Enjoying homemade pesto, pan-fried fish, pasta with sardines and more

Homemade pesto -- basil from my garden, garlic, grated cheese, pine nuts, salt and extra-virgin olive oil -- is a savory accent on a wedge of sweet-potato frittata.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Fragrant basil leaves growing abundantly in my garden are just a distance memory, but I still have one decent portion of homemade pesto in the freezer.

Although pesto is most commonly used as a dressing for pasta, it's versatile enough to spread on a sandwich or to accent a fish fillet just off the grill.

I also use it in omelets and on frittatas. 

Until Costco Wholesale unveiled Kirkland Signature Basil Pesto in 2013, I always made my own pesto in large batches using a blender recipe that could be frozen before the addition of grated cheese.

You'll find the recipe here: 

How to enjoy pesto without pasta

Now that my plants stand withered from the summer heat, I'll return to enjoying Costco's refrigerated pesto, which uses basil leaves from Italy.

Season one carton or 16 ounces of liquid egg whites mixed with grated cheese before adding the mixture to a 10-inch preheated pan with olive oil. As the crust sets, you can add sweet potato slices, boiled separately until you can pierce them with a fork. Then, move the non-stick pan into the broiler until the crust browns (about 15 minutes at a low broiler setting).

Pesto, which requires no heating, can be added to a frittata after it is removed from the oven. I also added crushed Aleppo pepper.

I used homemade pesto and organic pignoli nuts to dress an 8.8-ounce package of Delverde-brand Tagliatelle Nests with Spinach from Italy. These mouth-filling noodles take only about 5 minutes to reach al-dente perfection. I use unsalted water because there is plenty of sodium in homemade or Costco pesto.

A 10-inch egg-white omelet can be stuffed with Costco's smoked wild salmon, pesto and Mexican-style salsa, all sold under the Kirkland Signature house label. I made this omelet with my own pesto.

I had my omelet for breakfast with a baked sweet potato and grilled Chinese eggplant.

I thought I had found a good buy on wild-caught Gulf Shrimp at H Mart, 260 Bergen Turnpike in Little Ferry, above and below, but when I turned over the bag, the ingredients included salt and sodium bisulfite, a preservative. I passed.

An unusual item at the Little Ferry H Mart is jackfruit, sold in large pieces for around $5 to $6. If you buy one, make sure you refrigerate it when you get home.

I rely on the Korean supermarket for fresh whole fish at low prices, such as this porgy my wife seasoned and pan fried in olive oil ($2.99 a pound). Three porgies came in under $10. I also picked up baby mustard greens, which were on sale for 78 cents a pound.

Luigi Vitelli-brand Organic Whole Wheat Spaghetti from ShopRite in Paramus dressed in Victoria Marinara, Moroccan sardines and fresh cherry tomatoes. I added a little extra-virgin olive oil and a few ounces of red wine to the sauce, plus dried Italian herbs and red-pepper flakes.

A heart-healthy dinner for four with leftovers: A 1-pound box of whole-wheat pasta, a 40-ounce jar of marinara and three or four cans of sardines, mashed with a fork before you add them to the sauce. I left a few ounces of sauce in the bottle and used them to poach two organic eggs for breakfast the next day.

Leftover whole-wheat pasta is a great bread substitute at breakfast.

Dozens of free samples, including the full-fat cheeses I rarely buy, are available at Jerry's Gourmet & More, 410 S. Dean St. in Englewood, above and below.

I had a hard time resisting marinated cherry size fresh mozzarella, left, and sampled three with a toothpick.

On Friday, I hit the jackpot with one of Jerry's restaurant-quality take-out dinners made with a soft-shell crab. The complete dinner included string beans, pasta, a stuffed mushroom and a cucumber salad, marked down to $5.99 after 4 p.m.

Other Meals To Go were built around a grouper fillet, chicken picata or sausage. 

At ShopRite, 224 Route 4 east at Forest Avenue in Paramus, the store-brand of Greek Non-fat Yogurt with Fruit was on sale this week (75 cents each), and seemed a better buy than other brands, including Oikos, Chobani and Fage. At home, I opened one of the ShopRite cups, below, but found it wasn't full. The cup holds 8 ounces, but contains only 5.3 ounces of thick yogurt and fruit, the net weight listed on the side.

