Home cooking: Pulling together great ingredients from my favorite stores

For a snack at home, I layered smoked wild Alaskan salmon, reduced-fat Swiss cheese, Dijon mustard and sliced California black figs on Swedish crispbread, topping them with fresh mint leaves from my garden.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Swedish Food Market at IKEA in Paramus stocks a lot of bottled herring with way too much salt and fruit drinks with too much added sugar.

But the simple Swedish crispbread is irresistible: 

These crunchy disks -- each about 3 inches across -- invite you to layer cheese, smoked salmon and fresh figs on them for a midday snack.

Or, you can top them with sliced cheese, organic greens and tuna salad dressed with Dijon mustard, lime juice and ground cumin.

IKEA sells two kinds -- Rye Crispbread and Multigrain Crispbread, both made in Finland -- in 8.8-ounce packages for $2.99 each.

I rely on Costco Wholesale in Teterboro for smoked wild Alaskan salmon ($14.89 per pound), reduced-fat sliced Jarlsberg Swiss Cheese (2 pounds for only $6.69 with an instant coupon last week), and Dijon mustard.

I picked up a pound of California Black Figs for $3.99 at Trader Joe's in Paramus, but had to refrigerate them to prevent spoilage.

I baked a pan of Fresh Wild Coho Salmon from Costco Wholesale in Teterboro with fresh spinach, organic diced tomatoes, pitted black olives, grated cheese, olive oil (on the spinach), fresh lime juice (on the fish) and fresh herbs from my garden.

I cut up the fillet, cooked the pieces skin-side down on a stove-top grill for 4 minutes, then placed them on the spinach. The pan spent another 7 minutes in a preheated 400-degree oven. The organic diced tomatoes were cooked separately with red wine and seasonings, and were added along with the chopped herbs when the pan was removed from the oven.

Fresh wild salmon

If the past is any guide, fresh wild salmon will be available at Costco in Teterboro for another month or so.

Last week, my wife found a Fresh Wild Coho Salmon Fillet instead of the sockeye we've been buying since June ($9.99 a pound).

Meanwhile, I went to the Costco Business Center in Hackensack for a 1-pound package of Earthbound Farm Organic Spring Mix ($4.89), the world's best-tasting salad.

The price fluctuates, and earlier this year, Costco was selling it for only $4.29 a pound, compared to $6.99 in most supermarkets.

When buying the salad, select packages that have little or no condensation to avoid the greens rotting before their use-by date, which is printed on the front label.

No dinner is complete without a salad and a glass of red wine.

A salad of Earthbound Farm Organic Spring Mix with cherry tomatoes from our garden and kernels shaved off an ear of sweet Jersey corn, dressed simply with extra-virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

The Organic Spring Mix has a new label, but the triple-washed greens are as delicious as ever. Earthbound Farm added the words "grown without GMOs," "a blend of tender baby greens" and "a versatile classic" to new label. See the ingredients, below.

The Earthbound Farm label on the back or bottom of the package.

Earthbound Farm Organic Spring Mix can go straight from the container onto a plate or into a bowl. Here, I added cucumbers and our cherry tomatoes. Three large hothouse cucumbers from Costco Wholesale were $3.49.

I also like the Spring Mix from Olivia's Organics, but even on sale at H Mart in Little Ferry (5 ounces for $1.99), you'll pay more per ounce than at Costco for a 1-pound tub of Earthbound Farm Organic Spring Mix.

With Kirkland Signature 100% Liquid Egg Whites from Costco, you can eat an omelet or frittata every day and not worry about cholesterol. Six 16-ounce cartons were $8.79.

At H Mart in Little Ferry on Sunday, Baby Mustard Greens, above, were on sale for 78 cents a pound; and Chinese Eggplant, below, were 99 cents a pound.

I grilled the eggplant slices on the stove top with spray oil and a little salt.

At ShopRite, my wife picked up a carton of Barilla Whole Grain Spaghetti made with 100% whole wheat, which I prepared with olive oil, fresh garlic, cherry tomatoes from our garden and homemade pesto. But the package was a couple of ounces shy of a pound and cost more than the 1-pound package of Luigi Vitelli-brand Organic Whole Wheat Spaghetti, which ShopRite also sells ($1.29). The cooked organic spaghetti feels better in your mouth, too.

