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Cookoos Rotisserie Chicken is a labour of love for owner Joe Boussidan who grew up in the area for most of his life. Now when Joe, who is an orthodox Jew, decided to make the jump from a printing career to the kosher food business, he wanted to do it right. He told me he had a lot at risk. He was 40 and had six kids at home!

So he put in 18 months of traveling and researching before he settled on making wood fired rotisserie chicken. He was originally interested in making wood oven pizzas because there wasn't a kosher place doing that. So as part of his research he went to L.A., visited Wolfgang Puck's restaurant and Spagos to learn about the process.

Once he decided on the oven, he realized pizzas are much more complicated than he first thought and decided chicken would be a better bet.

In order to test his wood fired oven though, he needed kosher chickens which he brought with him on the plane. Needless to say when he pulled out his three kosher chickens from his briefcase, he ended up giving a quick lesson in kosher food. But when he tasted the chicken later back in his hotel room, he was blown away by the wood fire flavour and Cookoos was born. That was two years ago.

He admitted that in the beginning it was a struggle because wood burns at a much higher temperature and can be finicky. But over time, he told me he became one with the fire.

The chicken definitely has a unique smoky flavour like chicken cooked over a camp fire. He uses a mix of apple, maple and oak wood which adds a great flavour to the meat.

On top of the rotisserie chicken, he also has hamburgers, grilled chicken sandwiches and Chinese food! As Joe says, Jewish people love Chinese food and enough customers asked him to put it on the menu so he obliged. He has items like General Tao and sweet and sour chicken, lo mein noodles and giant spring rolls. All the food is made fresh every day.

Go to the link to read more and hear the audio:

http://www.cbc.ca/metromorning/beyondburgers/2007/04/cookoos_rotisserie_chicken.html

Q: I heard you recently provided catering services for a bar mitzvah that were well received. Tell me about that?

A: Catering, by nature, comes to you because of the product that you are selling to the individual. We generally sell on a one-to-one basis, that causes the trust value to grow between us and our customers and causes that customer to think of us when they have an event or function that needs to be catered. I only cater to the ones that aren’t very large so that catering does not take away from the restaurant that requires a lot of attention and maintenance. If someone wants catering of a simple nature for a Kiddish, or Shiva, or a Shabbaton, I will provide catering services and I will elevate these services to a more interesting level. This will create some very positive exposure within the Jewish community. Therefore, I can stick to what I do now and expand the market in a comfortable manner.

Q: Your coleslaw is delicious. How do you get it to be so delectable?

A: Joe Boo’s mayonnaise was crafted to perfection by a group of people. .Normally, when coleslaw sits out, it gets soggy. So, I produced slightly thicker cut coleslaw than what’s available on the market. The cabbage in Joe Boo’s coleslaw, has more of a taste than minced coleslaw.. This coleslaw characteristically has more of an enjoyable crunch to it. To make it more interesting, we added mayonnaise, honey, mustard, salt, pepper and lemon juice. We don’t make large batches of our coleslaw at one time, because mayonnaise tends to separate and develop into a film of water and mayonnaise. We therefore make approximately 10 pounds daily, therefore keeping everything fresh and current.

Q: Tell me about your ample enriched condiment bar?

A: Our condiments were all picked and tested in and established according to our customers’ responses. We chop our own lettuce, onions, pickles, and tomatoes. When searching for the “perfect” pickle, an integral part of any sandwich, we decided to go with Mrs. White’s original brine. Aside from that we have olives and hot peppers. In terms of sauces we chose ketchup, mustard and regular mayonnaise. We developed our own spicy mayonnaise and last of all we use the barbeque sauce that we put on the ribs. We also tried a line of mustard from Wobblers.

Q: Where do you get you’re baked goods for you’re buns? How are they special?

A: When we decided on an appropriate size and the formatting for the bun, we went to the non kosher markets e.g.  Quiznos, Mr. Sub, Subway. We intended the bun to be wide enough so that we could load it up with condiments. We decided on a length and width of three inches by nine inches long. We chose Grodsinkis bakery and ordered white and whole wheat baguettes. When choosing a bakery we made sure that the baker knew how to make the bread dough rise to provide an airy enjoyable texture to accompany our delectable meats.

Q: I think you’re burgers are absolutely delicious. What do you put into them that’s so special?