Tropicana Pure Premium Orange Juice carries a badge from the Non-GMO Project, telling consumers the oranges weren't grown using genetically modified seed. 

At the Costco Wholesale Business Center, 80 South River St. in Hackensack, a 2-pound bag of triple-washed kale was $3.89 on Thursday. A week earlier, I saw the same bag of kale being sold at Costco Wholesale in Teterboro for $5.39 -- a dramatic example of how prices can vary at the two warehouses.

At H Mart, the sea bass doesn't pass the smell test

H Mart, the Korean supermarket on Lafayette Avenue in Englewood, boasts that it gets fresh seafood from the Fulton Fish Market, but doesn't say how often that is. Whole Foods Market in Paramus says it gets seafood deliveries six days a week.

Editor's note: Holiday food shopping is hit or miss, and you have to fight all that traffic and other shoppers who seem to be gathering ingredients for their last meal. Today, I discuss shopping at H Mart, ShopRite, Costco Wholesale and other stores.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

I've purchased and enjoyed literally hundreds of whole fresh fish from H Marts in Bergen County in the past dozen years -- whiting, mackerel, sea bass and more.

But three plump sea bass I bought at the Englewood H Mart on Sunday for $4.99 a pound didn't pass the smell test.

Knowing I had a couple of other stops to make on the way home, I asked the man at the fish counter to give me a bag of ice to keep the wild-caught fish cool after he cleaned them.

I picked up two crispy baguettes at Balthazar Bakery on South Dean Street in Englewood that were still warm from the oven ($2 each).

Then, I continued down South Dean, stopping at Jerry's Gourmet & More for a 2.2-pound bag of coffee beans from Torrisi in Italy ($18.99).

The Italian specialty store hasn't had any Lavazza coffee beans for many weeks.

When I got home, I could smell the fish through the closed plastic bag -- not a good sign.

Wild-caught shrimp from Mexico at H Mart in Englewood.

I asked my mother-in-law to look at the fish, and she indicated they seemed to be OK. But when she started to cook them, she didn't like how they fell apart, so she asked me to return them.

The man at the H Mart fish counter apologized, and I got a full refund.

I didn't ask the H Mart employee when the sea bass had come in, but selected that fish because it is one of our favorites.

At home, as my mother-in-law was washing and cleaning parts of the fish the fishmonger had missed, I noticed the eyes weren't as clear as they should be.

After I got my refund of $22.85, I bought wild-caught shrimp from Mexico for $14.49 a pound (under 12 per pound).

Jinga-brand Fish Cake Roll (a seaweed-and-rice roll known as kimbap) was $2.49 or half price after 4 p.m.

I slice Balthazar baguettes and store them in the freezer, toasting them when I want to use them for sandwiches -- from canned fish salad with Dijon mustard, lime juice and cumin to peanut butter and jelly.

At the Rochelle Park ShopRite, a 40-ounce bottle of Victoria Marinara Sauce was $7.99, compared to $8.49 for two 40-ounce bottles of the same pasta sauce at Costco Wholesale in Hackensack. Last month, an instant Costco coupon brought that down to $6.14 for two bottles, and I bought four.

ShopRite v. Costco

At the Hackensack ShopRite on Sunday, I picked up three 25.4-ounce bottles of Martinelli's Sparkling Cider on sale for $1.99 each, a savings of $1.50 a bottle, less than the same apple cider at the nearby Costco Wholesale.

Liter bottles of Adirondack Original Seltzer were two for $1.

Trimmed French green beans from Costco Wholesale can be prepared quickly by blanching in boiling water for about 5 minutes, draining the pan and adding extra-virgin olive oil, fresh lime juice, salt and other seasoning.

Costco's Atlantic cod

Fresh cod fillets showed up at my Costco Wholesale today after an absence of many months.

But this fish is from the Atlantic Ocean, not the Pacific, and comes all the way from Iceland, where it is long-line caught by a fishery certified as sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council.

The wild-caught fish is from a company called North Coast Seafoods, and the price is an easy to swallow $7.99 a pound.

Atlantic cod is the fish that literally fed the world for hundreds of years before over-fishing prompted regulators to declare a moratorium on large commercial catches.

