t provide enough sustenance for him. However, once he realized that he could eat an entire game hen (plus whatever I didn’t eat of mine), he was sold on the idea.

When it came time to figure out the first recipe I wanted to cook in my new crock pot, I considered several factors. Should I keep it simple, maybe some sort of stew or soup? That felt too simple, too crock pot cliché. Maybe I should do something fancy, like scallops and asparagus. But then I was afraid my elaborateness would backfire and I’d be stuck writing a column about what not to cook in a crock pot. So then, I simply opened my freezer, and saw them: two little game hens, sitting silently in the door. And I thought, why not? Game hens are definitely a bit out of the ordinary, but something I was very familiar with.

So here it is, my very first recipe on CDKitchen. If you’ve never tried game hens before, this is the perfect time to pick a couple up and pop them in your slow cooker. They are actually fairly inexpensive.

Serves/Makes: 4

• 2 Rock Cornish hens (about 16 ounce each)
• 1 clove garlic, sliced in half PLUS
• 2 cloves garlic, diced
• 1 red onion, thinly sliced
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon chili powder
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 cups sugar snap peas or green beans
• 2 cups baby carrots
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 2 teaspoons black pepper
• 2 teaspoons rubbed sage or rosemary