Lime Chili Game Hens

[hathor]

Lime Chili Game Hens

Serves 1 as Main Dish.

Variation on the Marcella Hazan lemon chicken

Ingredient

1 1/2 lb game hen (one per person)

chopped garlic,1 clove

chopped shallot

good quality paprika (real smoked spanish paprika), approx 1/2 tsp

dried red chilis (as much as you want)

medium grain salt (1/2 tsp)

pepper (3 or 4 twists of the pepper mill)

olive oil

lime (preferably organic)

Preheat oven to 450 degrees

Rinse bird under running water and set aside

In a bowl, mash together the garlic, shallots, chilis, paprika, salt and pepper, add a little bit of olive oil to make a paste. The more you mash, the better it is. This is strictly a matter of personal taste: lots of garlic, less chili....whatever rocks your boat.

Take the washed lime and insert it into the hen cavity. Seal the hen as best as possible with the loose skin and complete the seal by toothpicking closed...or using a poultry skewer...whatever is handy.

Now rub the mashed paste all over the bird...in between all the cracks and crevises...in between the wings, Cover the bird with as much paste as you have on hand.

Place the birds in your roasting pan, depending on the pan, you may want to put a little olive oil in the bottom of the pan. I use a big ceramic roasting pan so I like a little oil.

Put the birds in the oven, turn the heat down to 375 and in about 50 minutes (depending on the size of the hen) you will pull out beautifully browned, fagrant hens with lots of delicious juice.

I like to serve this with some grilled polenta. I usually leave the limes inside the bird when I serve them...seems everyone likes to play around with them. Watch out...the lime juice gets extremely concentrated while roasting.

Enjoy.

Keywords: Easy, Dinner, Chicken

( RG831 )