so let's get to the good stuff already, eh? the sauce. oh the triple distilled sauce. i can't even wait, i have to show you what i'm talking about with another classically crappy food shot by yours truly:
there's some mash and, if i do say so myself, a wonderfully crispy skinned cornish game hen leg, and the sauce! now, i know i need to get help on presentation - i just can't figure out any interesting ideas or new ways to plate potatoes, meat and sauce. i guess in teh end stacking is probably the most interesting but oh well, in person even the plate above looked much nicer. ah, i digress...
making the Sauce...
so the sauce was made by putting the remains of my game hen butchery ~ 2 wings and 2 carcasses cut into chuncks with a cleaver (that was actually 7x as fun as it sounds and i'mpretty sure i'm going to have to figure out a way to cleave things more often. i think i may have actually yelled a chinese word when i did it. awesome), a sliced carrot, a sliced onion and 2 smashed cloves of garlic into a small roasting pan. all that love went into a hot oven for about 45 minutes. i added water periodically to prevent the juices from buring on the bottom of the pan.
when the carcasses and veg were browned and the drippings smelled great, the pan came out of the oven and onto the stove top. a cup of stock was added and then the liquid was reduced 'till it caramelized on the bottom of the pan. another cup of stock, another reduction (this is where all the big bold flavor comes from) and it was ready for the 3rd and final reduction. for this last one, thyme sprigs and a bay leaf were added along with the stock. this reduction was only about 1/2 the volume and then the whole affair was strained into a saucepan. (then strained back and forth 3 or 4 times for good meausre!)
this left us with a rich and fairly thick jus. after sauteeing the game hen legs in another pan, the fat was poured out and the jus was used to deglaze the pan. swirl in butter (lots, duh!) and season and viola! this was the best, most rich and complex sauce i've ever made. dig!
butchering the game hens
I suspect that most people who cook a lot, including my mom, are well familiar with buying a whole chicken and taking it apart. It is probably taken for granted, an unavoidable lesson learned by anyone with the slightest bit of sense and the desire to cook at home.
well, despite my strong desire to cook at home, my lack of "the slightest bit of sense" meant that i had face down these two game hens ~ and learn the hard way. the major "duh" moment was discovering that poping out the joints by hand, such as the thighbone from the back bone, and THEN cutting away the surrounding skin and flesh was far easier, and far neater, than trying to just cut through the joints.oh yea, go ahead and laugh, you should, but i'm not even gonna get into the other idiodicies of my adventure - in stead i'll tell you that in the end, i was successful and those 2 game hens ended up as 2 very neat carcasses and a plate of 4 beautiful breast fillets and 4 lovely, semi-bonless legs. (ok, that was one of the greatest things i learned - take out the thigh bone but leave the drumstick bone! makes for a very nice presentation AND you get to eat the succulent thigh meat without having to negotiate around a bone - very nice.
anyways, random post, sorry bout that. gonna try to focus a bit more in the future - this was supposed to be about the sauce, not my rambling. always learning lessons.
