Perdue hatches a new product

I needed to grab a package of skinless, boneless chicken breasts last week to test the Garlic Lime Chicken recipe. Pawing over the packages, I noticed a new label on the Perdue chicken:

"USDA Process Verified: All Vegetarian Diet, No Animal By-Products, Humanely Raised, Raised Cage Free." Since the chicken breasts were reasonably priced, at around the $5 or so I'd expect to pay for three big pieces, I grabbed a pack. It was good, although it's hard to say whether it was noticeably better, since it was swimming in lime-butter sauce.

This morning, Jim Perdue dropped by The Observer to explain that label, the Verifiably Good program. "We're going back to basics," he said. Perdue spent three years working with the USDA to come up with a program for raising their chickens that meets the federal standards for all of those claims.

Perdue made it clear that what he was really interested in was chicken quality. Good feed and better conditions result in chicken that is more tender.

But he also understood that we consumers want some things, too. We want labels with claims that mean something, rather than "fresh" describing chicken that's so close to frozen you can rap on it with your knuckles. We want our chickens raised in conditions that don't break our hearts or turn our stomaches. And yes, we want a reliable product that doesn't cost so much we have to choose between buying chicken and making a house payment.

Besides reading the label, you can go to http://www.perdueverifiablygood.com/ and find definitions for all the standards on the label.

Keeping the price the same as their old "All-Natural" labeled chicken was important to him, he said. "You know, with this economy . . . " Yes, I know. I really do know.

North Carolina is the site for the new product's rollout. Why here? Well, it's the largest state where Maryland-based Perdue has operations. There's a Perdue cooking plant in Concord, processing facilities in Lewiston and Rockingham, and plenty of chicken farms that are under contract to Perdue.

"And my wife is from here," he said. She's a native of Rocky Mount, and they both went to Wake Forest. (Yes, he has a sister named Beverly Perdue, he's not related to the Beverly Perdue in the governor's mansion.)

To mark the rollout, the company is holding a contest, open to N.C. residents only. Make a video of yourself cooking Perdue chicken and you could win $500 in cash and $520 in coupons for the product. Get details on that at Verifiably Good Web site, too.

Forget turkey -- worry about chicken

In case you think food editors spend too much time fussing about how to handle chickens and turkeys, this morning's news from Consumer Reports is a timely reminder.

It seems the magazine tested fresh, whole broiler chickens bought in 22 states and found that two-thirds of them showed signs of contamination by salmonella and/or campylobacter, the leading bacteria involved in foodborne illness.

That was a slight improvement over the magazine's results in January 2007, when 8 of 10 broilers showed contamination. But it was still higher than results in 2003 that found 51 percent of chickens were contaminated. Here are the full results: http://www.consumerreports.org

To do the test, Consumer Reports used an independent lab to check 382 chickens bought from more than 100 supermarkets, gourmet, natural-foods or mass-merchandise stores in 22 states.

• Among the cleanest -- or bacteria-free -- were air-chilled broilers (60 percent were free of any pathogens).
• Among brands, Perdue broiler had the lowest rate of contamination (56 percent were free of both pathogens).
• Tyson and Foster Farms showed the highest rate (less than 20 percent were free of both).
• Store-brand organic chickens were free of salmonella but only 43 percent were free of campylobacter.

Before you get panicky, remember that bacterial contamination doesn't mean you can't cook the chicken. But it does mean that safe food handling is critical:

• • Choose chicken that is well wrapped and at the bottom of the case, where the temperature should be coolest. Make chicken one of the last things you put in your cart before heading to the checkout, and don't let it sit in a closed, hot car while you run other errands.
  • Store raw chicken in your refrigerator below 40 degrees for no longer than a couple of days. If you're keeping it longer, freeze it.
  • Thaw frozen chicken in the refrigerator or in cold water, checking frequently to make sure the water is cold. Never thaw poultry or meat on a counter. When the inside is still frozen, the outside can warm up, providing a breeding ground for bacteria. Cook thawed chicken right away.
  • Cook chicken to at least 165° degrees. Even if it’s no longer pink, it can harbor bacteria, so use a meat thermometer or instant-read thermometer to be sure.
  • Beware of cross-contamination. Wash knives and cutting boards with hot, soapy water after handling raw chicken, wipe up spilled juices with a paper towel and discard it, and don’t return cooked meat to the plate that held raw meat.
  • Refrigerate or freeze leftovers within 2 hours of cooking.

The Chicken Dinner Circuit

On such a rotten rainy day, I thought we could all use a lift. Mark Falls of Intuition Photography shared this shot from the Poulet Soiree last weekend at the Inn at New Town Farms in Waxhaw.

That's farmer Sammy Koenigsberg on the right in the vest, playing host (or maybe waiter). Joe Bonaparte was the chef for a menu that included chicken liver pate, pork rillettes, and 30 New Town chickens roasted over hickory.

I wasn't able to make it, but I like to think I played a small part. Chef Joe contacted me in advance for advice on how to peel extremely fresh eggs for deviled eggs without tearing them up. (I suggested shaking them in the pot to crack them after cooking and then let them sit for a little while in cold water to help ease off the shells. It apparently worked.)

So, What Did You Cook?

If there was a recipe for a perfect cooking weekend, this was it: Gray, cold, damp. Yeah baby!

I started off with a run to the Charlotte Regional Farmers Market for lettuce, mushrooms, green peppers, heirloom apples (mostly those winesaps with skins so dark, they look like burnished wood), a big chunk of Donnie Cline's Hubbard squash, parsley and cilantro, proscuitto and ground pork from Grateful Growers, whole-hog sausage from T&K and a loaf of French bread.

Saturday, I made oniony meatballs from pork and ground beef that got cooked in a from-scratch spaghetti sauce that night. I started a huge bowl of chicken pieces marinating for Chicken Marbella. I made a batch of bacony crackling cornbread to set aside for dressing Sunday night.

I tried a recipe for butternut squash and proscuitto roasted in a sauce of maple syrup, smoked paprika and chili powder. To up the green-vegetable ante, I tossed in a couple of cups of green peas -- remember that old favorite of green peas in a ring of mashed sweet potatoes? Same notion. It came out a little too sweet for spaghetti and had more syrupy juice than I expected, but was great with Sunday night's dinner.

That was Chicken Marbella, cornbread/sausage/apple dressing from "Silver Palate," and the leftover sweet-squash and peas.

I ran out of time for a batch of sofrito, but that's an easy weekday evening project. I didn't make dessert, but with the sweet squash, we didn't need it.

So how about you? What did you cook on a perfect food weekend?

It's the last Tuesday Tailgate Market

Is it that time already? Farmers markets and produce stands are starting to close down or reduce their hours. Tonight (Tuesday) is your last chance to swing by the Charlotte Tailgate Farmers Market in SouthEnd, at West Park Avenue and Camden Road.

Saturday morning markets will continue at the Tailgate until Oct. 24, then the market will take a break until the Saturday before Thanksgiving and reopen for a few Saturdays for Christmas trees and such.

If you're always meaning to stop by the Tailgate on Tuesdays after work, you really should. It's close to uptown offices and you can grab a few things to supplement your fresh-food stash during the week. It starts at 4 p.m. and goes on until 6 or so. Today's lineup includes fresh chicken, chicken and duck eggs, alpaca yarn, sweet potatoes, kale, apples, shelly beans, eggplants and a few other things. If you can't come up with dinner from that, you just aren't trying.