Prime Beef at Paulina

For the past month or two, Paulina Market has offered US Prime strips, porterhouses, and top sirloin steaks, fresh not frozen. Yes, previously the prime steaks at Paulina were only available frozen.

Another really nice item at Paulina is their Cajun ham, which they smoke fresh every Saturday. Around Christmas time, they also offer rind on and bone in pork loin roasts. I've special ordered a seven rib rack, which I'm picking up tomorrow. My favorite treatment for fresh pork is the dry marinade from Volume 1 of Julia Childs's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, where you make a dry rub of kosher salt, thyme, sage, bay leaf, allspice, and mashed garlic, pack this all over the meat, and let it sit for a few days. The meat comes out with an almost sausage like flavor.
I like to serve this with some creamy raclette potatoes, Dauphinoise style, and rum glazed carrots.

We get the Whole Smoked Turkey to serve as an appetizer at a large open house we do every year. Always a hit.

I also love their apple pork breakfast links - a christmas morning treat!

And hot lamb sticks. Man, it's been a while since I strolled over to Paulina. I need to order my turkey and my oysters (which they bring in by the pint for the holidays). It's nuts over there before Thanksgiving, but in a good way. I took some out-of-town guests there to pick up the bird a few years back and they loved it. A quintessential Chicago neighborhood experience. They pack a lot of interesting stuff into the small space, like so many of the greats do (Thai Grocery, Bari, La Unica, El Mercado, etc.)