Other Costco purchases included three 32-ounce bottles of Kirkland Signature Marinara Sauce, made with extra-virgin olive oil and fresh garlic and basil, for $7.99 or about $2.66 a bottle.

A wedge of aged Parmigiano Reggiano from Italy was $10. 69 a pound, the lowest price in North Jersey.

Shaved Parmigiano Reggiano with Earthbound Farm Organic Spring Mix, both from Costco. The delicious, triple-washed salad is $4.99 for a 1-pound package.

At the Seafood Road Show, I saw frozen wild-caught octopus from the Philippines for $3.49 a pound, and enormous frozen Black Tiger shrimp, which are farm raised in Vietnam, for $19.99 a pound. 

I also got a $5.49 refund for a large bag of hard pears that never ripened, even though we ate all but two of them.

Fairway goat meat

Before Fairway Market opened a Paramus store, we would stop at the Harlem outpost on the way back from dining out or seeing a show in Manhattan.

We liked the goat meat on the bone, and purchased it regularly.

But when it opened, the Paramus store never carried goat meat, even though North Jersey is as diverse as Manhattan. 

I was told several years ago I could call the Paramus store and ask the butcher to get the goat meat from Manhattan, but twice today, the phone rang and rang, and no one in that department ever picked up.

Whole Foods Market in Paramus occasionally has frozen organic goat meat, but this afternoon, I could not find a space in the lot, turned around and went home.

COMFORTING BREAKFAST: Eating the broken yolks of organic eggs prepared sunny side up with mashed sweet potatoes, which were plated and reheated in the microwave.

Canned fish salad -- yellowfin tuna, pink salmon and sardines -- dressed with Dijon mustard, fresh lime juice and ground cumin, and served with stewed tofu, tomatoes and cucumbers sprinkled with za'atar thyme mixture.

Pulled this way and that for dinner

Image by avlxyz via Flickr

A great Thai salad is made with long, pasta-like strands of green papaya.

When Saturday rolls around, we start asking each other where we want to go for our one dinner out each week.

This past Saturday, I had just read a mouth-watering article online about restaurants that serve chewy, hand-pulled Chinese noodles in soups and stir-fries, but I really didn't feel like driving into Manhattan. Then, I remembered that Lotus Cafe in Hackensack served hand-made noodles.

I also recalled the Cuban seafood restaurant we saw on Bergenline Avenue in West New York, and how much we wanted to try it. Again, that would take some driving.

When the discussion came up, I suggested we go to Lotus Cafe for noodles, but my 13-year-old son said he didn't want Chinese food. He had been wanting to return to our favorite Thai restaurant, Wondee's in Hackensack. In the interest of not arguing, I gave in.

We had a wonderful meal, of course. We ordered our usual: steamed shrimp & pork dumplings for my son and wife; wonton soup with roasted pork for my son, and spicy shrimp with lemon juice and button mushrooms for me and my wife.

We also ordered som thum -- a crunchy, green-papaya salad with lemon juice, green beans, tomato and ground peanuts and shrimp. 

Our entree was pla ma now -- a whole sea bass covered with minced chili peppers and garlic, and swimming in a spicy broth I love to spoon over steamed rice ($15.95). Wondee's has some of the lowest prices on fresh whole fish.

It was a great meal, as usual, and we took home a big can of shrimp chips from Thailand and one of the homemade desserts -- a coconut-milk custard -- from the display in the simply decorated dining room. Our total bill before the tip was $61.85, including the take-out items.

I called Lotus Cafe this morning and was told it no longer has someone to make noodles in-house, though I've found the noodle dishes there still taste terrific. 

So, I'm planning to hit a couple of those hand-pulled noodle places in the city on Sunday, when you don't have to feed the meters and can park just about anywhere.

Here is the link to The New York Times article on hand-made noodles, missing the usual list of addresses and telephone numbers (use Google to get that information):

The Long Pull of Noodle Making

Wondee's Fine Thai Food & Noodles, 296 Main St.; 
Hackensack; 201-883-1700. BYO. Parking in rear.

Lotus Cafe, 450 Hackensack Ave., Hackensack, 
in the Home Depot Shopping Center; 201-488-7070. BYO.

