It's wild-caught and really cheap, but will it taste good?

ShopRite is selling wild-caught Silverbrite Salmon for only $3.99 a pound or $2 off per pound, but the fillet I saw on Tuesday at the Paramus store didn't look very appetizing, above. Silverbrite is another name for chum or keta salmon.

Compare the color of Silverbrite to Copper River Sockeye Salmon from Alaska, bottom. Costco Wholesale is now selling fresh, wild-caught sockeye fillets for $12.99 a pound or $2 less a pound than when they first appeared.

Editor's note: Today, I discuss really cheap wild-caught salmon, a version of Smart Balance with fewer calories, less fat and less salt than Original; leftovers and the repaving of the rough entrance road at H Mart in Little Ferry.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Wild-caught salmon for $3.99 a pound sounds like a great deal, but the Silverbrite fillets on sale at ShopRite supermarkets don't have much eye appeal.

If your ingredients don't look good, how will the finished dish taste?

I'm not about to find out. 

I'm sticking with wild-caught Copper River Sockeye Salmon fillets from Alaska, even though they are selling for $12.99 a pound at Costco Wholesale in Hackensack.

A 1.58-pound sockeye salmon fillet we bought this week yielded six serving pieces, enough for four with leftovers (about $5 a person). 

  

Copper River Sockeye Salmon with Pesto, Lime and Fresh Mint and Oregano. I used Kirkland Signature Basil Pesto from Costco Wholesale, and herbs from my garden.

Smart Balance Spread with Extra Virgin Olive Oil, above, has fewer calories, less fat and less salt than the Original version of the butter substitute, below. It was on sale for less than half-price at the Paramus ShopRite on Tuesday.

Imported organic whole wheat spaghetti from Whole Food Market prepared with Moroccan sardines, anchovies, organic diced tomatoes, chopped garlic, capers, red wine and bottled Classico pasta sauce. Most of the ingredients come from Costco.

After two small portions of the pasta and a glass or two of Chianti, I finished the meal with a simple Earthbound Farm Organic Spring Mix salad dressed with Italian extra-virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

Pasta and eggs. Two organic brown eggs from Costco with smoked wild sockeye salmon, Parmigiano Reggiano Cheese and Aleppo pepper made a great breakfast eaten over leftover spaghetti.

I emptied five small containers of leftovers for breakfast this week. Clockwise from top: Whole wheat pappardelle with Basil Pesto from Costco and pine nuts; ackee, a Jamaican fruit, which has the consistency of scrambled eggs; broccoli with garlic and steamed carrots; and chopped callaloo, a spinach-like green, prepared with sweet pepper.

Fresh Choy Sum was on sale for 98 cents a pound on Tuesday at H Mart in Little Ferry, where I also picked up prepared Korean Stewed Tofu ($3.99), Stewed Alaskan Pollock ($6.99) and Japchae ($5.49), translucent yam-flour noodles with vegetables. The potholed entrance road to the supermarket has been paved, but the parking lot is still prone to flooding.

Another day, another Feast of the Seven Fishes

I had my first two fishes at breakfast on Christmas Day with a steaming portion of Jamaican ackee and salted codfish, accented with Valentina Mexican Hot Sauce and served with Korean seaweed-and-fish-cake roll, above.

I'm never without Valentina Salsa Picante (Black Label).

BY VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

The traditional Italian Feast of the Seven Fishes is usually served on Christmas Eve, but why should I limit myself?

On Christmas Day, when the meat eaters in the family prepared a big meal of goat, oxtail and rice and peas with coconut milk, I improvised a Feast of the Seven Fishes from leftovers and what I had on hand.

I ate dishes with salted codfish, fresh Atlantic cod, yellowfin tuna, pink salmon, smoked wild salmon, wild jumbo shrimp, sardines and anchovies.

My first dish was at breakfast and my last was at dinner, and for a snack I had a forkful of canned fish salad with crunchy celery (yellowfin tuna, pink salmon and sardines dressed with Dijon mustard, lime juice and ground cumin).

For lunch, I had an appetizer portion of leftover wild shrimp cooked in spicy green salsa, both from Mexico.

A second lunch appetizer was leftover fresh Atlantic cod that I prepared Tuesday night with basil-and-tomato pasta sauce and added extra-virgin olive oil, onions, garlic, capers and olives. I used a recipe for a monkfish dish I helped prepared on Dec. 16 at a Chef Central workshop in Paramus, where I was among a dozen customers preparing a Feast of the Seven Fishes under the guidance of three chefs.

