Wild sockeye salmon with organic diced tomatoes, garlic, fresh herbs

Fresh wild Copper River Sockeye Salmon from Alaska was $14.99 a pound at the Costco Wholesale in Teterboro on Thursday or $2 less per pound than the week before.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

A rich reduction of organic diced tomatoes, sliced garlic and red wine is delicious over grilled wild sockeye salmon fillets.

You'll need a 10-inch non-stick pan to thicken the tomato mixture and a stove-top grill for the skin-on fillets, which cook through in about 7 minutes over a medium-high flame -- less if you like them on the rare side.

A 1.65-pound fillet from Costco Wholesale yielded six serving portions -- plenty of heart-healthy fish to serve four ($24.73).

First, I sauteed thinly sliced garlic in olive oil until it was fragrant, then added a 14.5-ounce can of Kirkland Signature Organic Diced Tomatoes, a couple of ounces of red wine, the juice from one lime and seasonings, including red-pepper flakes and ground black pepper.

I brought that to a boil in a partially covered pan until the tomato juices and wine mostly evaporated, then grilled the salmon.

Once the fish was transferred to a platter, I added the garlicky tomato mixture and chopped herbs from my garden (mint, rosemary and basil).

If you have Kirkland Signature Basil Pesto in the refrigerator, a half teaspoon or more on top of the tomatoes would be a perfect accent.

Salmon, organic diced tomatoes, peeled garlic, pesto and seasonings are available from Costco Wholesale.

A 3-pound bag of peeled Christopher Ranch California Garlic was $7.39 at the Teterboro Costco.

My stove-top grill straddles two burners and easily accommodates six to nine pieces of salmon. I use spray oil and a medium-high flame and turn the fish in the last 2 minutes of cooking.

A platter of heart-healthy wild salmon, organic diced tomatoes and garlic.

Another use for Costco's peeled garlic is a 10-inch frittata with chopped garlic, black olives, grated cheese, fresh tomatoes and pesto, served here with sweet potatoes that were boiled with whole cloves, then mashed, using extra-virgin olive oil and seasonings, including cinnamon, curry powder, red-pepper flakes and black pepper.

Pour about 3 cups of liquid whites or whole eggs -- including plenty of chopped garlic, grated cheese and olives -- into a 10-inch pan over medium-high heat until the crust sets, then move the pan to the oven, where the top of the frittata will set and brown nicely under the broiler. Add Kirkland Signature Basil Pesto and chopped fresh herbs after you take the pan out of the oven.

You can prepare whole garlic cloves, organic diced tomatoes and organic brown rice in an electric cooker. The cloves will turn creamy.

On Friday, Baby Bok Choy was on sale for 88 cents a pound or half price at the H Mart, 25 Lafayette Ave., in Englewood. I sauteed nearly 2 pounds with olive and sesame oils, sake and seasonings.

For a dinner salad, I enjoy Earthbound Farm Organic Spring Mix with hothouse tomatoes and cucumbers -- dressed in extra-virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar -- over reheated organic brown rice.

H Mart sends out store coupons

Image by wallyg via Flickr

The biggest H Mart in Bergen County is in Ridgefield.

Tuesday's mail held a surprise -- a booklet of discount coupons from H Mart, the Korean supermarket chain with four stores in Bergen County.

The coupons give you a discount on produce; kimchi, poultry, meat and seafood; spicy soup mix, small appliances and other items. They are valid from June 18-July 1 or July 2-17.

I applied for an H Mart 1% cash rebate card a few months ago, and the coupons were sent to my home.

The booklet contains a "low-pricing pledge."

"H Mart is dedicated to giving you low prices every day. Not once in a while. Not once in a blue [moon]. But all day every day."

The store's prepared items are a great introduction to Korean food, if you haven't already discovered its vibrant colors and flavors. 

We regularly buy finger maki -- seaweed rolled around rice and crunchy vegetables -- stewed Alaskan pollock, potatoes or tofu in a spicy red-pepper sauce; and translucent noodles made from yam flour and mixed with vegetables.

H Mart is also our main source of whole fresh fish, such as the trio of sea bass my wife brought home on Monday.

The chain sponsors "Kimchi Chronicles," a PBS series with Chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten that began on June 5 and can be seen locally on WNET. 

The H Mart in Englewood was just renovated, and there are stores in Fort Lee, the newest; Little Ferry, the dowdiest; and Ridgefield, the biggest. H Mart also has a store in Edison.

H Mart Web site

A salty Chinese tale

I had lunch with a friend at P.F. Chang's China Bistro in Hackensack on Tuesday, and three of the four dishes we tried were too salty.

My friend had a lunch special, beef and broccoli served over white or brown rice ($9.45). She liked the beef, but said overall, the dish had too much salt.

I choose three half-portions of vegetables: spinach with garlic, spicy green beans and Sichuan asparagus ($2.95 each). There was no charge for a bowl of brown rice.

