Category: Food

A week or so ago, I mentioned having acquired a dozen tins of nice, clean, Norwegian sardines, skinless and boneless and packed in olive oil. I had the idea of using them in burgers that are partly sardines and partly legumes. They’re good!

Though the garden here has oodles of basil every summer (because I think of basil more as a vegetable than as an herb), I’ve never had such a good supply of fresh herbs as I have this year. I included lots of basil and parsley in the burgers. Because I’m not particularly fond of fishy flavors, I used every sort of compatible strong flavor that I could think of to season the burgers — onions, cumin, garlic powder, Trader Joe’s mushroom umami seasoning, smoked paprika, food yeast, and toasted sesame oil. The peas were frozen. I used an egg as binder. The burgers tasted more like veggie burgers than fish burgers.

Though I do eat eggs and dairy, I eat very little meat. For vegans especially, if they care to extend their range a bit, sardines are a good source of one of the nutrients that vegans can become dangerously deficient in — vitamin B12. Sardines also have lots of iodine, as well as a lipid profile that is as good as it gets. Sardines are low on the food chain. They live on plankton. When sardines come from the cold northern oceans, they’re low on the pollutants that affect some fish higher on the food chain.

I’m trying to remember the train of thought that led me to think of pilchards. I think it was because I’ve been short on fiction lately, and I wondered whether it might be time to re-read Winston Graham’s Poldark novels. That would have caused me to think about Cornwall, and that might have caused me to wonder whether pilchards are as important today to the Cornish economy as they were to the Cornish people in the Poldark novels, set in the 18th Century. And then that made me wonder: What are pilchards? I do recall that I then went to Wikipedia and looked up “pilchard.”

I was surprised to learn that pilchards are sardines. Or maybe that small pilchards are called sardines and larger pilchards are called pilchards. Then I wondered if there is a sardine industry in Cornwall today. I didn’t find an answer to that, but I did come across references saying that the best canned sardines come from Norway, from a company called King Oscar. Then I looked on Amazon, and lo!, several varieties of King Oscar sardines are available from Amazon.

For a long time, I’ve wanted to learn to like sardines. As a 99-percent vegetarian, I’m squeamish about anything that isn’t a plant, and the sight of sardines in a can is a sight unlike anything that grows in a garden. But as I looked at the varieties of sardines sold by King Oscar, I saw that one variety is filet of sardines, skinless and boneless, packed in olive oil. Hmmm. Now we’re starting to sound more like canned tuna, which I love.

I ordered a sixpack of King Oscar sardines from Amazon and was shocked to find that they had accidentally sent me a twelve-pack. I’d better like them!

In fact I think I do. They’re almost as mild as tuna. My first experiment with my twelve cans of sardines was sardine salad. I used celery, onion, lime juice, and fresh herbs — basil, parsley, and dill. It was good!

Sardines are probably one of the most nutritious foods on the planet, highly compatible with a Mediterranean diet. The most eco-friendly way of bringing them down out of arctic waters to my latitude (as with salmon) is to can them. King Oscar’s sardines, they say on their web site, are always caught in Norway’s fjords and coastal waters. They’re processed elsewhere, though (Poland and Morocco?), because, I assume, labor costs are much higher in Norway. I believe all sardines are salt cured and smoked. King Oscar promises that they use real wood smoke and not smoke flavors.

I have two experiments in mind for the next time I open a can of sardines. I think they’d do well in a pasta dish. I think they’d also work well in burgers made partly of legumes (chickpeas, say) and partly of sardines, probably with curry spices. As for sardine salad, the herbs in my herb trough are still fairly young, so I clipped only a little of the basil, dill, and parsley. Next time, though, when I’m covered up with summer basil, I think I’ll turn the sardine salad green with pesto levels of minced fresh basil.

P.S. It happened that I had an avocado that needed to be eaten today. Avocado is a bit too mild to eat with sardines, though. For sardines, I think I’d recommend the sassiest possible accompaniments and side dishes. Pickles for sure, including dill pickles. Think curry, cumin, garlic toast, oodles of herbs … things like that.

Suddenly the wine shelves at the grocery store have multiple varieties of “buttery chardonnay.” It’s as though some California winemaker did a market survey and asked all the people who live on chardonnay what they look for in chardonnay. They all said, “buttery!” I would add one more adjective: fruity — as opposed to heavy overtones of vinegar, vodka, and grapefruit skins.

I never pay much for chardonnay anymore. During my California days, when I lived a little higher on the vine, it was only the pricier chardonnays that were fruity and buttery. I’m very happy, actually, that California winemakers are trying to get these qualities into their lower-priced wines, including the wines that come in 1.5 liter bottles. Big winemakers such as Mondavi are in on the act. And I would have to say that industrial winemakers such as Mondavi and Gallo actually are pretty darned good at making affordable table wines.