After lunch, I had roasted salt-free almonds dusted with cinnamon and Parmigiano Reggiano Cheese, and drank a glass of Nebbiola D'Alba, a red wine from Italy.

Eventually, I got to the salad course, adding more Parmigiano Reggiano and smoked wild salmon from Costco Wholesale to organic spring mix, and dressing them simply in extra-virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

A few hours later, I used leftover sauce with a couple of small pieces of Atlantic cod to prepare organic whole-wheat pasta shells from Whole Foods Market with a can of drained and rinsed anchovies, another of Moroccan sardines and a half-bottle of leftover Dress Italian tomato-and-basil pasta sauce in the refrigerator.

On Tuesday, the snowy fresh cod fillets from Iceland needed nothing more than fresh lime juice before I put them in the bubbling sauce, covered the pan, turned up the heat and cooked them for about 10 minutes. The fish was firm and flaky.

'What's for dinner?' is driving me crazy

Maine lobsters were $4.49 a pound on Sunday at H Mart in Little Ferry.

Green-lipped mussels from New Zealand.

When I was single, I was a dedicated food shopper and I cooked up a storm, ordering takeout or dining out only two days a week.

Now that I'm married, we still cook most of our meals at home, and my wife and teenage son pester me almost every day with "What's for dinner?"

Even though my wife and mother-in-law are away, my son gives me no quarter and continues to expect "dinner" five nights a week.

Canned fish salad with lump crab meat.

This past Monday, I stopped at the Rochelle Park ShopRite and found antibiotic-free Readington Farms boneless and skinless chicken thighs at half price ($1.49 a pound), and Coleman Organic chicken drumsticks ($1.99 a pound).

At home, I rolled the drumsticks in a mixture of bread crumbs and spices I keep in the refrigerator, and prepared his favorite side dish, white rice, in an electric cooker.

Coleman Organic Chicken Drumsticks.

Calamari Stuffed with Crab Meat from Jerry's in Englewood.

He ate leftover drumsticks Tuesday night, and tonight, I picked up a restaurant-quality Italian pork chop dinner from Jerry's Gourmet & More in Englewood for only $5.99 or $7.99 before 4 p.m.

We're having Trader Joe's whole wheat pasta with sardines on Thursday, and ordering Chinese takeout on Friday. 

On Saturday, we'll have our one weekly meal out, possibly Korean soft-tofu stew in Palisades Park.

On Sunday, I'll look for more inexpensive Maine lobsters at a Korean supermarket. We've had Maine lobsters with either clams or mussels two Sundays in a row.

One of the choices at Jerry's was Lemon Garlic Grouper.

My son no longer eats at dinner time. He might get hungry at 9 or later after many hours playing video games or a visit to the YMCA gym.

Just after 5 this afternoon, I plated my calamari, crab and vegetable dinner from Jerry's, heated it up in the microwave and poured myself a glass of wine.

He ate chicken drumsticks two nights in a row, but he hates leftovers and won't touch mushrooms, even if they are in one of his favorite dishes, such as the Korean vermicelli noodles called japchae.

I made bibimbap at home and after he tried it once, I couldn't get him to have it again.

I made a salad of canned salmon, tuna, sardines and lump crab meat -- with Dijon mustard, lime juice and ground cumin -- but he won't lift a hand to make himself a sandwich.

If he gets hungry during the day, he's more likely to open a package of his favorite instant noodle soup, Nongshim's Shin Ramyun Gourmet Spicy, leaving the bowl and spoon in the sink for me to wash.

I had the last of the bibimbap for breakfast this morning, topped with eggs.

Don't ever ask your wife what's she doing

Image by djwudi via Flickr

 










No. Don't. If your wife (girlfriend, partner, spouse, significant other) is in the kitchen, just don't ask her what she is doing. Go back to reading the paper. Resist the urge to approach the stove and make suggestions. Sure, she leaves most of the food shopping and cooking to you, and you often end up washing the morning pots and pans, but when she gets inspired, leave her alone -- or else.

This morning, my wife started to prepare breakfast for herself after she dropped our son at school. I got up and approached and started asking her questions. She was combining leftover chicken thigh with other leftovers, white rice and Chinese takeout vegetables, to make a quick fried rice. That's when I should have returned to the paper. I didn't.

I suggested some soy sauce and fetched it from the fridge. I poured on a couple of ounces. "It's too salty," she said, her voice rising. That's not all she said. Then, I added some sweet rice wine to dilute the soy sauce, and that really upset her. I said, "What about a scrambled egg in there?"  She grabbed the pot and headed for the garbage can before I stopped her by saying I'll eat it. Then, I went for my power walk.