The spinach was perfect, each vibrant-green leaf glistening with oil, but the sauces with the green beans and asparagus were so salty I didn't bother spooning them over the rice and tried to pick out just the vegetables.

Next time, I'll ask to have all the vegetables prepared with just garlic or see if there are any low-sodium options on the menu. Or I'll go to Lotus Cafe in Hackensack for lunch.

I looked around P.F. Chang's during our lunch and noticed a large majority of the 215 seats were empty, despite its location in Bergen County's premier shopping center.

P.F. Chang's China Bistro, 390 Hackensack Ave., 

Suite 50, The Shops at Riverside; 201-646-1565.

Back in control

After a four-day visit to Montreal, where I couldn't always find healthy food, I was glad to return and do some food shopping.

I picked up another large fillet of fresh, wild salmon from the Copper River in Alaska at Costco Wholesale in Hackensack for the bargain-basement price of $8.99 a pound.

I cut the fillet into six portions and baked them for 20 minutes with fresh lemon juice, coarse Aleppo red pepper and chopped mint and cilantro from the garden.

I had two portions for dinner, with a salad, and another this morning over salad with sun-dried and fresh tomatoes, hummus and a Korean stewed potato.

I never saw wild salmon on menus in Canada.

Free-range beef

ShopRite is selling Nature's Reserve free-range, grass-fed Whole Beef Tenderloin for Filet Mignon from Australia for $4.99 a pound with a store card through June 18.

Fire sale on Copper River wild salmon

Image via Wikipedia

The Columbia University campus in Manhattan, above, is expanding to the Riverside Drive viaduct near Fairway Market in Harlem.

Fresh Copper River salmon for $8.99 a pound?

That's got to be a mistake, I thought as I looked at the label of a shrink-wrapped foam tray holding a fillet in Costco on Saturday evening.

On May 21, when the first fresh wild salmon of the season from the famed Alaskan river arrived at the Hackensack warehouse store, it was priced at $13.99 a pound. The second fillet I bought a week or so later also was $13.99 a pound.

Usually, the Copper River salmon is gone in a couple of weeks and is replaced by fresh wild salmon from the northwestern United States, though often the place isn't specified, but last year, it was priced at $8.99 a pound.

I asked an employee, and he said as far as he knew, the label was correct. I mentioned the price for Copper River salmon was $13.99 a week ago, and he shrugged.

My deep orange-red fillet of sockeye salmon weighs 1.66 pounds, and was only 49 cents a pound more than the insipid, pale, artificially colored farmed salmon at the other end of the refrigerated seafood case.

Fairway's Harlem store

We attended a graduation in upper Manhattan on Saturday morning, so it was only natural to stop at Fairway Market on the way home -- the store I shopped in now and then before the Paramus outpost opened its doors in March 2009.

The New York store has old-fashioned outdoor produce displays -- there was a  big box of watermelons in the parking lot -- but this is no longer the store of $4.99 a pound coffee beans or $2.99 store-label pasta sauce.

Of course, you can say that about prices at just about every supermarket.

I hadn't shopped here in more than a year, but for a mid-afternoon Saturday, I was surprised at how uncrowded the store was.

Still, expecting a crush, I had dispatched my wife to the unique cold room -- essentially, a large, refrigerated room with the butcher and fish counters, dairy and other products -- for goat meat, while I went to get a couple of pounds of custom-ground coffee beans.

We always bought our goat meat at the Harlem store, usually frozen for under $3 a pound -- a better price than anywhere in North Jersey -- but the Parmaus store never carried it. On Saturday, we found fresh goat meat on the bone for $4.79 a pound, but only one package.

I also picked up two pounds of coffee beans (Turkish grind) for $7.99 and $8.49 a pound, and two, 32-ounce jars of Fairway vodka sauce for $4.49 each.

After I got my coffee, I went to the cold room to discover it had been completely made over. At the fish counter, I saw wild salmon on ice for around $15 a pound, but none labeled with the place of origin.

A woman mentioned she had a second home in Canada, near a salmon farm, and added: "You wouldn't believe what they put in there," a reference to feed pellets that color the fish artificially and antibiotics to prevent the salmon from getting sick in close quarters.

Mirroring changes inside the store, the neighborhood is being remade. The biggest potholes have been rearranged, catching us unawares as we left the store and drove to the West Side Highway.

And east of the parking lot, a huge construction project by Columbia University force the relocation of Dinosaur Bar-B-Que to 125th Street, from under the shadow of the Riverside Drive viaduct, and the demolition of many buildings.

Restaurant prices

Two of our favorite restaurants in Hackensack have raised their prices.

We had dinner Saturday night at Wondee's Fine Thai Food & Noodles, and were handed new menus with higher prices, but the new takeout menus haven't arrived yet.