Whole sea bass in Mexican salsa verde

Image by lorises via Flickr

Two ingredients in Mexican green salsa are tomatillos, bottom, and cilantro.

This wonderful main dish couldn't be simpler. All you need is:

1. Fresh fish.

2. A bottle of green salsa.

3. A  lemon. 

Preparation is minimal, two whole fish will cook in under 30 minutes and if you have leftover pasta or rice, all you need to do is make a salad to complete this nutritious meal.


I found fresh, wild-caught sea bass at H Mart, the Korean supermarket in Little Ferry (with branches in Englewood, Fort Lee and Ridgefield). I bought two fish -- to feed three -- that weighed about 2.5 pounds before cleaning at $5.99 a pound. 

Red snapper or other wild-caught whole fish is great, too, and of course, you could use fillets of wild-caught cod, flounder or other fresh or frozen fish.

All I did with the fish is sprinkle it with a little salt inside and out, stuff it with fresh parsley from garden (you can skip this step) and slit the body in three places. 

I used a 16.7-ounce bottle of La Costena Green Mexican Salsa, marked "Medium" spicy, available for $2.99 at Hackensack Market on Passaic Street and many ShopRites. Goya and other companies make a similar product. La Costena's red salsa is good, too.


I poured some of the salsa -- made from tomatillos and jalapeno peppers -- into the bottom of the pan, placed the fish on top and poured the remaining sauce in, plus the juice of one lemon, and covered it with the clear-glass top.

I cooked it over medium heat for about 20 minutes (in boiling salsa), but 30 minutes will ensure that it is cooked thoroughly. No need to turn over the fish. You'll have plenty of sauce for that leftover rice; we had organic brown rice left over.


I ate my meal in courses, as they do in Italy: leftover bow-tie pasta in tomato sauce, the meaty middle section of one of the sea bass and then a big salad with cucumber, tomato and organic spring mix. Easy, filling and delicious.

Quail eggs

Quail eggs showed up in the produce section recently at H Mart in Little Ferry -- 18 for $2.99. I fry four or five of the small eggs at a time, and their taste is similar to other eggs. I used a sharp knife to crack the black-spotted shells near the ends to avoid breaking the yolks and poured the contents into hot olive oil.

I also found Clifford-brand Fusion tomatoes from Canada that are grown without chemical fertilizers. A one-pound package of small tomatoes --red, green, purple and yellow -- was $1.99, and they have been great in my salads.

Fresh wild salmon run ends

I believe I've seen the last of the fresh wild salmon fillets in the fish case at Costco in Hackensack -- they were available for about four months. This week, I bought Kirkland-brand frozen sockeye salmon and mahi-mahi fillets, both wild caught. 

Greek restaurant executes fish

A Greek restaurant in Ramsey appears to be lopping off the heads of fresh fish with a guillotine or maybe lining them up in front of a firing squad.

That's what I understood from The Record's report today on Varka Estiatorio, where, the reviewer writes in the data box, the food is "exceptionally executed." I think she meant to say "well-executed," but her copy editor was probably out to lunch.

It's unclear why The Record's Elisa Ung reviewed this restaurant, which has undergone no major changes since the initial, three-star review in 2005, or why it got a three-and-a-half-star rating, despite some poorly prepared dishes, farmed fish for up to $29 a pound, and one of the waiter's dropping a fresh pompano on the floor and then returning it to the display.

Could it be that the restaurant is a regular advertiser and asked for another review after Ung gave three-and-a-half stars in April to a new, competing, Greek fish house in Englewood, Nisi Estiatorio?

The Englewood restaurant charges up to $38 a pound for whole fish (which I thought was outrageous), but the Ramsey fish house has the chutzpah to ask for up to $50 a pound. You should know fish is a cheap commodity -- routinely flown halfway around the world and retailed for well under $10 a pound at Korean fish markets.

But Ung doesn't question the prices, just says they are "high, though justified given the quality of the food." Farmed seafood isn't quality; wild is. Even the sea scallops are farmed, according to her report. There's no explanation why the Ramsey restaurant doesn't serve wild scallops from the fleet at Barnegat Light, which is famous for that shellfish.