My roommate Steve bought two cornish game hens yesterday and suggested that I cook one and he’d cook the other. I only know one recipe for cornish game hen, and it’s the one that my mom makes.

Her recipe is a Filipino-American invention, something she developed after coming to the States. It’s stuffed with bacon and frozen peas and carrots and marinated in calamansi (a native Filipino citrus fruit) and fish sauce.

Filipinos tend to pair fish sauce with chicken — I don’t know why, but it just works. It doesn’t taste fishy at all, so don’t worry!

Recipe:

2 1/2 c frozen peas and carrots mix, thawed
5 rashers bacon, snipped into bite-sized bits
salt
pepper
lemon pepper
2 tbs fish sauce (patis)
juice of 10 calamansi (they’re really small!) OR juice of 2 lemons
6 pats of butter
2 cornish game hens
1 tbs soy sauce

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Rinse your hens and pat dry. In a large pan, marinate the hens in fish sauce and calamansi juice. Season well with salt, pepper and lemon pepper. Cover in plastic wrap, marinate for 1 hour. Transfer the hens into a greased baking dish and pour the marinade over it. In a separate bowl, combine the peas, carrots and bacon and season to taste. Stuff the cavities of the hen with the mixture. Dot the pan with the pats of butter and a few pieces of chopped bacon for extra flavor. Bake for 1 hour, basting every 20 minutes. After an hour, add the soy sauce to the gravy collecting at the bottom of the roasting pan and stir. Baste the hens again — the soy sauce will make the hens look more golden brown. Bake for another 20-30 minutes until done.

Serve with freshly steamed white rice — the gravy is to die for!