Portuguese food delivery in Hackensack could be our new Chinese

Grilled Codfish or what the Portuguese call Bacalhau Grelhado from Fire Pit Barbecue in Hackensack.

Fire Pit Barbecue also delivered an aluminum tray holding a whole barbecued chicken (cut up), yellow rice and black beans.

Editor's note: After two solid days of eating out in Manhattan's expensive restaurants and trying to avoid butter, cream and other high-cholesterol and high-calorie food, we returned home, looking forward to simpler meals.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

How tired are we of having Chinese food delivered? Don't ask.

We've been loyal customers of Zen Kitchen in Teaneck, but our last few deliveries haven't been up to par.

My wife complains the food we've received lately is "greasy," and we have a hard time getting dishes prepared simply with fresh garlic.

So, after we returned on Monday from spending the weekend in a luxury Manhattan hotel, I called Fire Pit Barbecue on Essex Street, a mile and a half away from our home in Hackensack.

The restaurant's name doesn't hint the menu is filled with Portuguese-style barbecue and other favorites, plus wraps, soups and salads.

Pork with shrimp

When I ate meat, I always loved ordering Pork with Clams at Portuguese restaurants in Newark's Ironbound.

Fire Pit Barbecue in Hackensack lists Pork Cubes with Shrimp on its menu ($16), and Shrimp, Meat and Cod Fish Cakes ($1 to $1.50 each).

For dessert, you'll find Flan and Rice Pudding ($3 each).

I ordered three items from the online menu and had them delivered:

A whole BBQ Chicken with two side dishes ($14), a half-order of BBQ Spare Ribs ($9) and Grilled Codfish with Potatoes, Peppers and Onions ($19).

The whole chicken and grilled codfish came in aluminum trays with barbecue and spicy sauces -- generous portions that were enough for three to four people.

They were a better value than the half-order of spare ribs.

I loved the smoky taste of the salted codfish, and the vegetables that came with it. We got three portions of fish and vegetables from the tray.


Fire Pit Barbecue, 357 Essex St., Hackensack; 201-489-3473. Portuguese food. Eat in, take out and delivery. 

Online menu is being revised and might not match price increases. A second Fire Pit Barbecue is in Kearny.

Web site: http://www.firepitbbq.net/

The Grilled Codfish delivered by Fire Pit Barbecue was smothered in green peppers, onions and garlic, and came with steamed broccoli and carrots, and white potatoes, all in a generous pour of extra-virgin olive oil.

Back to egg whites, whole grains

When we checked out of our hotel last Monday, we didn't go to breakfast in Manhattan, but returned home late in the morning and prepared our own meal. 

Open-face omelets made with 100% egg whites and seasoned with Aleppo pepper, za'artar thyme mixture or grated Pecorino Romano, a sheep's milk cheese from Italy, above and below, and served with organic quinoa or an organic quinoa-brown rice combination, both from Costco Wholesale.

Two Costco Wholesale Organic Eggs fried in olive oil with bits of Parmigiano Reggiano Cheese, served with mashed sweet potatoes and Kabocha squash made with extra-virgin olive oil. How sweet it is.

Last Sunday evening in Manhattan, the Michelin 3-star restaurant Per Se in the Time Warner Center didn't offer a green salad. On Wednesday, on the way home, I stopped at Jerry's Gourmet & More in Englewood for a Kale Salad with dried cranberries, pignoli nuts and shredded cheese ($3.99), added the salad to Earthbound Farm Organic Spring Mix and Campari Tomatoes, and dressed them in extra-virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

Dining in and dining out: A welcome return to the familiar

One of the first dishes I prepared at home after returning from a vacation in Montreal was a gooey frittata with egg whites, sliced Swiss cheese, shredded Parmigiano Reggiano Cheese, plum tomatoes and pesto, all from Costco Wholesale.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

I've been having fun looking in our refrigerator and kitchen cabinets, and preparing meals at home after eight days of eating out in Montreal restaurants.

Some of the wonderfully rich food we ate on vacation undoubtedly contained butter and cream, two things I never cook with.

Now, I'm back to organic quinoa, brown rice and whole-wheat pasta, wild salmon, a simple green salad with every dinner, lots of fruit, reduced-fat cheeses and cooking with extra-virgin olive oil.

Organic whole-wheat capellini with organic diced tomatoes, chopped fresh garlic, capers and anchovies. For a pound of pasta, you need a lot of liquid so I also used a 32-ounce bottle of Classico pasta sauce, red wine, extra-virgin olive oil, red-pepper flakes and dried herbs. I also rinsed the capers and anchovies to reduce sodium in the dish.

