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).

 

 

 

 

 

Those ubiquitous strawberries

On some of the cooking blogs I follow I’m beginning to see the same plaintive question: “What new thing can I do with strawberries?’  You’ve made shortcake, and you’ve served the berries over biscuits and angel food cake. You’ve put out bowls full of sugared berries. What else can you do to capture that summer flavor? Here are some ideas.

Strawberry salsa

            These days we make salsa out of every fruit imaginable, but when I first made this, ten years ago, it was cutting edge. I proudly served it with corn chips on Easter Sunday and wouldn’t you know, one of our extended family refuses to even try anything with onions in it. But don’t leave them out.

Strawberry salsa

1 pint chopped strawberries

8 green onions

2 pints cherry tomatoes, chopped

¼ c. fresh cilantro, chopped

Mix together. Coat with a dressing made of:

6 Tbsp. olive oil

2 Tbsp. balsamic vinegar

Pinch of salt

Refrigerate at least an hour. Serve with tortilla chips.

Want a dessert? Here’s one simple and one more intimidating..

Strawberry fool

            This is basically strawberries and cream. Serves four.

1 cup strawberries, washed, stemmed, and sliced

2 Tbsp. sugar (divided)

2 cups whipped cream

1 tsp. vanilla

Cookies crumbs for topping (optional)

Toss the berries with one Tbsp. sugar.  Reserve a few slices for garnish, and puree remainder in blender, with vanilla, until smooth. Whip the cream with the remaining sugar. Gently fold the puree into the whipped cream.

Spoon into four small serving dishes or cocktail glasses. Top with crumbled cookies of your choice and/or reserved strawberry slices. Some recipes call for butter cookies, but I think Girl Scout thin mints would be exceptional if you happen to have them in the freezer.

Strawberry Pavlova

It isn’t that this is hard to make. It’s just that the idea of meringue is a bit intimidating. The late Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova, for whom the Pavlova dessert was named, is said to have been ethereal, delicate and slightly controversial. Her namesake, this simple confection, is a ethereal and delicate but there’s no controversy about the taste. As light and airy as you expect a ballerina to be.

Meringue

3 egg whites

¾ cup sugar

Pinch of cream of tartar

1 tsp. vanilla

            Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Be sure your bowl is perfectly clean and there is not a speck of yolk with your eggs—you do separate each into a separate dish, don’t you, so if you ruin one, you haven’t ruined the whole batch? Slowly add sugar as you beat, a tablespoon at a time. Beat until whites form glossy peaks.

Spread the meringue in a ten-inch circle on your prepared baking sheet—it might be wise to draw the circle on to give you a guide.

Bake 1-1/2 hours at 275. Turn off the oven but do not open it, no, not even to peek. Let the meringue dry six hours or more. Overnight is great—or all day.

For the strawberries;

1 pint strawberries—washed, stemmed, and halved or quartered

½ tsp. vanilla

1 tsp. balsamic vinegar

2 tsp. sugar

Combine above ingredients and let sit in a covered bowl at least 15 minutes. When ready to serve, whip

2 cups heavy cream

Carefully peel paper off pavlova and set it on a platter. With the back of a spoon, make a gentle indentation in the top. Don’t be alarmed if it cracks; it’s supposed to. Spoon whipped cream over the meringue and top with the berries. Serve at once, cutting very carefully into serving size pieces.

My cooking oddity for the day

I’m a big fan of Sam Sifton, food editor for The New York Times, but occasionally his experimentation goes too far for me. Like the other day when he offered a recipe for broccoli with apricot puttanesca. Puttanesca is a sauce for pasta that normally includes tomatoes, garlic, olives, and anchovies. The name comes from the Italian for prostitute, because those “loose women” served pasta with a sauce made of whatever was in their cuupboards.

            Apricot? Really/ With broccoli?