A: A burger-meat on the market can be one of two things. The lower ends of burger merchants take the burger meat and they combine it with an imitation soya bean. This addition can allow one pound of beef to yield three pounds. This process wasn’t to my liking because customers are not getting “real” beef. The Soya bean is a dry fiber and when combined with beef in a burger, the juice content declines and the meat loses integrity.  I decided to take the second route burger producing route and go with 7 ounces of 100% beef. We use some egg and a little bit of bread crumbs to bind the meat together into a nice patty. We take crushed garlic, crushed onion, thyme, basil, salt and pepper and hand roll the burger. Hand-rolling prevents the rubbery texture that machines give patties. Normally, a butcher will take the remnants of the carcass and put these leftover into the meat. We therefore, decided to find a meat of the purest nature to use for our burgers. Of course some cartilage will be included but no indigestible spoils will are put in our meat like bone, tissue or organ tissue. We looked for a meat that was palatable and is free of indestructible particles. We provide meat that is fresh, real and completed with our secret ingredient; fire. It is a really big hassle to uphold a charcoal and wood burning grill because one deals with a natural source, that must be maintained. The oven has different types of wood and moisture content that affect the extent of the maintenance. However, we have a passion for our food and we are mainly interested in producing the best possible product. Maintaining the wood burning oven, however tedious, is simply a labor of love.

Q: I had the ribs last night. They were absolutely wonderful, can you talk about them?

A: The rib-making process was structured according to research done with Texas cookbooks that generally suggest that ribs should be slow cooked for 6 hours. The ribs would have to absorb flavor and become exceedingly tender, to the point that the meat would just fall off the bones. First, we roast our ribs in the oven and finish and then we throw them on the grill and smother them with sauce.

Q: What’s in the sauce, can you talk about it?

A: The sauce is a barbeque sauce seasoned with garlic, paprika, onion, salt, pepper, and vegetable seasoning.

Tell us home many chickens are on that rotisserie and you can win a yummi chicken dinner at Cookoos.

Sent your email to holiver@whatifwhatnext.com. 

Call 905-886-8686 to order.

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Cookoos is the only spot in the GTA equipped with a 10-spit, wood-fired rotisserie. The aroma/taste sensation of smoky, succulent chicken has created loyal fans.  People from all ethnic groups are drawn to chicken cooked over wood – just like back home.  Cookoos was recently featured (Dec. 17, 06) in the Toronto Star by Jennifer Bain. Her headline said it all: “The birds are smokin’ – Wooden you know it; the GTA’s best rotisserie chicken is cooked over cherry and oak logs in Thornhill.”

Cookoos  rotisserie has been designed to our strict specifications. Its massive, high-temperature ceramic firebox stores and radiates the heat of the fire.  It doesn't drip onto the fire and cause bitter, acrid smoke to bathe the food; this allows the subtle flavors of our apple, cherry, oak, ash and maple fuel wood to standout. Our customers can see the mouthwatering food gently rotating through the wall of flame.  It's no mystery why people love our food!

Can you get wood-fired flavor from a gas-fired rotisserie or charbroiler?  No! There's no better way than a wood fire to get that subtle smoked flavor in our chicken, burgers, streaks and hot dogs. 

We are the only establishment in the GTA to offer this down home, wood-fired yumminess!

There is one more element to the story of naming Joe Boo’s Cookoos. Joe Boo is the owner’s nickname and “cookoos” alludes to cuckoo clocks, but Boussidan also admits to an unusual fondness for “hard c” food words. “The hard ‘c’ I liked because we have a lot of foods in the Jewish experience with that sound- like knich, kreplach, kugel and kiska.  “C’s are very good by food”.

The birds are smoking: Wooden you know it: the GTA’s best rotisserie chicken is cooked over cherry and oak logs in Thornhill.

A young Joe Boussidan earned the nickname of Joe Boo. Later, at a life altering moment when forced to choose between dueling food and printing careers, the Hamilton native launched a kosher chicken eatery with the image of a cuckoo clock in his mind. And so Joe Boo’s Cookoos was born in June 2004.

The restaurant, mainly takeout, with just a few spots to eat in-is outfitted with a 10-spit wood-fired rotisserie from an American company called Wood Stone. Boussidan traveled top the US with 3 kosher chickens jammed into his briefcase to test-drive a new demo model before deciding to buy it.

At first he was lukewarm to the taste of his demo birds, but 90 minutes later when pulling leftovers from his trunk “the aroma completely blew into my face, all the flavors had settled and it was the juiciest, most tastiest chicken I’d ever had”.

The aroma/taste sensation is recreated in Thornhill, where Boussidan has spent 2 ½ years perfecting the art of smoking chicken over a mix of quartered apple, cherry, oak, ash and maple logs. Also on the menu: steaks, burgers, hot dogs and chicken fillets/kebabs cooked on the rotisserie’s grill, deep-fried chicken wings ( the honey garlic works for me), Middle Eastern salads and a handful of sides.

This blog has been created by What If What Next, a Toronto PR firm. Visit our home site at http://www.whatifwhatnext.com/ and our blog at http://prmeasure.blogware.com/.

Media contact:

Howard Oliver, Principal, What If What Next, holiver@whatifwhatnext.com or 416-638-8582.