When you buy six bottles of wine with prices ending in "9" at Total Wine & More in River Edge, you get an additional 10% off. I purchased six bottles of Shiraz, Pinot Noir, Cabernet and Carmenere for an average of under $7 each, plus tax.

Details

For fresh wild salmon and fresh fish from Iceland, smoked wild Alaskan salmon, Earthbound Farm Organic Spring Mix, fresh organic spinach, Dijon mustard and so many other great ingredients at great prices:

Costco Wholesale, 2 Teterboro Landing Drive, Teterboro; and Costco Wholesale Business Center, 80 S. River St., Hackensack.

For California Black Figs, organic sweet potatoes, organic whole wheat pasta; Green Plant, a 100% fruit and green food juice blend with no added sugar, and antibiotic- and preservative-free beef hot dogs and bacon:

Trader Joe's, 404 Route 17 north, Paramus.

For cans of pitted black olives, conventional sweet potatoes, grass-fed Australian beef, lactose-free milk and Luigi Vitelli-brand Organic Whole Wheat Pasta:

ShopRite, 224 Route 4 east at Forest Avenue, Paramus. 

For a large variety of Asian greens, fresh fruit, fresh whole fish for as little as $1.99 a pound and prepared Korean food:

H Mart, 260 Bergen Turnpike, Little Ferry; go for the low prices and ignore the shabby entrance and drab interior of this large supermarket.

For crispbread; frozen meatballs, including a vegetarian version; and other food from Scandinavia:

Swedish Food Market at IKEA, 100 IKEA Drive, Paramus. 

For inexpensive red wine:

Total Wine & More, 135 Kinderkamack Road, River Edge.

Heaven on earth for lovers of fresh seafood

A big portion of Wild Salmon over Warm Orzo Salad at Seafood Gourmet.

I'm racking my brain to remember why I allowed nearly two years to pass before returning for another great meal at Seafood Gourmet in Maywood.

The market-restaurant's limited seating and the need to make a reservation on the weekends have something to do with it. 

Last weekend, I called too late for a table for 4.

But on Saturday, other family members were away,  and I had no trouble walking in a little after 5 p.m. and getting a table for 1 in the small dining room, which seats about 40.

On my last visit in December 2010, I ordered wild salmon from the specials menu, and I did the same this time, lured by the Dijon Horseradish Sauce and Warm Orzo Salad ($23.99).

The fresh salmon fillet was pan-seared to medium, and literally melted in my mouth. 

"Gourmet" in the restaurant's name is no exaggeration, given the quality of the fish.

The entree was prepared with imagination, the portion was generous and it was sold at a fair price.

The wild salmon, cooked medium, was an extraordinary piece of fresh fish.

My entree included soup or salad, and I chose the latter. But I wanted to try a cup of the Seafood Corn Chowder, also listed on the specials menu ($2.95).

I'm glad I did, and I liked the light broth and fresh pieces of fish so much I ordered a bowl to go ($4.75).

The Seafood Corn Chowder was filled with fresh fish.

My entree included a salad with a balsamic dressing on the side.

To find a greater variety of fresh fish, you'd probably have to go to the more expensive Legal Sea Foods at the mall in Paramus, and good luck getting a parking space on the weekend.

The regular menu for The Restaurant at Seafood Gourmet lists a dozen or more complete fish dinners, simply broiled or grilled.

And Seafood Gourmet is a BYO where I enjoyed a couple of glasses of my own sauvignon blanc from New Zealand with dinner.

I always seem to order from the specials menu. In 2010, my wild salmon came with crab risotto and  fresh asparagus, a beautifully balanced meal.

The dining room was renovated about 2 years ago.

The front of the house is a fish market.

Great fish awaits behind the simple storefront.

The Restaurant at Seafood Gourmet, 103 W. Pleasant Ave., Maywood; 201-843-8558.

BYO, free street parking. Lunch 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. and dinner from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. or 9 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays. Closed Sundays.

