Luxe Beat Magazine OCTOBER 2014 | Page 61

Epicure

Take-In Gourmet Dinners
By Sherrie Wilkolaski

dcuisine Entree
Yucatan Chicken

I

f you travel as much as I do, when
I finally get home, the last thing
I want to think about is cooking
a meal. Let’s be frank, even when
I’m home for a long stretch, I’m
not too keen on cooking. Instead,
I prefer to make things like soup,
or one-pot dishes that I can graze
on throughout the week, given my
hectic schedule. When I was asked
to try take-in gourmet dinners by
dcuisine, a test drive, I couldn’t
refuse. The idea of not having to
cook anything from scratch, with
the chance that a frozen meal would
be restaurant quality, sounded like
a good idea. Let’s talk about my
experience with this product.

IMAGES © DCUISINE

The first meal I tested out was the
guilt free Yucatan Stuffed Chicken
Breast. It was a “roasted chicken
breast stuffed with organic corn,
zucchini, and masa harina that
is served in a red pepper achiote
sauce finished with cilantro and
a hint of lime.”
Preparations started with a pot
of boiling water and removing my
frozen meal from the freezer.
I opened the slick black box, which
looks like a high-end take out
container, and in it found a vacuum
sealed bag with the meal tucked
inside. The frozen concoction was
dropped into a pot of boiling water

and cooked for approximately 30
minutes. I removed the bag from the
water, cut it open and slid my meal
onto my plate. It was lunch time and
I don’t typically eat a lot at that
time of day, so I only ate half of the
meal. It was good. My favorite part
was the zucchini and I wish the meal
would have had more of it. The
chicken was moist and the filling was
plentiful. The meal overall was good
and something that I wouldn’t
prepare for myself even if I had the
free time. However, it made a nice
change from my usual soup or cereal
lunch option. It would have been
nicer to have a little more kick to
the sauce, given the numerous spices
that were listed on the ingredients,
I did expect it to have a tad more
flavor. This meal retails for $15.
The next meal I tested was dcuisine’s
Nonna’s Meatballs and Marinara
Sauce. I was not properly introduced
to Nonna, but assuming she is
someone’s grandmother, my taste
buds were anticipating the homecooked flavor of this meal. Again,
into the boiling water my dinner
went, and as it submerged and
bubbled, I went to the pantry and
grabbed some pasta to accompany
the meatballs and sauce. This was
a “delicate blend of all natural beef,
veal, and pork blended with pecorino
cheese that is hand formed and

Nonna’s Meatballs
and Marinara Sauce

roasted, then simmered in a rich
tomato sauce finished with parsley
and basil.” I selected vermicelli and it
was ready just in time to be married
with the meatballs and sauce.
There were three meatballs and
ample sauce to blend with my pasta
and enough food to give me
leftovers for the next day. Rarely
do I eat meatballs, so it was a bit of
a treat. It was only after I finished
the meal that I read the box and
hadn’t realized there was veal in
this dish. If I had seen this prior to
eating it, I would have passed on the
meatballs and just entertained the
marinara sauce. I was in a rush and
just excited to have an easy to
prepare dinner that night. It was
generally a good, simple Italian meal.
This meal retails for $12 and does
not come with pasta.
These meals cannot be microwaved
and need about 30 minutes each to
prepare. The cost per meal is much
higher than you would pay for a
typical grocery store frozen dinner,
but portions were very good and
I was able to make two substantial
meals out of one helping.
Sam Metzger is the Founder & CEO
of dcuisine. In the 1980s, he brought
to America the Chipwich, the first
chocolate chip ice cream sandwich.

More than a billion Chipwiches were
sold and the brand was purchased by
Nestle. dcuisine is Metzger’s current
culinary project. Chef Ken Arnone is
Co-founder of dcuisine and a Certified
Master Chef, one of just 67 Certified
Master Chefs in the country.
Customers interested in the dcuisine
product can order meals directly from
the dcuisine website at www.
dcuisine.com. Orders can be as few
as four meals at a time or as many
items at they would like, whenever
they’d like. Unlike other online food
services, there is no subscription
required. dcuisine dinners are
shipped, packed in dry ice, on
Mondays. Orders received before
Monday at 3 AM Eastern Time will be
shipped that Monday. Orders received
after the Monday cutoff time will be
shipped the following Monday. All
orders are shipped by UPS,
guaranteed to arrive within three
days, anywhere in the United States.
If you’re looking for the convenience
of having takin-in frozen dinners on
hand, without the hassle of going to
the grocery store, dcuisine might be the
perfect fit. If you’re looking for a 3-star
Michelin meal, you’re still going to have
to go directly to the restaurant.
Thank you to dcuisine for providing
the meals for review.