Learn how to cook the perfect poultry with our Cornish Smoked Chicken recipe. An underrated cut of meat, but one of the best smoked recipes!
Most people can smoke Cornish chickens as part of their meal during Christmas or Thanksgiving barbecues, but I love roasting them year-round.
These chickens are prepared with a good brine to give them a strong flavor before being smoked for hours on a low, slow heat to help them achieve that delicious, tender, juicy flavor we’re always looking for. As with the smoked pheasant , we treat this bird like chicken when we smoke it and also when preparing our meat.
What is the Cornish hen?
You’d be forgiven for confusing Cornish hens with chicken, but there’s a clear difference between the two. Cornish hens are defined as chickens that are less than five weeks old. As a result, their weight is around 1 to 2 pounds.
This small size makes them faster to cook than normal adult and more tender after smoking. Like other smoked game meats , it has a stronger but still lighter flavor than venison or pheasant.
How long to roast Cornish chickens
How long you smoke your chicken ultimately depends on its internal temperature.
The temperature you want to vacuum at is 75°C(165°F). It is important to set this temperature correctly. If you don’t have a digital meat sample either, I recommend getting one. Something like the Maverick ET-733 is great for an accurate reading and can be used remotely so you can continuously monitor the progress of your meat.
Thanks to their simple size, Cornish chickens take much less time to cook than chickens or turkeys.
If you smoke meat at 225°F for 45 minutes per pound, you should have no problem cooking to that desired internal temperature. In most cases this takes 90 to 120 minutes.
What is the Best Wood for Smoking Cornish Chicken?
Many of the best woods for chicken are the same as those used for smoking chicken . You can go two ways. You can choose something slightly fruity to add a sweet note to your bird, or you can use something milder and deeper in flavor.
If you like sweet things, I recommend applewood. It has a sweet note that is more subtle and softer than other fruitwoods(e.g. cherry, maple, walnut). That makes it a crowd pleaser and should go well with your grill.
Recommended apple wood: Weber Wood Apple Chips
Anything from Weber is always worth trying, and these applewood pieces don’t disappoint.
If you don’t want fruity wood, try a touch of walnut. Hickory doesn’t have as deep a flavor as mesquite, but it still has a strong flavor that can carry a great flavor nuance to your bird. Just be careful and use little, as it can be easy to use too much and blanket your meat with an overwhelmingly bitter taste.
Recommended Hickory: Weber Hickory Wood Chunks
Packed with flavor, these Weber wood shavings are great to mix with some applewood to thin out their punch a bit.
How to Clean Cornish Chickens
Either let chickens thaw in the refrigerator overnight or at room temperature during the day. Make sure it’s completely thawed, sans the gizzards, before cooking so it can smoke fully.
Put the chickens in a big wound and put the pain in the kitchen sink. Cover the chicken with basic table salt. This acts like an abrasive to help us clean the bird. We will not season the bird because we will rinse it afterwards. Pour apple cider vinegar over the chickens.
Rub the chickens with your hands and work the vinegar and salt into the bird’s flesh. If you spot a lump of fat, remove it. Continue rubbing the whole bird, removing any excess fat or feathers that you find.
Pour in cold tap water to rinse off grease residue, apple cider vinegar, and salt. Be sure to rinse the insides of the birds as well.
How to prepare Cornish chickens for roasting
Unsurprisingly, this bird’s preparation isn’t much different than chicken. It’s also pretty easy to get it right.
I always start with good old fashioned brine for my birds. I know some people skip this step, but I urge you to follow it.
It’s the best way to ensure we end up with a tender cut of meat, and since we’ll be smoking for around 12 hours it’s important that we retain as much moisture as possible.
If you bought your chickens frozen, be sure to put them in the fridge a day or two before using them. You should never salt or cook straight from the freezer.
If you need to thaw them quickly, here’s an emergency guide to quick thawing chicken .
How to Salt Cornish Chickens
As with many types of poultry, there’s plenty of room for experimentation here, but for the purposes of this recipe I’ve just introduced a fairly standard brine similar to my chicken wing brine .
I’ve seen many more colorful pickle recipes using ingredients like whiskey or apple juice, so don’t be afraid to experiment here!
Basic brine ingredients
- ½ gallon cold water
- ½ cup kosher/coarse salt
- ½ cup brown sugar
All you have to do is combine the ingredients in a gallon pitcher and add the salt and sugar until both are dissolved.
You may have noticed that the brine makes a half gallon while the jug holds a full gallon. Well the chickens is because we need space for ours.
If you’re cooking more than a few chickens, you’ll need a larger container, or make double the brine and divide the mixture between two gallon containers.
Rinse the chickens under cold water before placing them in the gallon container. Lay them down slowly so you don’t create splatters. Pour the remaining brine over it, trying to cover the birds as much as possible.
Transfer the containers to your refrigerator and salt them. I tend to leave these on overnight. Some only do this for a few hours, others 18 hours. I feel somewhere in the middle. For me, that’s just enough time to let the brine do its job and add flavor to the meat without overpowering it.
When they’re done, remove the birds from the brine and rinse them under cold running water. Pat them dry with a paper towel.
Pro tip: if you want your chickens’ skin to get crispy, you’ll need to dry them even more. To do this, place the birds in your refrigerator and place folded paper towels on the skin. Leave for a few hours. This should allow the towels to absorb more moisture from under the skin and create a crispy skin when grilling.
How to Season Cornish Hens
We’ll be ready to go in no time. A final step I like to follow is to apply some grill to the surface of the birds.
Again, massaging isn’t something everyone does, but I do, it adds a bit of brie and flavor and can help develop a bit of crunch on the skin.
I have a homemade dressing that I like to use on chicken . It is a combination of:
Homemade BBQ Rub Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons of peppers
- 1 tablespoon thyme
- 2 tablespoons chilli powder
- 2 tablespoons cayenne pepper
- 1 tablespoon garlic powder
- 1 tablespoon onion powder
- 1 tablespoon kosher/table salt
- 2 tablespoons of black pepper
If you’re concerned about condiments like cayenne or paprika, then there are some great store-bought options too. Check Out Here.
How to Smoke Cornish Chicken
Now we can finally get started! Turn on your smoker and set it to a cooking temperature of 107°C. This is a standard temperature we look for in most cured meats and Cornish chickens are no different.
If you’re using a grill to do this, be sure to set your grill for 2-zone grilling and indirect grilling, placing the coals on one side and the chicken on the other.
Once the grill’s surface temperature has reached 225°F, we’re good to go.
Cook until your bird’s internal temperature reaches 74°C(165°F). It is RECOMMENDED that the measurement be taken from both the chest and thigh side of each bird to get the most accurate reading.
Writer & content creator. BBQ fanatic!
