NEW PRODUCT – “Seasoned Cold Smoked Salmon with Dill Pickle Flavoring”. Trader Joe’s is really fond of dill pickle stuff. Now I just love (fresh) dill and I especially love a sprinkle of fresh dill on top of smoked salmon. I am also crazy about Gravlax (Scandinavian dill cured salmon). However I didn’t love this new smoked salmon, I found it really to be just OK. For one thing I am guessing that they do not use fresh dill but use dried dill (they even list “dill weed oil” as one of the ingredients in this. That means they are trying to emulate the taste of fresh dill). Furthermore the smoked salmon here seemed to me to be a bit tougher (thicker cut?) then other seasoned salmons I really at TJ’s, namely the Everything Smoked Salmon as well as the Pastrami Smoked Salmon, both of which I think work way better than this seasoning. I really like both of those smoked salmon offerings. I wasn’t impressed with this and would not buy it again. The 4 oz. package was $6.49. For me a miss. I give this a “MEH”. My advice would be to just try the other two good seasoned smoked salmon Trader Joe’s offers.
Here’s a NEW Trader Joe’s item: “Squiggly Knife Cut Style Noodles with Soy and Sesame Sauce”. This package of dried wheat noodles plus a sauce had a promising look. Its a “Product of Taiwan” for one. These seem to be popular and go quickly from the shelves I’ve noticed. UPDATE (Feb 2023) TJ’s can’t seem to keep them in stock. People are scarfing them up as soon as they hit the shelves, some people even re-selling them for profit!
How are these noodles really though? The first time I made them, I did it the way it says on the package: “Bring 4 cups water to a boil. Add noodles. Cook 4 minutes. Drain and add sauce packet”. Just FYI serving just these noodles with the packet of sauce will not make a tasty noodle dish! If you want something decent you will need to add things (proteins. veggies…) to make these into something filling and tastier than just what comes in the package. Now when I made them as directed on the package we were disappointed. My wife’s comment was the noodles themselves just weren’t high quality noodles and tasted cheap. Strike one. But I did give them a second chance with a different take for cooking them. The second time I made these, I decided I would stir fry these. Here’s what I did. I boiled them but a bit less (2-3 minutes). Drained them and put them into a bowl with a teaspoon of oil mixed in (prevents sticking together). In a wok I sautéed ginger, garlic, sliced veggies and scrambled up an egg. I tossed in the noodles and stir fried it all for a minute or two before adding my own sauce mixture to coat. We both thought they came out way better this time by making them into a stir fried noodle dish. Now about that that Sauce Packet: Ugh! Their pack of sauce isn’t good (read the ingredients). Rather than using their (fake tasting) “Soy and Sesame” package I would suggest adding your own soy sauce and a spill of toasted sesame oil, chopped garlic of course – maybe ginger, and if you have some, a little oyster sauce. Too much work? Then just add TJ’s SOYAKI and some Chili Onion Crunch. If you insist on using the included fake-y bad sauce pack I’d say use only half and taste as you go before add more (even if only to reduce sodium). FYI the Sodium listed is 40% from one sauce packet. That is almost half of your daily recommended Sodium amount. Some packaged Asian foods have a high amount of sodium, so check labels.
TJ’s “SQUIGGLY NOODLES” are $4.99 for 4 noodle packs. Basically I will give this a MEH. They noodles are just OK, not great, and the sauce is not good (I say toss the pack of sauce). IF you eat it as-is just boiled noodles with that sauce packet you will probably be disappointed. However you can fix this up with a little work into something a bit tasty. Spend a little effort and you can make these into something tasty especially I think if you do it stir fried. Even just adding a runny fried egg on top of your finished dish will improve it 100%. Chopped scallions are a must to improve this plus cilantro if you like it too. A really nice topping ingredient might be my easy Cha Siu hack with TJ’s Carnitas Pork. If you really want to make this into something worth eating try watching Aaron (of Aaron and Claire) doing some Garlic Chili Noodles (see video) which you could do with these noodles, as well as get good tips making noodles. I’ve watch so many of Aaron’s cooking videos and it’s really upped my game for Korean/Asian dishes.
These are called SWEET POTATO GNOCCHI with sage and butter (frozen section). That sounded interesting to me so I decided to check them out. Results? Well they were tasty but frankly different than what we were expecting from the name. First off there turned out to be quite a bit of sauce in relation to the gnocchi than expected (kind of swimming in it) and the flavor of the sauce while nice, dominated over any subtle sweet potato flavor to the point that three of us tasting them all had the same comment : we couldn’t tell these gnocchi were “sweet potato” as opposed to regular gnocchi, other than these were slightly orange in color. The first 3 ingredients are listed as: sweet potato, wheat flour, potato. So there is regular potato. We didn’t think they were bad but they didn’t stand out as “Sweet Potato Gnocchi”. All 3 of us trying them for the first time said while kind of tasty it was probably something we would not buy again. Rather I could make the regular gnocchi I like at TJ’s and get them a bit crispy on the outside and then add some butter, sage and cheese. These were about $3.39. So giving them a “meh” as both plus and minus opinions on them.
I’m not vegetarian. Still I like to try vegetarian options and see if they are any good. I love (repeat, love!) Indian food. This looked a bit appealing to me, the picture intrigued me and it says “with Authentic Indian Spices”. After all “Masala” means mixed spices. Tasting it, all I could think of “spices? what spices?”. To me, they’re almost non-existent. So short review is this is OK. It’s also not terribly exciting either and Indian food generally is. This could be served to an Indian baby. Most any authentic Indian dish is exploding with spices used very freely. Masala Dosa for example is basically mashed potato but has a ton of spices which make it delicious. This “masala burger” is primarily potatoes, so its kind of basically a mashed potato burger. It has pieces of vegetables in it, such as red pepper and corn. The concept is not bad – it’s just the lack of spices which defeats the purpose of calling it “masala” (mixed spices). The burger is OK, just lacking an authentic Indian spice profile which might make it tasty. If you put this on a bun as is it will basically be a potato sandwich.
These need something added to it. Sriracha. Peri-peri sauce. Zhough. Bomba. Magnifisauce. Some actual Indian Masala Spices if you have them. At least put some garlic powder on these if you make them and add some Hatch chile flakes. The only thing that perked this up a little bit was putting a little TJ’s TAMARIND SAUCE on, which is basically a tamarind chutney sauce. My wife told me “one was enough” and she usually scarfs down my cooking, so that was not a good review. If you’re vegetarian it might be worth checking out as an option as long as you fix it up. 4 burgers are $2.99. I won’t buy this again, however vegetarians might like this if they do something to it.
Trader Joe’s Rants & Raves (mostly raves, a few rants) 
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