Improv Cooking: Best Rice Ever…and More

My daughter was visiting and wanted Cornish hens for dinner. Since there’s no way I could tell her no, I thawed a couple of birds that were in the freezer. When we ate dinner, she told me that she couldn’t say it was the best rice she had ever eaten because she didn’t remember every rice dish she’d eaten, but it had to be in the top rung. These are the recipes for the dinner—the hens is integrated into the preparation of the rice so I can’t separate the preparation of the two. Incidentally, this also works just fine with whole chickens instead of Cornish hens.

This dinner serves 3 or 4 people.

Glaze for the Hens

When I started making this recipe around 1970, I used an inexpensive tawny port (not nearly as sweet as ruby port) and undiluted orange juice concentrate. Since we don't usually have orange juice concentrate around any more, I just triple the amount of OJ.

Combine 1 part tawny port with 3-4 parts orange juice.

Since about 1/2 cup of the glaze will be used for cooking the rice, I wanted about 1 1/2 cup total. That's about 1/3 cup of port and 1 1/3 cup of OJ.

Rice

Ingredients:

3/4 cup basmati rice

1 cup chicken stock or chicken bouillon

1/2 cup of the glaze for the hens

a little oil (about 1 tbsp)

Seasonings (I use ground cinnamon, smoked paprika, pepper and a little salt)

Rinse the rice and put it into a small pot. Add the water, oil and seasonings to the rice and bring to a boil. Cook uncovered, stirring frequently until the liquid is reduced to the level of the rice in the pot. Reduce the heat to low, cover and cook for about 20 minutes—until the rice is done.

Cornish Hens (or Chicken)

Preheat the oven to 400.

Pour a little olive oil in your hand and rub the hens all over on both sides. Put the hens on a rack over a baking pan breast side up. Sprinkle seasonings over the hens (I usually use pepper, garlic powder, turmeric, ground cinnamon, ground coriander and cumin). Turn the hens over and season the back the same way. If you're so inclined, rub the seasonings into the skin. (If you find a way to do that without having the seasonings clump up and stick to your hands more than the bird, please let me know.) Leave the birds on the rack breast side down.

Take the rack out of the baking pan and put the rice into the baking pan. Spread it around but try to keep as much of the rice as possible under where the hens will be. Put the rack back in the pan. Put the hens and rice into the oven and turn the temperature down to 350.

After cooking for about 20 minutes, take the baking pan out of the oven and pour some of the glaze over the birds. (If you're using the concentrate use a basting brush to apply the glaze.) After another 15-20 minutes, turn the hens over breast side up and make sure the seasonings are still on. Make sure the rice is mostly under the bird. Pour on some more glaze. Cook for 20 minutes more. Pour the rest of the glaze on the hen and cook until the hens are done.

Green Beans and Mushrooms

To finish dinner, we had green beans and mushrooms. Clean two or three mushrooms and slice them. Wash some fresh parsley (I use flat leaf not curly parsley) and cut it up. Sautee the mushrooms in a little olive oil and grind some pepper over them. Add the cut up parsley and cook a bit more.

Wash the green beans and break the stem end off them. Microwave the beans for 60-90 seconds. Mix the green beans with the mushrooms and parsley and you’re done.

You’ve got dinner!