Use a big pot if you want to, but you'll need only a few inches of water to boil a pound of capellini, also known as angel-hair pasta, and never salt the water. There is plenty of sodium in your other ingredients, especially if you use bottled pasta sauce.

Whole whiting is an inexpensive wild-caught fish with a center spine and a minimum of other bones, making it ideal for picking up and eating like fried chicken. Here, I served the fried fish with leftover organic quinoa prepared in an electric rice cooker with a can of organic diced tomatoes, salt, and olive and sesame oils. My wife bought the fish for $3.99 a pound at the H Mart in Englewood.

I had three bottles of Archer Farms Roasted Salsa Verde from Target in my kitchen cabinet. The mild salsa, made with tomatillos, jalapeno pepppers and green chiles, is ideal as a sauce for leftover organic quinoa, added before you reheat it in a microwave, above, or spooned onto a simple egg-white omelet with reduced-fat cheese in the last minutes of cooking, below.

Unlike bottled green salsas made in Mexico, Archer Farms Roasted Salsa Verde contains sugar.

Fresh wild sockeye salmon, cut into serving pieces, poaching in Roasted Salsa Verde, which serves as both a cooking medium and a sauce for rice, quinoa, pasta or other side dish. I added salt and optional Aleppo pepper to the fish before I put them into the boiling salsa and covered the pan, cooking them for about 8 minutes. Also optional is fresh lime juice added to the salsa before heating it up. 

When I plated the fish with reheated leftover quinoa, I added chopped oregano and mint from our garden, above and below.

My wife bought the wild sockeye salmon at Costco Wholesale in Hackensack on Tuesday for $10.99 a pound. The label didn't specify where in the United States or which river the fish comes from. Tonight, I ate cold leftover salmon and salsa with ripe peach slices.

This morning, I enjoyed one of my favorite breakfasts, pasta and eggs, in this case leftover whole-wheat capellini and two organic brown eggs, sunny side up, from Costco Wholesale with shredded Parmigiano Reggiano Cheese, Aleppo pepper and chopped oregano, mint and basil from outdoor and indoor plants.

Six 12-ounce pints of sweet Jersey Fresh Blueberries -- called a "flat" -- are on sale for $6.99 through Saturday at the ShopRite in Paramus. One of the produce guys said the blueberries can be frozen in a Ziploc bag, and thawed out on the counter overnight. I'm trying that. Golden pineapples are two for $5 and a half-gallon of ShopRite Lactose Free Milk is on sale for $3.29, a savings of 20 cents.

Complete dinner for $10

The first restaurant meal my wife wanted after we returned from Montreal was Korean soft tofu, with a fresh egg, four side dishes and steamed rice.

At So Gong Dong in Palisades Park, the place-mat menu lists the complete meal for $9.99. On the check, it is rounded up to $10 and includes the tax.

Soft tofu is addictive, and you can order it as spicy or as mild as you want.

The stew is brought to the table with your choice of meat, seafood, kimchi or soybeans, bubbling furiously, and a fresh egg is provided for poaching in the steaming broth.

My Rich Soybean Soft Tofu contained whole soybeans.

Rich Soybean Soft Tofu at So Gong Dong in Palisades Park.

Cabbage kimchi is one of the four side dishes that come with the meal, and you can ask for as much as you can eat. Hot or cold tea also is included.

Pickled radish and jalapeno pepper.

Besides soft tofu, we also ordered a seafood pancake ($12), but took most of it home. The simple dining room has tables to accommodate multigenerational Korean families.

The expanded place-mat menu also offers pork and beef barbecue, dumplings, ramyun, bibimbap and other traditional Korean dishes.

So Gong Dong, 118 Broad Ave., 2nd Floor, Palisades Park; 1-201-313-5550. Open 7 days. Free parking on side streets. 

Other So Gong Dongs are in Manhattan and Hartsdale, N.Y.

A cheap import at Costco Wholesale doesn't go down easy

At Costco Wholesale in Hackensack on Tuesday, large jars of Del Destino-brand Quinoa with Basil Pesto from Peru were so cheap (see price below) I couldn't pass up buying one.

Ingredients include quinoa, basil (listed third), Grana Padano Cheese, virgin olive oil and garlic. This product is not to be confused with refrigerated Kirkland Signature Basil Pesto for dressing pasta.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

I blinked a couple of times, but the price for a 34.5-ounce jar of Quinoa with Basil Pesto at Costco Wholesale in Hackensack didn't appear to be a typo.

The product combines two of my favorite foods --quinoa (pronounced KEEN-wah) and pesto -- but probably is best eaten as a salad right out of the jar or warmed up for a side dish.

