Author: Justin

However, there are several unique aspects that make Ovation lamb much better than other New Zealand lamb programs:

The Ovation Difference: Chef Ready

Most of the cuts in the program are “Chef Ready” – immaculately cleaned further than their equivalents from other producers. That means you’re able to use them right out of the packaging without trimming.

Taking Extra Time for Extra Quality

All the Chef Ready cuts are all graded for top notch quality, and all cuts are carefully aged for a full 96-hours – longer than most other programs. This extra aging time brings the meat to the pinnacle of flavor & tenderness.

Chef Ready Cuts are Individually Weighed By Hand

This may be something chefs are more likely to notice than home cooks, but a lot of programs don’t weight grade their non-rack cuts…and the racks they often weigh by the 2-rack pack. That means your pack could have one big rack and one small rack – as long as they average to the right weight.

Ovation Chef Ready cuts are held to a much tighter standard – and they weight-range cuts that many other people don’t (shanks, bone-in legs & striploins).

For chefs this is very important to ensuring that every customer in their dining room gets an equal share (and one they can track the cost of effectively). For home cooks, the biggest benefit may be that Chef Ready cuts should cook at very similar times, making it easier to dial in that perfect Medium Rare.

Live Singing Pink Scallops

Live Singing Pink Scallops are a Pacific Northwest delicacy that’ve been off the commercial market for 20 years, now we’re excited to bring them to you! Their meat is tender, less sweet, and more complex than conventional scallops, and their shells are absolutely gorgeous!

Grass-Fed Beef:

Kurobuta Pork:

Make a bold statement on the plate with these luxurious, striking bone-in cuts. Tomahawk racks have extra-long Frenched bones, while the double-cut rib chops are tall on the plate & a truly generous serving.

Iberico Pork:

Incredibly moist, rich, and flavorful, Iberico pork collars are highly prized in Japan for slicing ultra-thin & searing.

Rabbit:

The top quality Grupo Hermi Spanish rabbit program is expanding into three new options! Rabbit striploins are tender portions of rabbit saddle meat, ready to use right out of the bag. Rabbit rib chops are small morsels of bone-in meat, perfect for appetizers or hors d’oeuvres. We also now offer ground rabbit which can be used in a huge variety of applications.

Bison:

Bison Ribeyes can be roasted whole before slicing or cut into bison ribeye steaks. Either way you’re assured bold flavor.

Specialty Produce:

Salmon Bites:

Thicker cut and more moist/tender than salmon jerky, these bites are a luxurious alternative with really interesting flavors.

New Grass-Fed Beef Jerkies:

We’re hooked on top quality grass-fed beef here at Marx Foods, and have been searching for half-a-year for a grass-fed jerky that’s similarly delicious. We’ve finally found two!

New Zealand beef jerky is actually smoked (instead of marinated with liquid smoke, which is common) over native Manuka wood for a smoke flavor that’s more elegant & balanced. It’s not overly sweet, with a peppery bite.

Biltong is South African-style beef jerky, which has a tangy from traditionally being flavored with vinegar and coriander. This version is also flavored with chile for a bit of kick.

In addition to the different seasonings, what makes biltong different from conventional American-style jerky is the drying process – biltong is dried as blocks, rather than strips, and then cut against the grain. This gives it a very different, softer texture.

New Insects:

Organic Cooked Chestnuts:

All the flavor & creamy texture of European chestnuts, with none of the work! These chestnuts are peeled & cooked, ready to open & use in desserts, stuffing, and other recipes.

Many New Edible Insects!

We’ve dramatically expanded our edible insect collection with the following varieties:

Organic Small Crickets

Mealworms

Large Field Crickets

Black Forest Scorpions

Weaver Ants

June Beetles

Orthoptera Mix
(Large & Small Crickets, Grasshoppers, Mole Crickets)

Mixed Edible Insects (Grasshoppers, Mole Crickets, Silkworm Pupae, Crickets & Sago Worms)

Locusts

Small Thai Crickets

New Snacks

Asiago Black Pepper
Cheesy Puffs
Yes.  Our high end food store now sells cheese puffs.  Ask yourself how delicious these must be to get us to do such a thing.

Thai Ginger Pickles

Duck, Pork & Orange Pate

Rougie Duck Rillettes

New Cocktail Mixers

Jack Rudy Extra Bitter Tonic

New Grains, Rice, Seeds & Flours

Organic Einkorn Flour

Organic Black Nile
Barley Flour

Rye Berries

Soft White Wheat Berries

Toasted Hemp Seeds

Dried Purple Corn

Dried Red Corn

Kermes Rice

Brown Arborio Rice

And More!

Spanish Picual Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Red Cardamom

Dried Rose Hips

Ground Sassafras Leaf (Gumbo File)

Black Garlic Powder

Whole Wheat Middle Eastern Couscous

Butterfly Pea Flower Powder

Lavender Blossoms

Fresh Mission Figs

Smoked Alligator Sausage

Expanded Wagyu Beef Collection
Our Australian Wagyu beef has been expanded with three top shelf cuts which make excellent roasts or can be easily cut into steaks:

• Whole Striploins
• Whole Ribeye Rolls
• Whole Top Sirloins

Carolina Reaper Chilies are Here!
Scared?  You should be.  Carolina Reapers are one of the hottest chiles on the block, with scoville numbers at insanity levels.

