What’s for Diner? Tasty ROTISSERIE CHICKEN Napans rate locally prepared chickens in blind tasting Vendor Price C ost per lb. Source Appearance Aroma Skin Texture Juicines Flav or Firewood Café $17.50 $9.70 SF Poultry Petaluma √√ √√ √√√ √ √√ Whole Foods $9.99 $3.84 Mary’s Lodi √√√ √ √√√ √√ √√√ C Casa $14.75 $6.15 Mary’s Lodi √√√ √√ √√ √√ √√ Browns Valley Market $8.99 $3.00 Rocky Petaluma √ √√ √ √√ √ Vallerga’s $6.99 $2.91 Foster Farms √ √ √ √ √ by Lenore Hirsch At the end of a busy day, a pre-cooked chicken makes a quick and easy dinner—just add a vegetable or salad and it’s done. I’ve seen the rotisseries turning at several places and wondered, which one tastes the best? Who gives the highest quality for the price? Virtually every market in Napa has a rotisserie, so there are too many choices to taste them all. I asked friends for their favorites and posted the question on Facebook, then narrowed it down to five: Browns Valley Market, Whole Foods, Vallerga’s, C Casa, and Firewood Café. This would give a range of prices. These chickens are all humanely raised and vegetarian fed. Eleven friends accepted the invitation to do a blind tasting and to bring other dishes to accompany all that chicken. So how do you serve five chickens at the same time and have them all hot? If I bought them early in the day, I would have to refrigerate and reheat. The best plan was to pick them up late in the afternoon and keep them warm. I removed their wrappings, covered them with foil and put them in a warm oven. My tasters gathered around the table in front of the five chickens, identified only by number. These chicken-tasting friends took their part very seriously. One person suggested we rank the chickens from 1 to 5 on each measure I had set up: appearance, aroma, skin texture, juiciness and flavor. “Way too hard,” I said. “Give them zero to five points on each measure for a possible total of 25.” One guest contended she would only taste a wing from each bird, so as to be as objective as possible. Despite the dedication to the task, there were plenty of wisecracks. Looking at the chickens, the first thing we noticed was that some sat pertly on their platters, their little drumsticks tied together, and others lay askew with their legs splayed. Someone referred to the flat one with its neck still attached as “road kill.” The guests got busy sniffing, tasting and filling 18 www. n A PAVA L L E Y L I F E magaz ine . c o m out their rating sheets. One fellow joked, “Where do we spit?” Red and white wine flowed freely and chattering guests spilled outdoors. The dog monitored the floor around anyone having trouble balancing his plate. Before coffee and dessert I announced the preliminary results. Five of the twelve guests scored the Firewood Café chicken highest overall, three preferred the C Casa chicken, three liked the one from Whole Foods best and one chose the Vallerga’s chicken. None of the birds tasted bad, but I think that the packaging determined their appearance and ability to stand up to long periods kept warm. The Browns Valley and Vallerga’s chickens were packaged in cellophane bags. One of those bags opened on its own before I got it home, spilling hot juice everywhere. Both birds sat in liquid, ready to fall apart as I removed them from their bags. The chickens from C Casa and Whole Foods came securely packaged on chicken-shaped trays. Firewood’s came in a box. The way to get the best rotisserie chicken would be to pluck it straight off the rotisserie, take it home and eat it immediately. The two restaurants— Firewood Café and C Casa—serve diners most of the day, so their chickens are probably the freshest off the rotisserie. Who knows how long the other birds sat on warming trays before I picked them up? Three of the chickens weighed in at about two-and-a-half pounds. The Browns Valley chicken weighed three pounds, although some of that may have been liquid. Firewood’s chicken, the most costly of the batch, weighed less than two pounds, making it the most expensive per pound, although a side of herbed potatoes and French bread were included in the price. For a quality chicken at a reasonable price, I’d probably go to Whole Foods. For the final ratings see the chart below. The blind tasting produced a gleeful party. The guests enjoyed their time as food critics. On their way out the door, laughing friends suggested the next taste-off should tackle filet mignon. Yeah, right. Ribs, maybe? Here are the final panel ratings:
NVLife_JulyAug_2013
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