October 7, 2011

FFwD: Olive-Olive Cornish Hens

Well, I couldn't find these little birds today at my butcher's or the grocery store.  Apparently, it's just the start of gaming season here and they will hopefully have some in a few weeks.  I could have gone for pigeon or pheasant but opted for good old chicken instead.  

I decided to go with the process though and flattened my big bird.  Next stumbling block was I'm the only one in my family that likes olives.  So, I put the olive tapenade on the corner of one breast and the top of a thigh.  I'm interested to read everyone's post to see how much flavour the little birds had.  I'll have to say mine was not that flavourful.  I seasoned per the recipe and added dried herbs because I just think roast chicken (which is what I was making) needs a lot of seasoning to taste like anything.

I served with buttermilk mashed potatoes and green beans with pancetta.  Bit disappointed this week and not really looking forward to next because I don't like smoked salmon.  I'm going to find something that the group made before I joined to make instead.

Happy weekend to everyone!

My spineless, flat chicken























10 comments:

  1. Mine wasn't very flavorful, either. I don't know why. I'm also a little worried about next week's recipe, but I'll give it a go.

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  2. The tapenade seemed to be hit or miss with a lot of people.
    Normally, I wouldn't look foward to next week's recipe, but after this week - it's looking mighty fine :-)

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  3. I'm so sorry to hear you were disappointed with this one, Robin. The olive tapenade (Dorie's) I made added so much flavor to our little hen. If you haven't made Dorie's eggplant caviar it is a great one to try with the blinis. When the caviar came up on the schedule I made potato blinis and we loved them.

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  4. Sorry to hear that this week's recipe wasn't a hit. I really liked the method of cooking the chicken and will definitely use it again, but I'm not sure I will use the tapenade again.

    As for next week's recipe, I am also not a fan of smoked salmon but I am going to make the recipe anyway. I will buy some smoked salmon for my husband because he loves it and I will come up with something else for my blinis. I have an eastern european cookbook which has recipes for lots of different ``caviars'' for blinis, including an eggplant one, a beet one, and a walnut one which looks interesting. We'll see what happens.

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  5. I used a roasted red pepper tapenade, which ended up being more popular than the olive. Still not an overwhelming flavor though. I think I might try a different filling next time.

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  6. Your dinner looks really good! We used a chicken, too. The chicken was fine but we didn't like the black olive tapenade with it...at least we couldn't taste much of it - same as you.

    There are so many great FFWD recipes - I hope you like the one you choose instead of the blini (I'll suggest: Michael Rostang's Double Chocolate Mousse Cake, My Go-To Beef Daube, Hachis Parmentier, Short Ribs in Port Wine, or Roast Chicken for Les Paresseux). :)

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  7. I'm glad I wasn't the only one that didn't find this dish overly flavourful. And thanks for the recommendations for a substitute next Friday. The short ribs are tempting because I just found a butcher that could cut them for me... I now have 13 pounds of them in my freezer :)

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  8. I'm the one who doesn't like olives in our house, but I really liked the sun-dried tomatoes.

    I've been with the group since the beginning, but have missed a few recipes. I like your idea of catching up since I don't like Salmon, either.

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  9. OOOhhh.... I thought my poussins were overwhelmed by the tapenade. Why don't you try the belinis with a different topping? It's not limited to the smoked salmon and roe, you can use so many other toppings! Perhaps a different smoked fish? Or a vegetable or some proscuitto? ... Can't wait to see what you do next week!

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  10. The chicken looks beautiful, it's too bad it didn't turn out to be that flavourful.

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