Cooking with Costco
By Jen Madera - Costco Connection Magazine, December 2023
The holidays often mean a surge in cooking and baking. Whether you’re a professional chef, recipe developer or home cook, you need fresh, reasonably priced ingredients. Here’s a look at some recipes from chefs and recipe developers who use Costco products. Try them out for your holiday table and discover a new favorite.
Looking for something new to cook this season? How about a gourmet meal made with Costco products, featuring curated recipes provided by Costco members? Plus, get to know the experts behind the recipes. Whether you’re cooking for yourself, your family or a crowd, try a dish or two from food industry professionals.
Ty Kotz, a professional chef based in Charleston, South Carolina, shops at Costco regularly for fresh ingredients to use in his cooking. “What I love about the Costco products is the quality. The price too, but mainly the quality,” says Kotz. With more than 30 years of experience, Kotz has cooked in New York City restaurants, and now offers high-end dining experiences in people’s homes as a private chef. “Costco offers some great items around this time of year,” he adds.
Full article: https://www.costcoconnection.com/december_2023/page4.html
Recipe and photo courtesy of Ty Kotz
Shaved Spinach Salad
INGREDIENTS:
2 lbs baby spinach
1⁄2 lb pecorino
Romano cheese
2 cups pine nuts
3 lemons
3⁄4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 cups dried blueberries
Stack the spinach leaves, cut into thin strips and add to a large bowl. Using a microplane grater, grate the cheese into a bowl and set aside. Heat a large stainless steel or nonstick pan over medium. Add 1⁄2 of the pine nuts in a single layer. Cook and stir until pine nuts are golden brown, then place on a paper towel–lined plate. Repeat for the remaining pine nuts. Let the pine nuts cool completely. Juice the lemons and strain, then set juice aside.
In a large stainless steel or wooden bowl, combine the sliced spinach, cheese and pine nuts. Mix with tongs until well combined. Mix the olive oil and lemon juice. Drizzle 1⁄2 the dressing on the salad and toss, adding more dressing as desired. Top with the blueberries and gently stir in. Plate and serve imme- diately. Makes 10 to 12 servings.
Kotz offers these tips:
“This is an incredible dish for the holidays and guaranteed to create spinach fans all around the table. The key to this dish is preparing the spinach. Use a sharp knife and cut it as thin as possible. It is also very important to grate the cheese using a microplane to give it a soft consistency that melts into the salad as you mix it. Lastly, do not mix the salad ahead of time. Once ingredients are prepped, set them aside and mix right before serv- ing to keep the texture of the spinach intact.”