Taming the wild rooster

 

During pandemic, lots of us developed new interests and skills. For Jim Cox, friend of Jordan and Christian, it was salsa making. Wait! That’s not quite right. Jim says he’s been making salsa most of his life. Growing up in Midland, he worked in Mexican restaurants and says, “You always started the day by making salsa.” Besides, he’s the kind of guy always looking for something to do. So making salsa was a natural for him.

Jim has always made salsa according to his own taste, which is fairly hot. He says he’s his own judge of quality and flavor. His original Wild Rooster salsa is spicy, but then he developed a spicy variant. He’s now added salsa verde and is developing a barbecue sauce. Why the name Wild Rooster? He tells people his grandmother collected figurines of chickens and roosters, but privately he’ll admit it’s a play on his last name.

Going public was a learning process, and Jim credits Doug Renfro of Renfro Foods for mentoring him. (He also snuck in a plug for Mrs. Renfro’s Chow Chow, saying it’s the best to be had.) For public consumption, you have to insure the pH in salsa is below 3.8 to make sure people don’t get sick. At first, he and his wife, Kim, made the salsa in their kitchen and sold it at farmers’ markets. Today, he uses an Arlington company, County Fair Foods, which makes hundred-gallon batches to his specifications. The salsa is cooked, not raw, and canned in a hot water bath to make it shelf stable. 

Jim and Kim still spend a lot of weekends at farmers’ markets, and his oldest son, Connor, mans a booth at a market in Flower Mound. In Fort Worth, you can find Wild Rooster products at the Sunflower Shoppe on Camp Bowie or Burgundy Beef, the butcher on West Seventh. The product is also in an outlet in Dallas and in the Burgundy Beef store in Grandview.

We had a delicious Wild Rooster dinner at our house recently. I’m a wimp about spicy things, but Jim assured me the salsa verde is milder than the rojo versions—and he gave me the following recipe:

Crock Pot Verde Chicken

 1 package of boneless skinless chicken thighs (4-5) (or breasts)

 ½ jar of Wild Rooster Verde Salsa

 Spray the liner of the crock pot with canola oil, add the chicken and then pour the salsa over it. Cook on low for six hours. Shred the chicken to use in tacos, salads, rice bowls, enchilada’s, etc. For enchiladas, combine the remaining half jar of salsa and 8 oz sour cream in a saucepan and heat on a moderate flame. Do not bring to a boil just heat through to combine the ingredients. Roll the chicken inside corn tortillas, pour the enchilada sauce over the top, add cheese and broil in the oven until the cheese is melted.

We used the meat to make tacos, with tomato, cheese, avocado, lettuce, sour cream, and a sueeze of lime. Even spice-shy me loved it. Jim also suggests this recipe:

Tortellini Salsa and Alfredo

One 19 oz package of frozen or fresh cheese tortellini

1 cup of Original or Spicy Wild Rooster Salsa

1 cup of Alfredo sauce

1/2 cup of grated cheese (we use cheddar to give it a Mexican flare)

Combine the tortellini, salsa, and Alfredo sauce in a pan. Cook the tortellini per directions on the package. Once the sauce is hot, stir in the cheese and serve.

Read more about Wild Rooster at http://www.wildroostersalsa.com, on Facebook or Instagram (@wildroostersalsa).