Saturday, January 16, 2016

Eating in or out, Feast of the Seven Fishes is always the right choice

Fresh-water carp cooling their tails on the fish counter at the H Mart in Fort Lee, below.




By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

I'm lucky to eat an Italian-style Feast of the Seven Fishes maybe once a year.

But since I gave up meat and poultry more than five years ago, I usually enjoy a variety of fresh, heart-healthy seafood every week -- fresh, dried or from cans.

If you're concerned about mercury, concentrate on such small fish as sardines and anchovies, which are easy to incorporate into pasta sauce, and avoid large predators, including Chilean sea bass and giant bluefin tuna.

A fish salad with canned light skipjack tuna, pink salmon, sardines and chickpeas -- dressed with fresh lime juice, Dijon mustard, cumin and other spices -- makes a great snack or sandwich.

Most of the ingredients can be found at Costco Wholesale in Teterboro.

Whiting and Alaskan pollack, two cousins of cod, are widely available fresh or prepared at Korean supermarkets.

Pollack also is used in fish sticks and other items at Costco Wholesale.

If you prefer fresh fish, the Teterboro Costco usually offers fillets of cod, haddock and flounder, all wild; as well as wild whole red snapper or farmed branzino from Greece.

Costco also carries antibiotic-free Atlantic salmon fillets.

You can find wild-caught Gulf Shrimp at Whole Foods Market in Paramus ($14.99 a pound when on sale), and sometimes at H Mart.

Unlike Fairway Market in Paramus, the fish-counter workers at Whole Foods will gladly devein large wild shrimp.



A refrigerated case displays sashimi, fish eggs and other raw items opposite the main fish counter at the Korean supermarket in the Linwood Plaza shopping center on Fletcher Avenue in Fort Lee.

A tray of sliced raw salmon and other fish was $21.99.
You can't beat two eggs over easy, broiled whiting and terrific home fries at the Golden Grill, 1379 Queen Anne Road, Teaneck (a bargain at $7 with toast), and don't forget to accent your breakfast with Cholula Hot Sauce from Mexico, below.


Whole fresh whiting from the Fort Lee H Mart ($4.99 a pound), seasoned and pan-fried at home, go well with organic quinoa, organic diced tomatoes and garlic cloves; and sauteed cabbage and sweet peppers.

A center spine makes whole whiting and bigger whole King Whiting easy to eat.
A large Futomaki Roll from Maguro Sushi House, 430 Rochelle Ave., Rochelle Park, includes crab, egg, kanpyo (dried shavings of calabash, a gourd), spinach, cucumber and caviar. Also available in the cafe at Englewood Hospital and Medical Center, 350 Engle St. (about $8.60).

Slices of Wild Alaskan Smoked Sockeye Salmon, available year-round at Costco Wholesale, can turn a salad into dinner. The smoked salmon also is terrific in an omelet or as a snack when rolled with a slice of reduced-fat Swiss cheese and dipped in Dijon mustard.

Fillet of cod with roasted peppers was the centerpiece of a restaurant-quality takeout dinner from Jerry's Gourmet & More, 410 S. Dean St., Englewood, below. I plated the fish with a wedge of vegetable frittata and broccoli, leaving chicken dumplings and farfalle a la vodka for another family member.

A complete Meal To Go is $7.99 or $5.99 after 4 p.m., if there are any left.

A fresh fava bean salad from another Meal To Go, and pitted olives from Jerry's in Englewood. A 20-ounce container of olives was only $3.99.
Salted codfish or pollack is a staple at our house, and is especially good added to pasta sauce. Here, salted cod, boiled three times and rinsed to cut the sodium content, is paired with fresh ackee, the national fruit of Jamaica, and plated with leftovers. The dish, Ackee and Saltfish, is prepared with sweet and hot peppers, and usually served with boiled green bananas. 

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