When I got back, I filled a small bowl with the fried rice and heated it in the microwave. It tasted great. Not salty, as my wife said, but my "review" fell on deaf ears. I plan to offer the rest to our son when he gets back from school. My wife wouldn't even accept half of my breakfast wrap: smoked wild salmon, saluna salad (canned red salmon and tuna), hummus, tomato, salad greens and za'atar thyme mixture rolled up in thin pita.

That'll teach me.

Fighting over leftovers

We're not fighting each other for the leftovers. We're fighting because my wife and son often spurn leftovers in favor of a new taste sensation every day. That not only causes conflict, it means I have to sweep the refrigerator and make a meal of them now and then.

My wife and 12-year-old were away this past weekend, so my dinner Saturday night were items from our home-cooked meals in the previous week or so: one fried flounder fillet, one shoulder lamb chop, one chicken sausage and a baked red potato. The only fresh item was a salad of organic spring mix.

Thankfully, my wife assembled her breakfast this morning from leftovers and anticipated my suggestion she finish a couple of spoonfuls of ackee and saltfish. Usually, I open the fridge, then look over and push around the containers, just waiting for my son to return from school and say he's hungry. Then I spring my question: "How about a chicken tacos or should I heat up that chicken leg quarter?"

For about a year now, we've been trying to prepare smaller quantities in an attempt to avoid the leftover issue altogether. We used to make a pound of spaghetti or other pasta each time to accompany meatballs or sausage or to combine with tomato sauce and sardines. Now, we make only a half pound and use only half of a 32-ounce bottle of sauce, but can't even finish that.

This morning, I wanted to defrost chicken for tonight, so I asked my wife if she and our son would be eating the Niman Ranch pork ribs left over from dinner last night, which I served with yellow rice, black beans and salad. She said I should take out only enough chicken for me, because she wants to cut her cholesterol.

We love these fully prepared, naturally raised ribs and I recall  that when I was buying them at Trader Joe's, I picked the biggest package there. I could have bought a smaller package, just enough for us to finish at one meal, but didn't -- maybe because I like to have a lot of comforting food around and fear running out.

 My father had an encyclopedic memory for leftovers and if he didn't see something from previous nights on the table, he would grill my mother, who prepared a home-cooked meal just about every day. Of course, he didn't consider that she served them for lunch to her three sons or visitors. He wanted to know what happened to all the leftovers.


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What is it about leftovers?

I've started preparing one of my mother's dishes once every couple of weeks, chicken and spaghetti (recipe follows). Each time we have it, my 11-year-old son declares that the spaghetti is the best he's ever eaten. The reason we love the spaghetti is that it cooks in the juices of the chicken, and is flavored with cinnamon and allspice.

But getting my wife or my son to eat the leftover spaghetti is nearly impossible. I'm the one who ends up eating it or it goes in the garbage, and I hate throwing away food. My wife and son enjoy the dish the night it is made, but just want to move on to something else. Me, when I was single, I used to cook for a few hours every Sunday night to turn out four dinners for the week, eat take-out on Friday nights and go to a restaurant on Saturday nights. The four meals alternated two entrees, chicken one night, then spaghetti the next, then chicken, then spaghetti, each meal accompanied by a salad and bread or potato.

Now, if we make a whole chicken, I'm very happy eating chicken sandwiches from the white meat one or two days later. But my wife and son hate white meat, which is why I will be making my mother's dish with leg quarters from now on. For this recipe, one of those black pots speckled with white, covered, works best. My pot is oval, about 14 inches long.


Grace Sasson's chicken and spaghetti

One whole chicken, about 3 to 4 pounds,
or four to five leg quarters, seasoned to taste
with salt, cinnamon and allspice.

One pound of spaghetti, regular, thick or thin

Two small cans of tomato sauce

Chicken broth (optional)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees

Spray the bottom of the pot with cooking spray, place the seasoned chicken inside, cover and cook, about one hour for the whole chicken or 45 minutes for leg quarters.

Meanwhile, boil pasta according to package directions, then drain. Don't overcook.

Remove pot from stove and remove chicken. Add spaghetti, tomato sauce, chicken broth if desired, and season with more cinnamon and allspice. Mix well.

Place chicken on top of the spaghetti, and put the pot in the stove, uncovered. Cook until a meat thermometer registers between 160 degrees and 170 degrees (for chicken without antibiotics). Exposed spaghetti should be browned and crisp.

Enjoy!