A recipe on the label for Pesto and Shrimp Quinoa Bowl calls for Quinoa with Basil Pesto to be added to the pan after the shrimp are cooked and heated for 5 minutes.

I opened the jar, tried several unheated spoonfuls with dinner and liked how it tasted, but noticed a lot of oil on my plate.

I discovered it didn't agree with me after I went to bed, and plan to return it to Costco for a refund.

At Costco, a full liter of Kirkland Signature Balsamic Vinegar of Modena is $10.99, compared to $1.99 for a half-liter of Ponti Balsamic Vinegar of Modena, below right, from Jerry's Gourmet & More on South Dean Street in Englewood. Both have similar ingredients, an acidity of 6% and no added caramel color. 

I was served Ponti Balsamic Vinegar in almost every restaurant I patronized during a 2010 trip to Milan, Venice and Lake Maggiore in Italy.

Costco's 100% Egg Whites and whole Organic Eggs, plus shredded cheese, went into the mixture for this frittata, which took advantage of a sale on scallions I came across at a Korean supermarket. I started the frittata on top of the stove until it set, covered the scallions with slices of reduced-fat Jarlsberg Swiss, also from Costco, and finished the frittata under the broiler.

Kirkland Signature Basil Pesto was used to garnish the frittata after it was removed from the oven, where it finished cooking and browned.

Costco prices

A 32-ounce package of Georgia blueberries was $6.49 on Tuesday at the Hackensack warehouse store, 50 cents less than a week before, but they are not the sweetest I've bought recently.

Costco first carried blueberries from Chile -- for as much as $9.99 for 18 ounces -- and ShopRite offered Florida berries.

Fresh wild sockeye salmon from the Copper River in Alaska was $14.99 a pound at Costco, but I found only two packages amid the artificially colored farmed salmon and steel-head trout, and they had been packed on Sunday.

Three 32-ounce jars of Classico Tomato & Basil Pasta Sauce were $2 off ($4.79), and a new label says fresh basil, onion and garlic are used.

Two 40-ounce jars of Kirkland Signature Natural Peanut Butter -- made only from Valencia Peanuts and salt -- were $10.99, and when I got them home, I put them in the refrigerator to prevent separation.

A 1-pound tub of pre-washed Earthbound Farm Organic Spring Mix was $4.99.

Target in Hackensack has good prices for the store brand of lactose-free milk. A half-gallon of Lactose Free 1% Reduced Fat Milk was on sale on Tuesday for $3.14. The regular price is $3.39. I also saw a half-gallon of fat-free Horizon Organic Lactose Free Milk for only $3.99. 

Groceries at Target

There aren't many grocery bargains at Target, but the Hackensack store is having a promotion through May 31.

I picked up two frozen Newman's Own  Thin & Crusty Pizzas with Uncured Pepperoni for $5.99, usually the price for one.

I also saw a promotion for 16-ounce jars of Salsa Verde at $2.99 each. If you buy three, you get one free (three for less than $6).

An employee said I could "mix and match" the different types of salsa available, but when I got to the register, one of my choices was $3.02 and I couldn't get the deal with two jars of salsa verde at $2.99 each.

Target is one of the few stores left that gives you money back for a reusable bag (5 cents). And if I had brought and used my Target credit card, I would have gotten 5% off my grocery purchases. 

Survive winter by taking comfort in hearty meals

On a chilly, rainy Friday, large bowls of takeout pork tofu soup warmed up the meat eaters in my family, but I was perfectly happy with the seafood version ($12.99 each with five side dishes).

Our takeout order from BCD Tofu House in Fort Lee included grilled galbi ($19.99), above, and five small, beautifully fried fish that were among the free side dishes, below.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The sun is shining on northern New Jersey today, but Friday was a complete washout and the forecast is for more snow next week.

We are winter weary here on the East Coast, having weathered six or seven storms with significant snowfall so far.

In between all the shoveling I've been doing, comfort food has been my port in the storm. 

The Haemul Pajun from BCD Tofu House was filled with seafood and scallions ($9.99 for small), but it was greasier and not as fluffy as other Korean pancakes I've tried, notably at Gammeeok in Fort Lee. Better were BCD's steamed pork dumplings ($6.99 for small).

When in Fort Lee

On Friday, I spent six hours at a surgery center in Fort Lee, where a family member was being treated for a broken leg, and on the way home in the car, we stopped at BCD Tofu House, 1640 Schlosser St., to pick up a warming dinner. 

I had called ahead, ran in and paid, then back out into the wind-whipped rain with nearly 20 containers in three large paper-in-plastic bags.

BCD Tofu House is one of the best Korean restaurants in North Jersey, but it is more expensive than Palisade Park's So Gong Dong, which my teenage son calls the "World's Best Tofu Restaurant."

