Cuban Roasted Cornish Hens

By Aysegul Sanford
This Roasted Cornish Hen recipe is the perfect special occasion meal that you can make whenever you want to impress. This easy Cornish chicken dish is made by marinating Cornish game hens in a lime-juice-garlic-fresh oregano based marinade overnight and roasting them in the oven low and slow for almost 2 hours. The Cornish hen marinade I use here is out of this world. I encourage you to prepare it a day in advance and roast for perfection right before serving.
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​Why should you make this Cornish hen recipe?
​Having lived in the Caribbean for a number of years, I knew I needed to try this Roasted Cornish Hen recipe as soon as I saw it on my friend Eva’s cookbook, Adventures in Chicken (affiliate link). And, let me tell you, this easy straightforward recipe did not disappoint. There is so much to love about it, but here are a few that comes to mind right off the bat:

• A Creative and impressive chicken dish: It is visually impressive and perfectly portioned worthy enough as the main course of a holiday dinner (or any other special occasion or dinner party) or as a humble Sunday supper when you want to treat your family.

• ​Only 15 minutes of hands-on time: While it takes about 2 hours for the Cornish hens to bake, the actual preparation time is only about 15 minutes, which makes it ideal when you have a million other things you need to worry about when making dinner.​
• Roasting is the best way to cook Cornish hens: You can cook these special breed of chickens in other ways but I find that roasting is the way to go. Thinking that you might have new to cooking Cornish game hens, I thought it would be great to share some of those questions and cover them in the recipe below.
• A great alternative to turkey during the holidays: While turkey is traditional, if you are serving a smaller crowd, this slow roasted Cornish hen recipe is ideal and a great alternative to turkey.

Yields: 4 servings    Prep Time: 20 mins     Cook Time: 2 hrs  Total: 2 hrs 20 mins

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​How to prepare these small birds for roasting?Before I talk about how to marinade and then bake the Cornish hens, I wanted to talk about how to prepare them. Whether I am cooking a regular whole chicken or cornish hens, I truss my chicken as I find that doing so helps with getting an evenly roasted cornish hen. If you are not familiar with the term “trussing” allow me to explain:
Trussing is a technique that helps poultry keep their shape and prevents certain parts of the chicken from burning during the cooking or baking process. Most people use kitchen twine to truss a chicken, but this video shows how to truss a Cornish hen uses nothing but the Cornish hen itself. I am sharing it here as it is such an easy technique that requires no additional equipment and is super easy to apply.
With this being said, this is an optional step. If you are short on time, you can simply tie the legs with butchers twine and call it a day.
Ingredients:
The ingredient list is inspired by Cuban cuisine but you can adjust it with whatever you have on hand. If you follow in Eva’s footsteps, gather limes (to squeeze them), olive oil, cloves of garlic, fresh oregano leaves, onion, water, and salt and pepper.
When shopping for cornish game hens at the grocery store, look for birds that are about 1 to 1 1/4 pounds. I find that smaller birds are ideal, especially if you want to serve one per person.

Ingredients
For the Cornish Hen Marinade

• ▢2/3 cup freshly squeezed lime juice from 8-10 juice limes – plus 1 more sliced (optional)
• ▢2/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
• ▢6 cloves garlic peeled and minced
• ▢2 tablespoons fresh oregano leaves chopped – more as garnish
• ▢1 teaspoon ground cumin
• ▢1 teaspoon Kosher salt
• ▢1/2 teaspoon black pepper freshly ground – plus more for finishing it off
• ▢4 Cornish game hens about 1 pound each, rinsed and pat-dried thoroughly with paper towels

To Roast The Cornish Hens:

• ▢1 cup water or chicken stock
• ▢½ small yellow onion sliced thinly

​Instructions

• To make the marinade: Whisk together the lime-juice, olive oil, garlic, oregano leaves, cumin, salt and pepper in a bowl.
• Divide the marinade in between two 1-gallon resalable plastic bags. Place two hens in each bag, make sure the marinade is distributed evenly (going into the cavity of the hens) and press to get as much air as possible out of it before sealing. Repeat the same process for the other two hens. Place them in the fridge and marinade for at least 4 hours or preferably overnight.
• To roast the Cornish hens: Pre-heat the oven to 425 degrees.
• Arrange slices of onion at the bottom of a casserole dish or a large ducth oven. Place hens, the marinade, and water on the bed of onions. Sprinkle the hens with freshly ground black pepper. If preferred, slice a fresh lime and place it around the birds.
• Roast for 20 minutes. Reduce the heat to 375 F degrees and roast for 1 hour 15 minutes to 1 hour 30 minutes.
• Let them rest for 20 minutes, garnish with fresh herbs, and serve.

Ingredient Substitutions & Variations:

• Lemon vs Lime: You can use an equal amount of lemon juice (and lemon wedges or lemon slices) instead of limes.
• Fresh herbs: While fresh oregano is delicious in this recipe, you can play with other fresh herbs like Italian parsley, thyme sprigs, and fresh rosemary sprigs.
• Extra liquid: This recipe uses a cup of water as an additional liquid to use during the roasting process. If you have it, you can substitute it with chicken broth.

How To Cook This Recipe?The roasted cornish hen recipe has 2 folds:
Make the Cornish Hen Marinade:

• Make the marinade: Inspired from the Cuban cuisine, this easy-to-make Cornish game hen marinade has just a few ingredients. To make it, simply whisk together olive oil, garlic cloves, fresh oregano leaves, freshly squeezed lime juice, ground cumin, and kosher salt and black pepper in a small bowl.

• Marinade the Cornish chickens: Once the marinade is ready, divide it into 2 large food storage bags (I used 1-gallon size plastic Ziploc bag) and transfer hens into the bags (2 hens per bag). Make sure that the marinade is well distributed (and going into the cavity of each hen.) Get the air out of each bag as much as possible, seal and let it marinade for 4 hours, or preferably, overnight.

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How To Roast Cornish Hens To cook Cornish hens in the oven:

1. Slice an onion: Place a sliced onion at the bottom of a large 6 3/4-quart dutch oven (affiliate link), an ovenproof 9X13 casserole dish or a shallow roasting pan. Pour in a cup of water (or chicken stock).
2. Arrange the cornish hens: Remove the hens and all the marinade for the bags. Transfer them to the dutch oven (or casserole dish) with the breast meat side up, and make sure that they are snuggly. If preffered, add in a sliced lime.
3. Roast in the oven: To roast cornish hens, first start in a preheated 425-degree oven and bake them for 20 minutes. Then, bring down the temperature to 375-degrees and continue to cook for another 1 hour 15 minutes to 1 hour 30 minutes or until the internal temperature reaches to 180 F degrees (80 C degrees).