Other New Items

Culinary Argan Oil
Argan oil is a Moroccan delicacy pressed from roasted argan nuts that must be hand harvested in a very labor-intensive process.  It has a tasty toasty, nutty flavor, but is particularly prized for its very high antioxidant content.

Sour Cherry Preserves
Packed with Michigan Montmorency sour cherries, these preserves bring cherry-pie-like flavor to toast, yogurt, ice cream, sauces & more.

Duck Fat
Many chefs consider duck fat the most delicious cooking fat known to man.  Melt a spoonful in the pan and cook with it as you would bacon grease to impart incredible flavor.  Especially nice with potatoes!

Pineapple Turmeric Shrub
Fruity, tart, sweet & warming, this vinegar syrup is ready to bring the flavor of pineapple, turmeric, citrus & curry to sparkling water or cocktails.  Just in time to bring a taste of the tropics to your summer.

Incendiary Vinegar
Don’t let the name fool you, this vinegar isn’t spicy – it’s an intensely savory, umami-packed, tangy apple cider vinegar inspired by Fire Cider recipes.  Try it in vinaigrettes!

Malt Lager Worcestershire Sauce
This Worcestershire sauce puts most others to shame – it’s very complex with layers of varying umami, tanginess & sweetness seasoned with an intriguing blend of spices.

Cuttlefish Ink
A classic natural food coloring used in paella, pasta, risotto & more to turn it an inky black while imparting some brininess.

Smoked Honey!

Sweet, rich, and elegantly smoky – this honey blends the floral characteristics of wildflower honey with cold white oak smoke – a fascinating addition to cocktails, dressings, sauces, desserts, fruit salads & more!

Other Pantry Items

Organic Kaniwa

Granulated Lemon Peel

Green Serrano Chile Powder

Dried Lupini Beans

Maple Buds

Sweet, floral maple buds are the young growths of big leaf maple trees.  They’re prized by foragers for use in fritters, teas & syrups.

We’ve missed the season this year, but keep an eye out for them next spring!

We love Link Lab Sausages at Marx Foods.  They’re handmade, chef-quality sausages produced by a Seattle company in small batches from local, responsibly-raised meats.  The level of quality is top notch, and you can tell due to their more tender texture, the pronounced “snap” of natural casings, and superior flavor.

Watch our behind-the-scenes producer spotlight video (below) to learn more about them, and check out the varieties to pick out your new favorite!

Shiro Plum & Mint Jam

The label says it all, but it doesn’t do the flavor of this plum & mint jam justice.  The balance between the tangy, fruity, sweet plum & herby, fresh spearmint is spot on, and that makes all the difference.  Jam of this quality isn’t just for toast.  Try it with fine cheeses, in sauces, on desserts or stirred into yogurt, or shake/stir some into your next vinaigrette.

Pasteli Sesame Bar

Snack like ancient Greek warriors (seriously, this stuff was mentioned in The Illiad) with Greek pasteli bars.  These delightful treats have only two ingredients: sesame seeds & Greek honey.  They’re super-duper tasty and were used as energy bars by Greek athletes & soldiers.

Red Boat Chef’s Cuvee Fish Sauce

Red Boat is the chef’s favorite fish sauce brand, offering superb flavor for the price.  Their chef’s cuvee fish sauce is even more special.  After the sauce comes out of Red Boat’s traditional cask-fermenting process, it gets aged again in bourbon barrels, making its flavor incredibly smooth.  It’s amazing stuff.

We love St Jude tuna here at Marx Foods.  This local, family owned & operated tuna fishing boat brings in excellent catch & cans it with care.  The level of quality is far superior to the mass market stuff.

We now offer two varieties: Solid White Albacore (in its own juices) & Solid White Albacore in Olive Oil.

Italian Honey

Mieli Thun is a small Italian honey company selling the wares of Andrea Paternoster, a nomadic beekeeper.  Andrea moves his bees around Italy in tune with the flowering seasons of various plans, collecting superb monofloral honey varieties with unique characteristics.

These unique flowers make a mild herbal tea when steeped in hot water.  Much more exciting however is how they color the water, turning it a gorgeous blue.  Stir in an acidic ingredient like lemon juice, and it shifts before your eyes into a deep royal purple.

Use butterfly pea flowers to make tea, simple syrup for cocktails, colored ice cubes, rice & more.

Ground from fiery chilies commonly found in the cuisines of Central America, the Caribbean & the Yucatan.

Grassy & a touch spicy, green poblano chile powder brings different flavors to your dishes than mulato chilies & ancho chilies (both made from poblanos).

We added a full line of succulent Iberico pork cuts to the store last month, but we have one more to add to the collection: back fat (aka fat back).  Iberico pork fat is sweet, creamy, and highly prized by chefs in-the-know.

Paw Paws aren’t in season yet, they typically show up in September…but we’re ready for when they do!  Check out the new product page for more information about this unique native American fruit!

More Spanish Ingredients:

Crisp & juicy like jicama, but quite sweet, this unusual root stores its starches as inulin, which our bodies can’t break down, so it’s lower calorie than you’d think.  Everyone in the office really liked it.

Piney, herby, and citrusy, spruce tips are becoming all-the-rage in fine dining restaurants and high end cocktails. They’re typically in season from mid April to mid May.