Costco chicken issues. Have you been following the story with Costco and its rotisserie chickens? Over the past year, the cost went up from $4.99, which it had been for years, for a huge bird weighing in excess of four pounds, sometimes, to $6.99. About a month ago I noticed that the chickens had lost quite a bit of weight. I always select my chicken for color and size, picking many of them up and doing a full inspection. All of the chickens were small, and the price was still $6.99, making this not such a great deal anymore. I thought this might be fluke, like they happened to receive a batch of scrawny birds that week, but the problem persisted the next week. I’ll bet they got complaints, because when I went to Costco today the chickens were down to $5.99. Granted, they were still smaller – by a good pound, pound and a half – but at least they had the good sense to realize that you can’t raise the price and reduce the size so dramatically and abruptly. I called to find out if this has something to do with stopping “plumping.” Hope so. Hope to hear back.
Category Archives: Markets
Roasted tri-color peppers
I’m still in a roasted pepper state of mind. I want to be sure to have my fill while the yellow, red and orange are available in those megabags at Costco. Remember to roast the hell out of them on a grill or in a convection oven or over an open flame, plop into a Ziploc bag for an hour, skin and seed ’em (the skin will have steamed loose rendering the peppers easy to peel. Wipe the seeds off with a paper towel if they’re stubborn. Tear into large strips and arrange nicely. Use the juices in the plastic bag to make a dressing with olive oil, salt and pepper and a small quantity of fresh lemon juice. Pour over peppers and shower on some shaved Parmigiano Reggiano. (Remember one of the cardinal rules of cooking: when there are few ingredients they need to be of quality). Serve at room temperature and then store the rest in the fridge for later use on sandwiches. Man, so good.
Roasted peppers
I promised to provide a good recipe for roasted peppers, so here you go. I use the pack of 2 red, 2 yellow and 2 orange from Costco, since they provide a pretty result with different flavors. Jack up your oven to 400 F. convection, if you have it. Place your peppers on a sheet pan and slide into oven. Using long tongs, turn them over now and again (like every few minutes) so they darken and cook evenly. When they are nice and brown — and they don’t need to be a solid brown, rather they should have lots of brown spots that are evenly distributed — take them out and pop into a couple of large Ziploc bags that are completely sealed. You are harnessing moist heat here to cause the skins to pull away from the flesh. Put the bags in bowls in case the heat causes them to open a bit, which happens often, so that you catch the natural juices, which you want to reserve for the final preparation. After about an hour, take out the peppers, one by one, and slip the skins (which should be loose) off. Pull the stems off and gently tear the pepper to open it and push out the seeds with your fingers. Don’t rinse them, rather use your fingers to get all the “bad” things off. If you rinse them, you’ll ruin the flavor and texture. I never cut these peppers, just tear them into large strips and arrange them on a plate right then and there. When all arranged on a serving plate go ahead and pour the pepper juices over the top. Sprinkle some sea salt and black pepper over the top. Finish with a drizzle of excellent olive oil. What you don’t eat just save in a plastic container for sandwiches.
Genova Deli in Oakland
Decent Italian deli in Oakland. Why did we not know? I’ll bet when we were told we dismissed the information because of how often we have been misled by people who have lame data points when it comes to certain kinds of food. Anyway, we were driving on Telegraph in Temescal when we saw a sign for Genova Deli (5095 Telegraph Avenue, Oakland) and thought, “What the hell – let’s stop.” We made our way around the nice-ish rectangular strip mall to find a jam-packed Italian deli that looked like it actually had something going on besides Columbus and Saag’s (now owned by Hormel, did you know this?) products. Lots of counters with prepared food and cold cuts and a serious sandwich operation. The sandwiches are made on good, crusty rolls and have a respectable amount of protein. You’ll find all the suspects here, like various prosciuttos and salamis. They have many varieties of salami, not just Genoa and Sopressata, so this is a place to get a real salumi fix on. There are packaged goods, like beans and pasta, alongside your truffle and olive oils. One end of the store is dedicated to baked goods, and you can have a cup of coffee and a piece of cake there. I am told they make excellent ravioli. I’ll bet this place is out of control during the Christmas season.