For example, one of our favorite dishes  -- steamed whole fish with chili pepper, garlic and lemon juice -- is now $18, compared with $14.95 before.

With Greek fish houses charging $32 for a whole fish, this still is a bargain.

We had a great meal of spicy shrimp-and-mushroom soup; mock duck salad with fruit in a piquant tamarind dressing; soft-shell crabs in Panang curry, and vegetable fried rice.

Wondee's Fine Thai Food & Noodles,

296 Main St. Hackensack; 201-883-1700.

Lotus Cafe

I stopped at Lotus Cafe for a copy of its special fixed-price and banquet menu, and noticed dinners for four to 10 people have gone up, the former to $66 from $59 and the latter to $238 from $208. 

If you leave a 20% tip, a six-course dinner for four now is $20.95 per person, including tax. An 11-course banquet for 10 -- including Peking duck, prawns, filet mignon and a whole fish -- is $30.25 per person, tax included. 

This is among the best Chinese food in North Jersey. I've enjoyed the dinners for four and six people a number of times; the food is wonderful and the portions are generous.

I didn't look at the regular menu, which reflects the same quality, but expect prices have been adjusted there, too.

Lotus Cafe, 450 Hackensack Ave., in the Home

Depot Shopping Center, Hackensack; 201-488-7070.

Pacing around with no food shopping to do

Despite all the little details you have to attend to before vacation, one thing you don't have to do much of is food shopping. You'll want half-gallons of milk and orange juice with sell-by dates of a week or so after you return and not much else in the way of fresh stuff.

My wife stopped at ShopRite this week for Applegate Farms cold cuts (no antibiotics, hormones or other additives), some salad greens and some fruit, and at Balthazar Bakery for the baguettes we'll use to make sliced ham, chicken and turkey sandwiches for the first day of our road trip. I'll go to Costco tomorrow for bottled water to keep in the car and smoked wild salmon I'll stow away for our return.

What I really miss when we go away are the familiar foods, familiar takeout and familiar restaurants. When we returned from Barnegat Light the other day, I enjoyed a light dinner of the wild Copper River salmon I had cooked several days before, straight from the frig, with some tuna-sardine salad (extra-virgin olive oil, chopped red onion, cumin), kimchi, olives and pita. With the first bite, I knew I was home.

Bitten hard by the food-shopping bug

In trying to cut down on our food shopping, I went without pita and hummus for more than a week and kept my vow to visit Costco only once a week. But on my trip to the warehouse store this afternoon, there was no Copper River wild salmon under the sign, meaning I will have to return tomorrow or go elsewhere for fresh fish.

I finally broke down and drove to Paterson yesterday, buying bread and other items at Fattal's, Nouri's and Taskin, a Turkish bakery. I haven't been to Nouri's for more than 10 years and found that prices at this longtime rival of Fattal's seem to be lower. When I got home and looked closely at the pita I purchased at both bakeries, I saw that a dozen medium-size pitas from Nouri's ($1.35) weighed 2 ounces less than a dozen from Fattal's ($1.50). Indeed, Nouri's bread is thinner.

At Fattal's, I picked up fragrant meat pies; small, pickled eggplants I had first mistaken for large olives, Moroccan sardines in spicy oil (99 cents a can); and canned hummus from Lebanon ($1.09). At Nouri's, I found fresh za'atar bread, olive oil soap ($1.19), apricots that I roast with chicken ($3.29 a pound) and a pound of sumac to sprinkle on salads (at home, I asked myself, why do you need a pound of sumac?).

At Taskin, the bread is large, thick and fluffy, so I picked up a regular loaf and one of whole wheat. I also bought borek, a thick tube of bread dough filled with seasoned potato. Taskin was out of cheese borek and cheese and spinach, so I was told to call next time and have some put aside.

Copper River salmon and Costco: Perfect together

On my weekly visit to Costco in Hackensack today, I found fresh wild sockeye salmon from the Copper River in Alaska for an unbeatable price, $9.99 a pound. I read that a seafood restaurant in Bergen County is charging $36 for a portion of this glorious fish.

My wife was wowed by the color -- a deep pink-orange that makes artificially colored farmed salmon seem even paler than it is. And all of us were bowled over by the taste. I cooked mine for barely nine minutes in a 350-degree oven and the rare fish just melted in my mouth. The portions for my wife and son were baked for about 12-13 minutes and they were moist and delicious.

I bought a 2.3 pound fillet and cut it into eight portions. I did three with a herbed seafood  rub (Costco) and the rest with salt, Aleppo red pepper and chopped parsley from the garden. The five portions left will go into my daily breakfast fish sandwich -- with homemade low-fat yogurt cheese, organic spring mix, tomato with za'atar and a slice or two of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. Now that's good eating.

Last year, Costco kept the fresh wild salmon coming right into September, so I plan to prepare it through the summer.