Web site: Fresh fish since 1988

Fresh wild salmon with ripe peaches

Fresh wild salmon with sweet peach slices, tomato and capers.

Fresh wild salmon and ripe peaches are perfect together, so I added the fruit to a Mark Bittman recipe I've tried once or twice before.

His recipe calls for 1 pound of sliced tomatoes with extra-virgin olive oil, 2 tablespoons each of capers and chopped red onion and 1 and a half pounds of fish fillets, with chopped parsley and lemon wedges as garnish.

I added crushed Aleppo pepper, fresh lime juice and chopped herbs from the garden. 

But this time, I skipped the herbs and added sweet slices of California peaches sprinkled with the mildly spicy pepper.

The wild sockeye salmon was $8.99 a pound at Costco Wholesale on Saturday.

Red onion, lime, tomato and California peach slices.

The fish and peach slices are ready for the oven.

I used a 400-degree roast/convection oven setting, and the thinner-than-usual fillets were cooked through in 12 to 14 minutes.

The dish is sweet, sour and mildly spicy all at the same time.

Unfortunately, the skin-on wild salmon fillets I bought at Costco Wholesale in Hackensack on Saturday were packed the day before, and they have tasted a little fishy.

This is the first time in years of buying fresh haddock, flounder, wild salmon and other fish at Costco that I encountered this off taste.

Later, I removed the skin from three remaining portions of salmon and the fishy taste has gone away.

World's best salad

Half & Half combines Organic Spring Mix with Baby Spinach.

Earthbound Farm's Organic Spring Mix is the best-tasting salad in the world, but it's even better when it is paired with Baby Spinach. 

Half & Half, as it is called, was $4.99 for a 1-pound container at Costco Wholesale in Hackensack.

Cooking ahead

Seasoned vegetables for bibimbap from H Mart in Little Ferry.

I prepared 2 cups of organic brown rice in an electric cooker.

When I was working and single, I would devote Sunday evenings to cooking five meals -- that night's dinner and four others to take to my night job on the copy desk of a daily newspaper.

I had takeout or dined out on the other nights of the week.

I tried that this past Sunday, using an electric rice cooker to prepare a meatless version of the Korean comfort dish called bibimbap that I've been eating for breakfast and dinner this week.

I skipped the labor-intensive part of bibimbap by buying seasoned vegetables from the Little Ferry H Mart for $6.49.

When the brown rice was ready, I added the vegetables and chopped cabbage kimchi, as well as sesame oil and two or three tablespoons of gochujang, a red-pepper paste, and mixed up everything.

Bibimbap with two organic eggs make for a filling breakfast.

The night before, I prepared wild salmon with ripe peaches and a large bunch of baby mustard greens, so I've been eating all three this week.

I washed the cut-up baby mustard greens, blanched them for a few minutes in boiling water with the cover on, drained the pot and added a little soy sauce and sesame oil.

Seedless watermelons were $4.99 at H Mart on Sunday, a savings of $2.

Can the price of wild salmon go any lower?

Image by Travis S. via Flickr

Salmon from the Copper River in Alaska gets more press than others.

Fresh, wild sockeye salmon fillets have dropped another dollar -- to $7.99 a pound -- at Costco Wholesale in Hackensack.


These fillets, which glisten with natural oils, made their first appearance at Costco on May 21, earlier than usual, and came from the famed Copper River in Alaska. 


They were priced at $13.99 a pound -- one dollar less than in 2010.


Usually, the Copper River fish disappears after about two weeks, replaced by fresh sockeye salmon from somewhere in the northwestern United States, and the price drops to $8.99 a pound.


This year, the Copper River catch must have been much bigger than normal, because on June 5, the price dropped to $8.99 a pound at Costco.


Then, about 10 days ago, wild sockeye salmon fillets with no specific U.S. origin appeared in the seafood case at $8.99 a pound.


Today, the price dropped to $7.99, and I picked up a nearly 2-pound fillet, which should yield six to eight portions.


For dinner tonight, I'll bake the salmon for about 20 minutes at 375 degrees for medium rare. First, I usually squeeze fresh lemon juice over them and add chopped herbs and ground Aleppo red pepper. 


