Sweet Chili Pepper Cornish Game Hens

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I combined one of my favorite go to chicken dry rubs along with a sweet chili pepper sauce and totally smothered two beautiful Cornish Hens in these married flavors.  Honestly, you could do the chicken only with the dry rub or with the pepper sauce, but I found layering them truly brought out an amazing flavor combination.  You can also do this recipe with a whole chicken, cut up chicken and wings.  Just make sure to adjust cooking time to get meat to 165¤F.

You obviously could do this in your oven if you wanted to take the time to let it heat up and didn’t mind your house heating up as well.  I though chose to use one of my air fryers that I have come to use on a weekly basis.  The intense heat that the air fryer provides locks in all the juices and leaves you with the tastiest juiciest chicken ever.  It also caramelizes the sticky pepper sauce as you can see in the picture.  Heck, Michael said it was totally amazing and barely left any meat on the bones.  He was disappointed I only made him one.  So glad I got mine eaten before he could get hold of it.

Now if you don’t have an Air Fryer, you need to get my friends.  It is rated number one by leading consumer groups.  I honestly have 4 of them in different sizes and have been known to have at least 3 going at a time.  I put a link below to her air fryer on Amazon.

So now lets get on to the recipe.  Please let me know what you think about it.  I think it will end up as one of your go to recipes for an easy weeknight dinner.

Ingredients:

Rub:

• 1 tablespoon smoked paprika
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1  teaspoon onion powder
• 1  teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1 teaspoon ground coriander
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper (optional adjust for heat)

Mix all ingredients in small bowl and use to coat hens.

Sweet Chili Pepper Sauce (feel free to use jarred, but homemade is best)

• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 cup pineapple juice
• 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 1/2 teaspoon ginger
• 2 tablespoons chili flakes
• 1 teaspoon ketchup
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch
• 4 tablespoons water

1. Combine the sugar, pineapple juice and apple cider vinegar in large heavy bottom pan.  Bring to boil
2. Add salt, chili flakes, ginger, ketchup and minced garlic and boil over medium heat for 3-4 minutes
3. Now combine the cornstarch and water as you would for any slurry and pour into the boiling mixture.  Make sure you continuously whisk the mixture to avoid it developing any lumps.  Cook till thickened and coats back of spoon.  It will thicken more as it cools.
4. You can save any extra in a small jar in the refrigerator for a couple weeks.

Cornish Hens

• 2-4 Cornish Hens.  It depends on size of your air fryer and how many you’re feeding.
• Turn your air fryer to 390¤F.
• Rinse and dry your hens.
• sprinkle dry rub on both sides of the hens and season inside as well.
• Place breast side down in air fryer basket
• Close air fryer and set timer for 10 minutes.
• After 10 minutes, flip the birds and coat the top side with Chili Sauce
• Cook for 12 minutes more.  Then open and flip the birds again.
• Coat now with Chili Sauce and cook additional 12 minutes.
• Check for correct internal temperature of 165¤F.  Cook additional 2 minutes or more to reach temp if needed.
• Remove from air fryer,  coat again with the Chili Sauce and serve.