Favorite Canned Product

[Meanderer]

My wife recently made a dessert with Oregon brand canned purple plums. Surprisingly good. Now I want to sample some of the other fruit canned by that outfit.

[heidih]

My wife recently made a dessert with Oregon brand canned purple plums. Surprisingly good. Now I want to sample some of the other fruit canned by that outfit.

Many years ago I was desperate to make my sister some boysenberry jam for a Christmas gift. I used the Oregon brand and she speaks fondly of the fine flavor of the jam to this day.

[Katie Meadow]

Don't know where I got the recipe, but a sweet noodle kugel that's been kicking around for at least 30 years specified Oregon brand canned tart cherries and they were pretty good. I'm not into sweet kugel now but when my daughter was young it was right up her alley.

[nakji]

Annalisa tomatoes from Italy. They have Asian distribution I guess. They're not San Marzano, but they're incredibly sweet.

[weinoo]

Don't know where I got the recipe, but a sweet noodle kugel that's been kicking around for at least 30 years specified Oregon brand canned tart cherries and they were pretty good. I'm not into sweet kugel now but when my daughter was young it was right up her alley.

Oregon brand seems to be one of the few canners of this great cherry product. I was browsing the canned fruit aisle the other day and thought that maybe I should try to make a cherry pie - they have both sweet cherries and tart cherries in the can.

[BonVivant]

too many to list. tinned smoked sprats are so good. wherever i go i check out tinned seafood. the selection in Chile is incredible! my latest delicious find is smoked sardines, interestingly it's in Argentina.

[weinoo]

too many to list. tinned smoked sprats are so good. wherever i go i check out tinned seafood. the selection in Chile is incredible! my latest delicious find is smoked sardines, interestingly it's in Argentina.

Do you have a favorite brand of tinned smoked sprats or sardines?

[BonVivant]

Do you have a favorite brand of tinned smoked sprats or sardines?

yes.

Ruegen Fisch Kieler Sprotten

La Catena's Patagonian smoked sardines

[weinoo]

Love the picture of the Kieler Sprotten. Those two brands might be hard for me to find here in NYC .

[patrickamory]

It's insanely expensive, but Ortiz Ventresca bonito is incredibly unctuous and yummy. It's for eating directly out of the package - almost feels sinful to mix it into anything else:

http://www.amazon.com/Ortiz-Ventresca-Bonito-Norte-Spain/dp/B001MS1W06

For canned San Marzanos, I've become addicted to Danicoop San Marzano from Agro Nocerino-Sarnese. They are wonderfully bittersweet, as the site says. I actually think they have a nice balance of acidity:

http://gustiamo.com/cgi-bin/front_end/prodotto?id=102367

Finally, in the world of more reasonably priced canned goods, Aroy-D coconut milk separates easily into cream and milk, and more importantly, it's not impossible to crack the cream from it - the next best thing to squeezing your own:

http://www.amazon.com/Aroy-D-Coconut-Milk-14oz/dp/B000JMFCR0

Edited October 16, 2011 by patrickamory (log)

[jrshaul]

I'll keep an eye out for Hunts' tomatoes next time they're on sale. Pretty much all the non-heirloom tomatoes I get from the farmers' market taste like cardboard, and the heirlooms always seem to be a day or two closer to going bad than I'd really like for $3.50/lb.

Despite their technically jarred nature, I'm going to nominate Trader Joe's whole cherry and apricot preserves. It's about as good as supermarket jam gets, and at $3 for a big jar, cheap enough that I can actually purchase. The apricot makes a pretty effective glaze for meat; my father, in particular, liked to mix it with mustard.

Goya stuffs everything into olives. My store carries Goya olives stuffed with anchovies, tuna, salmon, jalapeno, etc.

Anchovies? In olives? This is a thing that exists?

I feel deprived.

Edited October 18, 2011 by jrshaul (log)

[dcarch]

I am amazed how good (some) canned crab meat is.

Almost like fresh crab meat in taste and texture.

They recommend refrigerate them, even they are in unopenned cans.

dcarch

[Jaymes]

B & M Brown Bread in cans

We love this stuff. The traditional way to eat it is to heat up your baked beans, and then lay the bread on top, and steam it until it turns into almost a pudding.

But we like to slice it and toast it and smear it with cream cheese and eat it with our German-style dinners - red cabbage, sauer meat, hot potato salad, knuddels, spaetzle, meat salad, etc.

[patrickamory]

B & M Brown Bread in cans

We love this stuff. The traditional way to eat it is to heat up your baked beans, and then lay the bread on top, and steam it until it turns into almost a pudding.

But we like to slice it and toast it and smear it with cream cheese and eat it with our German-style dinners - red cabbage, sauer meat, hot potato salad, knuddels, spaetzle, meat salad, etc.

Wow. I haven't had this since I was a kid growing up in Boston. We had it with franks and beans. I thought it was a really New England thing. Canned bread!

[Jaymes]

B & M Brown Bread in cans

We love this stuff. The traditional way to eat it is to heat up your baked beans, and then lay the bread on top, and steam it until it turns into almost a pudding.

But we like to slice it and toast it and smear it with cream cheese and eat it with our German-style dinners - red cabbage, sauer meat, hot potato salad, knuddels, spaetzle, meat salad, etc.

Wow. I haven't had this since I was a kid growing up in Boston. We had it with franks and beans. I thought it was a really New England thing. Canned bread!

It is a New England thing, but I lived for a time in the Northeast, and grew to love it. We also did a stint in Florida and, every winter when the snowbirds flew in, it would appear on the grocery shelves.

It can be pretty hard to find elsewhere, but when I'm determined, I manage. And I've even gone so far as to order it by the case, if there is just no store in the vicinity of where I happen to be living that carries it. I'm in Houston now, and we have a big grocery chain that specializes in carrying, well, everything. Central Market. That's where I've found it here.

When I was a child, my family lived in Germany, and we all grew fond of that "German tang" (I guess you could call it): sweet & sour red cabbage, hot bacon & potato salad, meats, etc. That brown bread, sliced, toasted and smeared with cream cheese, goes particularly well with my German menu. I also prefer it over really sweet pastries with my fruit and coffee in the mornings. And as I said above, my dad really loves it. So I try to always keep it on hand.