Still, when he tasted the BCD pork tofu soup I emptied into a large bowl at home, he loved it, along with the barbecued galbi and steamed pork dumplings.

I ordered seafood tofu soup "very spicy" and found that all that red pepper burned my tongue, making it uncomfortable to eat. My son finished it later.

But I was very happy with the small fried fish, wonderful kimchi and other side dishes, and brown rice, which So Gong Dong doesn't serve.

When we go to a Korean restaurant for tofu soup, we are served a fresh egg to cook in the bubbling broth, but we didn't find any eggs in our soup from BCD Tofu House.

Crunchy broccoli is one of the free side dishes.

Sweet-and-spicy radish is a delightful side.

The cabbage kimchi from BCD Tofu House is among the best I've had.

A Jewish deli would be proud to serve these pickles.

Hearty home cooking

On Thursday night, I quickly whipped up 1 pound of organic whole-wheat pasta shells with bottled sauce, fresh garlic, and canned anchovies and sardines.

The shells are like catcher's mitts, holding the sauce and other ingredients.

The meal was complete with a glass of wine and a salad of Earthbound Farm Organic Spring Mix, adding in diced apple, blueberries, cinnamon-dusted almonds and Parmigiano Reggiano Cheese, all dressed in extra-virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar. 

The made-in-Italy pasta came from Whole Foods Market in Paramus, and the rest of the ingredients were from Costco Wholesale in Hackensack and Fattal's in Paterson. 

I have been boiling and mashing sweet potatoes with Kabocha Squash, whole peeled cloves of garlic and extra-virgin olive oil as a bread substitute. Here, I served leftovers with an egg-white, sun-dried tomato and cheese omelet.

Two organic brown eggs sprinkled with shredded Parmigiano Reggiano Cheese (both from Costco Wholesale) make a great topping for bibimbap, a Korean dish I made at home with organic brown rice and seasoned vegetables from H Mart in Little Ferry.

Imported organic organic whole wheat shells from Whole Foods Market in Paramus are a bargain at $1.39 a pound. They are wonderful in bottled pasta sauce with added anchovies, sardines and chopped fresh garlic.

For a hearty breakfast, top the shells with a fried organic brown egg.

Sweet potato parmigiano and other delights

Leftover bottled marinara sauce and shredded Kirkland Signature Parmigiano Reggiano from Costco Wholesale transform a baked sweet potato, which was split and reheated in a microwave after the sauce and imported cheese were added.

Sweet potato parmigiano served for breakfast with two organic brown eggs from Costco, above; and with an egg-white omelet and stewed tofu from H Mart, top photo.

Editor's note: Today, I discuss substitutes for bread and pizza that won't put on weight, and a ShopRite special on imported pasta sauce.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

I never quite understood why all those chicken and veal parmigiano dishes listed on restaurant menus carried the name of one of Italy's great cheeses, but were covered in gooey mozzarella.

I guessed that the dishes were made in the style of Parma, where mozzarella cheese reigns.

But when I chose to dress up a leftover baked sweet potato for breakfast one morning, I used a little marinara sauce and reduced-fat Parmigiano Reggiano from Costco Wholesale, not full-fat mozzarella.

Not bad.

See: Invite the 'King of Cheeses' into your home

Lifting the lid on healthy organic whole-wheat fusilli from Trader Joe's with organic diced tomatoes, sardines and plenty of baby spinach, which was added to the hot pasta water just before the spirals were drained.

Two organic brown eggs got pinches of Aleppo pepper and grated Pecorino Romano, a sheep milk's cheese that I also add to whole wheat pasta. The cheese and eggs come from Costco.

Kirkland Signature Egg Whites and two organic brown eggs were mixed for a simple all-Costco frittata with grated Pecorino Romano cheese, Camapari Tomatoes and Kirkland Signature Basil Pesto, which I add after the thick no-flip dish finishes browning under the broiler.

Bottled pasta sauce

I couldn't find many bargains among the bottled pasta sauces at the Rochelle Park ShopRite on Friday afternoon, and had to read a lot of labels to find one without added sugar.

One sauce from Two Guys Food Group, made with famed Jersey tomatoes, was a pricey $5.49 for a 25-ounce bottle.

But the oddly named Dress Italian sauces were not only imported from Italy and on sale, but also were free of added sugar.

I picked up 26.5-ounce bottles of Classica (Tomato Basil), Arrabiatta (Angry Chili) and Siciliana (Sun Dried Tomato) for only $1.99 each or half price.

Two of the sauces contain red or white wine, and they are made from 61% or more Italian crushed tomatoes.