Fresh wild Alaskan salmon with roasted green salsa and garden herbs

Fresh Wild Copper River Sockeye Salmon with Roasted Salsa Verde and chopped herbs from the garden.

Editor's note: Cooking at home gives you the most control over what you're eating, and pricey ingredients like fresh wild salmon can be put on the table for surprisingly little when compared to a restaurant.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

If you have the makings of a salad and a leftover side dish, such as organic brown rice, you can put a wild-salmon dinner on the table in 10 minutes for about $5 a person.

That's what I did on Tuesday night after my wife came home with a 1.5-pound fillet of Fresh Wild Copper River Sockeye Salmon from Costco Wholesale in Hackensack ($13.99 a pound).

Costco's price for this wonderful Alaskan salmon dropped $1 a pound since it first appeared at the end of May.

I cut the fillet into five serving pieces, and added a little sea salt from a grinder. Then, they went on a pre-heated grill pan for 10 minutes.

I could have poached the fillets in Whole Foods Market's 365 Everyday Value Roasted Salsa Verde, but decided to heat up the contents of a 16-ounce jar separately and spoon it over the salmon, when I plated it, and over the side dish of organic brown rice.

A fresh 1.5 pound skin-on fillet of wild salmon was $13.99 a pound on Tuesday at Costco Wholesale in Hackensack, a drop of $1 per pound.

While the salmon was grilling, I warmed up MSG-free Roasted Salsa Verde with fresh lime juice. Whole Foods Market in Paramus sells the medium-spicy green salsa in 16- and 24-ounce jars.

The serving pieces of salmon spend 8 minutes to 10 minutes on a pre-heated grill pan sprayed with oil. My All-Clad grill pan straddles two burners and I turn the heat on both of them to medium.

Another home-cooked dish is Cabbage and Salt Fish with a side of okra and Valentina Mexican Hot Sauce (Black Label).

More home cooking

Want to know what you're eating?

Buy the ingredients yourself and prepare them at home.

Two Costco Wholesale organic eggs -- fried in olive oil sunny side up -- with leftover organic brown rice, a great bread substitute. I seasoned them with Aleppo pepper, a spicier form of paprika; and chopped parsley, oregano and mint from the garden.

The chewy Armenian lavash I brought home from a new Hackensack restaurant, Lavash City Grill & Bakery, makes a wonderful snack spread with no-fat Greek yogurt and za'atar thyme mixture. I store the flat, unleavened, preservative-free bread in the refrigerator.

For breakfast, I supplemented a simple egg-white omelet I made at home with leftover falafel, tahini, muhammara and hummus from restaurants.

The last piece of wild salmon, right out of the fridge, made a great light dinner with a pile of organic greens dressed in Spanish extra-virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

An organic-egg omelet using ingredients from Costco Wholesale in Hackensack, including reduced-fat Swiss cheese and Mexican salsa. I had it for breakfast with leftover organic brown rice, fresh chopped callaloo, bottom left; and leftover Chinese broccoli with fresh garlic from Lotus Cafe in Hackensack.

New Armenian grill in Hackensack, good buys at Maywood's Market

Armenian lavash is a soft, thin, unleavened flat bread. The large menu at Lavash City lists wraps made with the bread and many other dishes.

Editor's note: Today's post includes a new restaurant on Main Street in Hackensack, good buys at a premium supermarket in Maywood and a so-called farmers market I haven't patronized for years.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The newest restaurant on Main Street in Hackensack is an Armenian grill that offers the usual kebabs as well as dozens of homemade soups, salads and cold appetizers.

Lavash City Grill & Bakery, which opened a couple of weeks ago at 331 Main St., serves lunch and dinner in a completely renovated space.

Armenian cuisine is said to have strong ties with Turkish, Georgian and Persian cooking.

The restaurant offers kebabs, shawarma, rotisserie chicken and pilafs.

Owner Anna Yeritsyan says she prepares soups, salads and other dishes "from scratch."

"Nothing comes from cans."

Details

Lavash City Grill & Bakery, 331 Main St., Hackensack; 201-464-5445.

Open 7 days for lunch and dinner, BYO, parking at meters and in free lots for shoppers nearby.

"No store has this price," boasts a Maywood's Marketplace sign with rough wedges of aged Parmigiano Reggiano Cheese from Italy, sometimes referred to as the "King of Cheeses" (the name is misspelled on the sign).

Maywood's Marketplace

I got a Maywood's Marketplace flier with the newspaper, and the cover showed a "super special" on Parmigiano Reggiano, the crumbly aged cheese from Italy that is one of my favorites.

Eaten out of hand, with fruit or in a salad, this cheese, made with part-skimmed milk, is hard to top.

At $9.77 a pound, the price undercuts even Costco Wholesale. In fact, the Hackensack warehouse store was out of the cheese last week.

I stopped at the Maywood market on Thursday and picked up wedges of the aged cheese, selecting two that had rind only on the end.

Others had rind on two sides.

When I got the wedges home, I cut them into smaller chunks, and found the cheese soft, crumbly and full of flavor.

Some cooks dice the rind and put it in their pasta sauce for added flavor, but it doesn't completely dissolve.

Wine, corn and salmon

I also bought three bottles of wine from Italy -- Il Carnevale di Venezia Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Pinot Grigio -- at $4.99 each.

Five ears of fresh corn were $2.

I noticed the flier also offers wild king salmon for $13.99 a pound, another good buy that beats Costco, which was selling those fillets for $16.99 a pound just last week.

The sale prices in Maywood are good through June 24.

Part of the produce section at Maywood's Marketplace, one in a dwindling number of small, premium supermarkets in Bergen County. Another is Cafasso's Fairway Market on Anderson Avenue in Fort Lee.

Details

Maywood's Marketplace, 78 W. Pleasant Ave., Maywood; 201-843-8361.

Open 7 days, 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Parking lot. 

Web site: Worth the detour

The Giant Farmers Market is at Main and Berry streets in Hackensack. The parking lot is behind the store, on River Street.

The Main Street entrance is far from appetizing. I stopped patronizing this store years ago after finding much better quality at H Mart, the chain of Korean supermarkets in Little Ferry, Englewood, Fort Lee and Ridgefield.

The floor in front of the fish counter and in other parts of the store is dirty or cracked or both. The credit-card minimum for fish is $10. In the rest of the store, the credit-card minimum is $5.

A sign with bags of apples offers a so-called special on sweet peppers.