How to Butterfly and Grill a Cornish Game Hen

Butterflying Cornish hen - or a chicken for that matter - is quite easy. All you need is a sharp pair of shears and kitchen voila! I decided to butterfly the chicken for this recipe because I wanted to press down on the grill with my super heavy cast iron pan. You can use any heavy pan that you have - even bricks if you like. The point is to get those birds as flat as possible so cook more quickly.


A butterfly Cornish hen means simply remove your spine. Put the bird back side up on a cutting board and, using some sharp kitchen shears, cut close along one side of the spine. Repeat on the other side of the backbone and discard. Turn breast side up and now open the Cornish hen and the chopsticks required. Press firmly on breastbone to flatten. It's that easy!

After preparing the birds rubbed them liberally with the rub of Julia McGeevers - however, if you do not want to do is rub that you can just cover the chicken with olive oil and season generously with coarse salt and ground pepper recently. Here is the recipe for Julia rubs:

Susie Q seasoning 1 cup Santa Maria (available in bulk at Costco)
cayenne pepper cup 1 / 2
width of the cup 1 / 2, chipotle or pasilla chile powder of
Dark brown sugar 1 cups 1 / 2 (moscova sugar for a more intense flavor if you prefer)
garlic powder 1 / 4 cup (not chopped)
dried parsley 1 / 4 cup

Mix together all ingredients with a whisk in a large bowl. By using the rub on the meat rub it with olive oil of high quality before applying the rub liberally. When using fish or chicken first cover with the juice of limes or lemons. Make sure you stop rubbing do its thing for at least 2 hours (preferably 4) before a barbecue. We did exactly as instructed!

Heat the grill on high for 20 minutes and then rejected to the environment, clean the grates really well and then stuff with a wad of paper towel soaked in olive oil. Pete, my husband proceeded to put the breast side of chicken down on the grill and place cast-iron pan on them. He cooked for 10 minutes, flipped and covered them again. The chickens were done in 30 minutes.

The serve with a side salad. They were DELICIOUS!

For the table step by step on how to butterfly and roast grilled Cornish hen click here!