I'll serve them with blanched and garlic-sauteed collard greens (99 cents a pound at H Mart in Englewood).


Salmon from the Yukon River in Alaska have even more healthy fats than Copper River fish. 


The Yukon River salmon are genetically programmed to store those fats for their 2,000 mile-plus journey up what is the longest salmon river in Alaska.


Wegmans carries Yukon River wild salmon, but the nearest store is more than 30 miles from my home. 


The fresh, keta salmon fillets are $11.99 a pound at the Wegmans in Bridgewater. The store describes the flavor as "rich" and "buttery."


Jersey blues


Also at Costco today, I picked up 2 pounds of Jersey Fresh blueberries, the equivalent of three pints at $1.83 a pint. That's not such a great price, but they are plump and sweet.


Although I've been harvesting red-leaf lettuce from my garden, I also bought a pound of Earthbound Farm Organic Spring Mix ($4.79) for variety in my salads.


I had a $10 Costco gift card the company sent to me after I complained that I found a small, black fly in the spring mix.


A 2-pound package of Cabot sliced cheddar cheese from Vermont is now $7.49, up from $6.99. Bananas are 3 pounds for $1.47.


UPDATE: 


The wild salmon fillet I bought from Costco today yielded eight portions that were a little smaller than usual.


They cooked in a preheated, 375-degree oven in 10 minutes for rare and 12-13 minutes for medium. The rare salmon melted in my mouth.


I reserved three raw portions for my wife and son, who like their salmon cooked through.


After I ate, I delighted in rolling up the skin that had stuck to the aluminum foil in the pan, and popping them into my mouth.

At Seafood Gourmet in Maywood

Image via Wikipedia

The Great Fish Market, an oil painting by Jan Brueghel the Elder (1568-1625).

Enter Seafood Gourmet's market and restaurant in Maywood, walk past the fresh fish in the refrigerated cases and take a seat in the small dining room in the rear. When you're handed the menu of specials, it's likely the fish you just saw will be on it.

The Maywood restaurant was our fall-back. We tried to have dinner late Saturday afternoon at Grand Lux Cafe, next to the AMC movie theaters in Paramus, but the mall parking lot was packed and we tired of looking for a space. 

Grand Lux is described as an "upsacle casual restaurant" from the creator of The Cheesecake Factory, with food inspired by the menus of Italian trattorias, French bistros and Viennese pastry shops. Next time.

Looking around the 36-seat dining room at Seafood Gourmet, which we haven't visited for about a year, I thought, This place could be called a 'joint,' in a good way. But when I asked about the mismatched wall covering and paint, the waitress said a small expansion was under way to add a few more seats.

Wild salmon and Florida grouper were two of the choices on the specials menu, so I picked Salmon Oscar, with crab risotto and asparagus ($21.99). My wife and son shared a Seafood Festival -- angel-hair pasta with lots of crab, lobster and shrimp ($24.99).

Each of them had a cup of delicious lobster bisque and I enjoyed the cream of fresh mushroom soup. We were charged for one bisque ($2.95), so the others must come with the entrees. There are free refills when you order the excellent lemonade and plain seltzer ($1.95 each).

I asked for my salmon medium-rare, but it came cooked through. Still, it was moist, and the fish, risotto and three crunchy asparagus added up to a beautifully balanced meal. My wife found her pasta dish too rich, saying it was made with butter and cheese, but she took home the leftovers.

We have always liked the food and service at Seafood Gourmet, and plan return visits. I can't think of another fish market-restaurant. It reminds me of the old DiSalvo's in Hackensack, but the cooking at the Maywood restaurant is more sophisticated.

Seafood Gourmet, 103 W. Pleasant Ave.,
Maywood; 201-843-8558.

BYOB, free street parking, reservations recommended on weekends.

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. 

Fairway Market's latest sales circular

Fairway Market in Paramus, grand opening (Wikipedia)

There isn't much of interest to me in the Fairway Market sales circular I got with today's Record. Prices are good from today through Sept. 11 in Paramus.

