Super spicing your home-cooked meals

Fresh Icelandic haddock coated in spices and served with mashed sweet potatoes.

The spice mixture after I added a couple of ounces of Aleppo red pepper.

It didn't take long after our power was restored to shake off Hurricane Sandy, restock the refrigerator and freezer, and get back into preparing quick, nutritious meals at home.

Instead of huddling around the gas fireplace, we've resumed gathering for good breakfasts and dinners in our cozy kitchen.

One of the items I had almost ran out of before the storm hit Oct. 29 was a mixture of bread crumbs and ground spices I've been using for years to coat fish fillets, chicken, pork or beef before baking or roasting them in the oven. 

This is no-recipe cooking at its simplest and quickest, with the juices from the fish or meat rejuvenating the ground spices.

This week, I searched our cupboards and freezer for  spices -- new and old -- and combined them in a big plastic tub stained from all the ground red pepper it has held. 

I decided to streamline the ground-spice mixture by eliminating the bread crumbs and using many more spices than the ones I've long favored from Wick Fowler's 2-Alarm Chili Kit, which I would mail-order  by the case.

Post-Sandy breakfasts included callaloo and saltfish with sweet plantains and boiled green banana, above, and organic eggs with whole-wheat pasta and sardines, below.

I didn't discriminate between new bottles of spices and the old ones I found in the back of the closest, refrigerators or freezer.

I started with Organic No Salt Seasoning, Garlic Powder, Red Pepper Flakes, Ground Black Malabar Pepper, Dried Onion Flakes and other spices from Costco Wholesale.

I found a couple of old containers of Jamaican and Indian curry powders, Chinese Five Spice Powder and White Pepper; Corrado's Ground Ginger and Dried Mint Leaves. 

Korean Red Pepper, Cayenne Pepper and Ground Saigon Cinnamon also went into the mix. I didn't add salt, but had some spice mixtures with salt to add to the plastic tub. 

I can't think of any ground spice that wouldn't be appropriate for the Super Spice Mixture, and you can just continue to replenish the container as you use the mixture. 

For example, you can add a couple of ounces of ground cumin, which is what I did today.

I used the spice mixture to coat fresh, wild-caught haddock fillets from Iceland that I found at Costco Wholesale in Hackensack for $7.99 a pound.

I unwrapped the tray of fish, ran it under tap water, cut it up into smaller pieces and coated both sides with spices in the container, which I keep in the refrigerator.

Or you can spread the spices on a plate and coat the fish that way.

The fillets were ready after about 20 minutes at 350 degrees, and I served them with mashed sweet potatoes and wedges of lime.  

The heating system at the Little Ferry H Mart was broken today.

My wife went to Costco Wholesale in Hackensack today and Tuesday, and I shopped today at the ShopRite in Hackensack and H Mart in Little Ferry, a Korean supermarket, which had lights but no heat.

At Costco, a 10-pound bag of sweet potatoes from North Carolina was $5.99, 10 pounds of organic carrots were $7.99, a 1-pound package of Kirkland Signature Smoked Wild Alaskan Salmon was $15.39.

A 2-pound package of Jarlsberg Light sliced, reduced-fat cheese was $9.99, and 3 pounds of sodium-free California almonds I roast at home were $12.99.

At H Mart, a 15-pound bag of California-grown Kukuho Yellow Label Rice was on sale for $9.99. Other sale items were frozen Greenshell Mussels for $5.99 and a large bunch of fresh spinach for 99 cents.

At ShopRite, I bought the last three packages of antibiotic-free Readington Farms chicken legs and thighs for $1.89 a pound.

Now, the house is filled with the aroma of Curry Chicken.

But I'll be content with whole-wheat rigatoni in bottled marinara with added anchovies, which cook away but leave behind a robust taste; steamed spinach and a salad.   
  

 

Today, this omelet was made with Manchego cheese I didn't throw away.

After Hurricane Sandy knocked our power out on Oct. 29, we could still cook on our gas stove by igniting it with a match.

So, we cooked and ate what we could, supplemented by prepared food from Whole Foods Market; gave away a  lot of items from the freezer and threw away food.

But I didn't discard Tropicana orange juice in sealed cartons; Manchego, grated Pecorino Romano and another hard cheese; two jars of kimchi, olives, capers in brine, homemade pesto, ground spices, bread and tortillas. 

No-recipe home cooking in photos

Breakfast salad: Organic spring mix with beefsteak tomato, za'atar thyme mixture, and reduced fat cheese; cabbage kimchi, olives and canned-fish salad (yellowfin tuna, pink salmon and sardines).

Small mustard greens with a bottle of Mexican green salsa.

Mustard greens plated with half of a mahi-mahi fillet cooked in spicy green salsa or salsa verde and a sweet potato made in 6 minutes in a microwave (speed-cook setting).

An egg-white omelet with reduced-fat cheese, white anchovies and coarsely ground Aleppo pepper plated with leftover sugar pea shoots.

Fresh greens


I cook greens, fresh broccoli and French green beans the same way, and they are ready in under 5 minutes.


First, cut and wash your greens, then blanch in a covered pot with boiling water for 1 to 2 minutes.


Using the cover, drain the pot and put it back on the stove with no flame under it.


You can drizzle the greens with extra-virgin olive oil, sprinkle on a little salt and add seasonings such as powdered garlic and black pepper.


Or, you can add a little soy sauce and sesame oil, and no-salt organic seasoning. You're done.


Fish in green sauce


Pour half of a bottle of spicy Mexican salsa verde into a large, non-stick pot and warm it up. Add any kind of wild-caught fish fillets, including frozen mahi-mahi or Alaskan salmon.


Pour the rest of the sauce over the fish and squeeze the juice of one or two limes into the pot. Cover and cook for 15 to 30 minutes, depending on whether the fish is fresh of frozen.


You also can cook a whole fish this way. Slash each side in three places with a sharp knife to help you judge when the fish is done.


You can serve fish in green sauce with a sweet potato, organic brown rice with lentils, made in an electric rice cooker; or whole-wheat pasta with bottled sauce.


I reserve the green sauce for use with omelets or eggs fried sunny side up.


Canned fish salad


Empty canned fish and oil or water into a plastic container, add chopped celery or sweet pepper and then flavor with Dijon mustard, fresh lime or lemon juice and powdered cumin to taste.


Cover and refrigerate.


Sources


H Mart or other Asian supermarkets are great sources for a wide variety of fresh greens, including spinach, collard, mustard, bok choy and Chinese broccoli.


Costco Wholesale usually has fresh wild-caught haddock, flounder and Pacific cod, but when it doesn't, I buy frozen mahi-mahi or salmon in the freezer section.


Costco also sells Kirkland Signature Organic No Salt Seasoning, a blend of 21 spices and other ingredients.


ShopRite and Hackensack Market carry Mexican green salsa from Goya and La Costena. A 16-ounce bottle is enough to prepare as much as 2 pounds of fish.

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