COOKING IS HARRRRD: a reminder that grocery store rotisserie chicken is a time-saving modern miracle
Plus: Japanese rolled omelets, pizza burgers, Carolina Gold rice, and a giant pancake flipping robot
Apologies for the delay on this one, friends: got a late start and had some technical issues; but we’re all good now. Thanks for your patience.
Modern home cooks look for whatever reasonably wholesome shortcuts they can get away with when feeding them and theirs — and while some of those store-bought solutions aren’t exactly triumphs of taste and nutrition (I AM LOOKING AT YOU, LUNCHABLES) I think we can all agree that, for even the moderately resourceful kitchen nerd, the grocery store rotisserie chicken is dependable, usually delicious, and convenient AF.
To clarify: I’m not talking about a rotisserie chicken broken down and served as a mealtime main (though, of course, it excels in this role); we’re talking bringing a bird home with the express purpose of picking its carcass apart (a task made easier if you do it while still warm but cool enough to handle) and using every last molecule of the dark and white meat in just about any non-whole chicken part chicken recipe you can think of, to be served the same day or used for a number of dishes in the days to come.
For those of you who’ve already been using these chickens to perform weekday culinary magic for years, or for those of you who are just figuring out what a timesaver they can be — there’s a reason why those birds seem so flavorful and versatile: most of the poultry used for grocery rotisserie are injected with a brine (similar to what’s done to Thanksgiving turkeys) to keep them moist and fully seasoned under high rotisserie heat. It’s also why some cooks have given up on roasting chickens at home, thinking a store-bought roast bird always turns out always better than what they can do (NOT TRUE, BELIEVE ME, YOU CAN DOO EET — but that’s not what this issue is about.)
Anyhoo: weekday cooking is a chore, but no meal has to be boring or ordinary. This is just a reminder that, with a couple of rotisserie boids in hand at the beginning of the week, you can make some of those meals a lot easier on yourself, and tasty, too.
And for GOD’S SAKE, SAVE THE LEFTOVER CARCASSES FOR STOCK.
For all of the following recipes: feel free to sub in rotisserie chicken in for whatever the recipe requires.
Things you should make:
Tamagoyaki (Japanese Omelet): Daniel Gritzer from SE learns how to make THAT OMELET from THAT GUY from Jiro Dreams of Sushi.
Rachel’s mom has a blog and she wrote about making pizza burgers for some longtime friends and they have shredded Spam in them and they look absolutely fearsome and more like a meatloaf but I bet they will be absolutely delicious if you make them.
Quesadillas With Sweet Potato Instead of Cheese: “I think it's safe to say that the phrase "They're coming to take away your cheese!" has never been uttered in recorded history—or, at least, uttered and meant. Or, at least, uttered and meant literally.* Yet you'd think it was one of the great fascist plots of our time based on the reaction I got when I suggested that swapping mashed roasted sweet potatoes for cheese in a quesadilla makes for a delicious treat.”
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Links:
Carolina Gold rice almost disappeared from the South. It’s making a slow and delicious comeback.
Le Corbuffet was a series of performances by artist Esther Choi that sought to bring together food with notable artists and designers, along with a healthy dose of puns. A cookbook based on the project will be out in October: Le Corbuffet: Edible Art and Design Classics.
Other dishes include Rhubarbara Kruger Compote, Shigeru Banchan Two Ways, Yokonomiyaki, Rem Brûlée, and the Robert Rauschenburger.
The back-to-school apparel available at the Taco Bell online shop falls within an aesthetic I think I’d be into if I was a teen right now, while fully acknowledging teenage Theo would never be cool enough to wear any of it.
Videos:
From The New York Times: “In the late 1960s, Haddon Salt built a fast food empire. Then Kentucky Fried Chicken came knocking. Read the story here.”
Babish and Souza from ATK wanna make some Uncle Buck-ian pancakes. They get some tech help.