Sushi spring rolls
In the interest of something light and fresh, I made sushi spring rolls this evening. This is something I have been making for years, essentially rolls with rice paper and lettuce instead of rice and seaweed. You need: butter lettuce leaves, spring roll wrappers (these are made of rice and are dry and round — kind of clear. You need to soak them before use) and fillings. If you purchase some sashimi grade albacore tuna, which is reasonably priced, and a package of kani kama (fake crab meat set up in pieces for sushi), you’ll be in good shape. Be sure you have a bit of Best Foods/Hellman’s mayo, some Sriracha hot sauce, a few scallions, an English cucumber and a Haas avocado, too. With these things you can make tuna rolls, spicy tuna rolls, tuna and scallion rolls, fake crab rolls, spicy fake crab rolls, California rolls, spicy California rolls, and more.
You’ll need to prep everything first and then set up an assembly line. Separate your lettuce leaves, wash and dry them thoroughly. You can store them in a plastic bag between damp paper towels if you prepare them in advance. Wash/dry/chop the scallions. Peel the cucumber and cut into 3″ X 1/4″ segments. You won’t need to seed an English cucumber, but you will if you use the other kind. Cut the halved avocado into long slices. Take half of your kani kama and pull it apart slightly so it is not so densely packed. This stuff is generally stringy so you will be pulling apart strands. If you get the variety that is solid, which is not as good, then just leave it as-is. Shred the other half and mix with enough mayo to make a non-runny crab salad. Take half of the crab salad and mix in a bit of the Sriracha. You will now have some kani kama, some crab salad and some spicy crab salad. Take your tuna and cut it into 3″ strips of any thickness you like. If you bought a large piece of albacore you should have some trimmings – meaning perfectly good to eat but in scraps. Chop the trim coarsely and mix with a little Sriracha. If you don’t have trim then you can use some of your blocked tuna, of course.
You now have, count ’em, five fillings. Set up an assembly line starting with a large bowl of warm water, about six wet paper towels, and a dinner plate. Then you’ll need a dry board to prepare your rolls, and a sharp knife and clean place to cut them. I use a large board and do the cutting on one corner. Finally, you’ll want a serving plate to place the cut rolls. Place your veggies and fish fillings within easy reach of the board, and be sure to keep the bottle of Sriracha handy in case you want to squeeze some directly into rolls. Have plenty of hand towels nearby. Now take four of the wrappers and submerge in the bowl of water. Let them stay there for about a minute. Lay a wet paper towel on the dinner plate and spread out a soaked wrapper on top of it – being careful not to split or tear it. Then cover with another wet paper towel. Keep layering until you have no more wrappers. Add wrappers to the water and replace in the paper towels (new ones on the bottom of your layers) as you go so you always have soft wrappers ready. Then you will need to do this: take a wrapper and lay it out on your board. Cover the inner 2/3 or so with lettuce leaves so you are placing filling onto the lettuce and not the bare wrapper. Add veggie lengths in the middle and then top with some sliced fish or fish salad so you have sort of a tube shape of fillings. Add scallions – or not. Pretend you are filling a burrito in that you want to wind up with a hefty roll but have enough of the outside of the wrapper available to roll it without any ooze. Then roll it up as you would a burrito: fold in the sides and then tuck the top under the front of the fillings and roll toward you as tightly as you are able. It takes practice to produce a non-floppy roll, but you can always eat your mistakes. Then cut the roll in half at an angle and place on your serving platter. Since all of these fillings go together you can add what you like when creating rolls.
Eat them as soon as you can after they are put together and serve with soy sauce, ginger and wasabi, if you like. Note that I did not include any quantities since I do not know how big you will be making your rolls. For the four of us I generally use about 12 ounces of kani kama and 12 ounces of albacore. If you live near Berkeley you can buy the fish at Tokyo Fish (1220 San Pablo Avenue) or Berkeley Bowl (2020 Oregon Street). They carry large pieces (about a pound or so) of frozen sashimi grade albacore that generally needs only minor trimming of fibrous material. I have rarely had to deal with a bloodline in these hunks of fish – which you always want to trim off and discard. The kani kama will also be available frozen. Buy the frozen fish a day or two in advance and let it thaw out in the fridge. The rest of the stuff can be found at any decent Asian market. Trust me.
Another hint is to keep everything dry. Wet lettuce, for example, will keep softening the wrappers and turn your rolls into mush. Keep moving your wrappers, too – don’t let them sit in the water too long. Even if they feel too firm when you take them out they will be soft enough when you need them because they will be in wet paper towels awhile. If the paper towels dry out, wet them. Wipe your knife off with a kitchen towel between roll cuttings. Finally, don’t yell at me if you feel these instructions are not detailed enough. Instead, just contact me if you want to know more. Believe me when I tell you that these rolls are worth learning how to deal with spring roll wrappers.