We live near New Bedford, home to the highest valued commercial fishing port in the United States. So it may seem weird if not stupid to eat fish that came in the mail, from America’s heartland no less. But Mom is an Omaha Steaks afficionado, and her generous gifts regularly arrive by FedEx, packed in dry ice and Styrofoam, and they’re not just steak.
On a recent Thursday, we sampled a pair of sole fillets stuffed with scallops and crabmeat. Zipped straight from the freezer into the convection oven for 40 minutes, they were tender and moist, and the stuffing was crackery, with no discernible pieces of shellfish, but flavorful.
Alongside, we served stuffed baked potatoes that had been in the freezer since the last shipment, about two months ago. Stuffed with whipped potatoes, sour cream, cheddar, and chives, they seemed kind of dry, but we acknowledge this could be because of a recent incident involving an open freezer door. If the Omaha website, or little cookbook that comes with every order, says how long the products are supposed to keep in the freezer, we couldn’t find it.
In keeping with our “minimal effort” theme, we cooked precut green beans in butter with a little garlic powder, and they were excellent.
One cool thing about eating packaged food is nutrition labeling. We know that the fish was 190 calories per serving, and the potatoes 280. So the dish, before the added butter (which was considerable), was just 500 calories, and we would have been okay with spending $13.95 on it in a restaurant.
Chow 