USDA Choice beef brisket is selling for $2.99 a pound -- no extra charge for the antibiotics, growth hormones and animal by-products that were probably used to raise the animal. Yummy. 

If you want kosher brisket, the price is $9.99 a pound, but there is no mention of whether the animal is raised the same way as for the cheap stuff..

Want some kosher, artificially colored farmed salmon? Only $6.99 a pound, compared with $8.99 for fresh wild sockeye salmon at Costco. Artificially colored, smoked farmed salmon is selling for $16.99 a pound, compared with $13.99 for a pound of Costco's smoked wild salmon.

Refrigerated Sabra hummus is $1.99 for 7 ounces and $3.99 for 17 ounces. I'll stick with the canned Libano Verde brand hummus I get at Fattal's in Paterson, $1.09 for 15 ounces. (You add olive oil, powdered garlic and lemon juice.)

Fairway does have good prices for organic milk: $2.99 for a half-gallon of kosher, grass-fed milk and $5.99 for a gallon of Organic Valley milk.

You'll also get a deal on a Murray's rotisserie chicken for $5.99 (weight not specified). Whole Foods Market in Paramus charges $7.49 for a similar rotisserie chicken, though it is probably larger.

Murray's poultry is hormone- and antibiotic-free and is raised on a vegetarian diet, and takes less time to cook than ordinary chicken. Let's hope the Paramus store doesn't overcook them, as the Harlem store did when I first tried a Murray's rotisserie chicken years ago.

So many fish in the sea

This week, I've been eating a lot of wild-caught fish and enjoying it immensely. I'm thinking I could be very happy on a diet of seafood and hardly touch poultry or meat.

I started off the week with the smoked wild salmon I get from Costco as the main ingredient in my breakfast sandwich, with pesto, sliced tomatoes in za'atar, Parmigiano-Reggiano shavings and fresh arugula.

When that ran out, I tweaked my canned fish salad. Last time, I combined red salmon, sardines and yellowfin tuna. This time, it's albacore tuna, Moroccan sardines from Fattal's (one tin of boneless and skinless and another in spicy oil), smoked herring from Trader Joe's and Japanese-style mackerel. This salad got lots of chopped red onion, some olive oil and teaspoons of powdered cumin, and it's great stuffed into pita halves with organic salad greens and fresh arugula and basil.

Dinner on Tuesday night were those New Zealand Greenshell Mussels with sun-dried tomatoes and pesto (see post, "Here's a natural for dinner"). Last night, I had a fillet of fresh wild halibut from Costco ($10.99 a pound), seasoned with fresh oregano and parsley, cumin and Aleppo pepper. I bought the halibut because there was no wild salmon to be had that day.

Tonight, I'll have leftover mussels and halibut and two freshly baked whiting I picked up today at H Mart in Little Ferry ($2.99 a pound). I'll also have a chunk or two of Korean-style Alaskan pollack ($5.99), stewed in a sweet and spicy sauce with carrots and hot and sweet peppers that I found in the long refrigerated case of side dishes, or panchan.

A spectacular breakfast sandwich

I can still recall the taste of the Egg McMuffins I ate for breakfast occasionally when I was a general assignment reporter for The Record in the 1980s, when coffee and cigarettes got me going in the morning. A lot has changed since then: I quit smoking in 1986, The Record's general assignment reporters now work out of an office building in West Paterson, the paper is no longer printed in Hackensack and I stopped eating Egg McMuffins 20 years ago.

For many years now, my breakfasts have usually included fish -- smoked, canned or fresh -- kimchi and tomatoes.

Today, I toasted two slices of 100% whole grain bread from Costco, slathered on Lebanese hummus I had prepared from a can I bought at Fattal's, and topped that with Earthbound Farms organic salad greens, also from Costco. Next came a slice of smoked wild salmon and a fillet of fresh wild salmon (both from Costco) I had baked with parsley, oregano and red pepper. On top of that was a slice of ripe tomato with the spice mixture called za'atar and shavings of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese (Costco).

The sandwich was at least an inch and a half thick, but revealed its layers of wonderful flavor every time I took a bite. I had some kimchi on the side and washed it all down with iced tea. I guess you could call this the Costco breakfast sandwich.