For a long time, I had ignored all the chatter about air fryers, figuring that it was just another way to get another useless white elephant taking up space on our countertops. But a review in the New York Times “Wirecutter” section led me to give in and take a chance on a cheap air fryer — $45 from Amazon — to see what all the chatter was about.

I haven’t decided yet whether to keep it in the kitchen or send it to the attic. I’ll say this for it, though. It’s fast. It’s a good toaster. It’s good at warming leftovers. It’s great with potatoes, which is probably 99 percent of what American air fryers are used for. For anything else, though, I’m not so sure. I’d love to hear about your experience with air fryers, in the comments section.

It’s asparagus season. Asparagus and eggs were made for each other. Bigonda cheese with herbs (from Italy), is, I believe, a new item at Trader Joe’s. I’ve never had Bigonda cheese before, but, upon tasting it, it seemed to me to be more suitable as a melting cheese than as a nibbling cheese.

If there are cooked soybeans and leftover rice in the refrigerator, you’ll always have something with which to make a quick meal. I’m of the opinion that the lowly soybean makes the best veggie burgers.

Lentils are remarkably nutritious. Green lentils cook quickly — 20 to 25 minutes. They love to be curried (as do soybeans). I only recently learned how important it is to keep garam masala on hand to use along with curry powder. The two together give a really authentic Indian taste.

If you use apple sauce in your brownies, you’ll still get moist, chewey brownies, but with less butter or oil.

I mentioned a few days ago that I would write a letter to Amon Hen, the journal of the Tolkien Society, asking them to do an article on Tolkien’s typewriters. The U.S. Postal Service, by the way, no longer prints “Par Avion” stickers. I scanned some legacy stickers, and I print my own on label stock. An international letter just wouldn’t look right without a sticker.

I neglect soybeans myself. I go for months without cooking any, and then suddenly I realize that I’m out of them. Most recently I was reminded of soybeans by this piece in the Washington Post on the environmental impact of foods: Which food is better for the planet? Nothing ranks better than soy.

Something like 80 percent of the world’s soybeans are used to feed farm animals, then the animals are eaten. Obviously that’s not a very green way to use soybeans. It’s much healthier — and better for the planet — to just eat the soybeans, even if the soybeans have been processed into something like tofu.

But cooked soybeans are not nearly as boring as we might think. Like tofu, it’s all about what you do with them. Soybeans can be rush-cooked in a pressure cooker, but the tastiest way to cook them, by far, is in a slow cooker (or Crockpot, as we call them in the U.S.). Soybeans smell surprisingly meaty and appetizing when cooked in a slow cooker. They turn out nice and brown, and they have the magical property of amplifying whatever seasonings you use. When cooking them in a slow cooker, I first soak them for about 12 hours. Then I change the water and cook them on low for about 12 hours. Adjust the amount of water you use so that, when the beans are done, they are just barely covered, or not quite covered, with water. The cooking water will thicken and add to the flavor. The cooked beans will easily keep for five to seven days in the refrigerator.

For burgers, mash the beans with a fork. I like to use a small amount of a large variety of seasonings so that no one flavor takes over — salt, garlic powder, brewer’s yeast, sage, Liquid Smoke, toasted sesame oil, tomato paste, pepper paste, Trader Joe’s mushroom umami seasoning, a touch of Worcestershire. Gluten flour is the perfect binder. Add a little cooked brown rice to improve the bite, or, better yet, cooked barley. The burgers will fry up in olive oil nice and brown and tasty.

Soybeans ought to be cheap. Right now, they’re not. Whole Foods used to sell them in bulk. But the last time I tried to buy soybeans at Whole Foods they didn’t have any anywhere in the store! Amazon has them, but good organic soybeans are more expensive than they ought to be. Still, I’d bet a dollar that even kids would love well seasoned soybean burgers.

I Googled for a recipe for barley brownies and found quite a good one. The recipe uses apple sauce instead of eggs. It’s a vegan recipe, but I substituted butter for margarine and milk for the water. Pumpkin sauce is not something I have very often, so I substituted more apple sauce for the pumpkin sauce. These are very good brownies. Barley flour’s nutty taste is perfect for brownies. I buy organic hulled barley from Amazon and grind the flour myself.

Bread casserole doesn’t sound very nutritious or low-ish carb. But it can be.

I used a food processor to coarsely chop the bread. Then, also in the food processor, I minced onion, parsley, spinach, celery, and an apple. The cheese, grated, is part cheddar and part Gruyère. The walnuts are partly pieces and partly halves. I did not add any liquid, though I wish I had used two or more apples instead of one. I moistened it with olive oil. It’s seasoned with sage and rosemary. The darker and heavier the bread the better. This was my barley-whole wheat bread, which was two days old.

It occurred to me that I could make a very good dessert-style bread pudding with minced apples and the same kind of bread, seasoned with cinnamon. I’ll do that next time I have two-day-old barley bread.