Hi, everyone. This is my first post on the cooking forum. I used to cook a lot in college and graduate school (mostly without written recipes), but as an East Village resident, I have been spoiled for excellent restaurant food for a couple of decades - until I had a blood pressure crisis a few weeks ago and got scared straight. I am now on a very low-salt diet and can’t go to restaurants much at all.
My kitchen setup in my very small and somewhat cluttered apartment is really not adequate for much, but I do have one large saucepan, a decent pan of the same width as the large saucepan, a Pyrex oven pan with lid that’s too small to roast a chicken but useful for some other things, a few smaller pots, and I have ways of steaming things. I need to purchase some more equipment and create enough space to buy a regular-sized refrigerator with a really functional freezer (my freezer can keep ice frozen, but not much else). I may ask for advice about some of these things in another thread.
In this thread, I simply would like any recommendations you have for tasty low-salt recipes suitable for one or two people to eat. I’ve been making some Indian and Indian-inspired recipes because I have an excellent Bangladeshi store (Dual) a block and a half away, but I also love Italian food, and I’m open to almost any cuisine that’s tasty or can be tasty without salt (and actually, until the crisis, I ate Sichuan and Xi’an-style food more than any other kind). I’m also committed to losing weight (15 lbs. so far, mostly just from not eating in restaurants, and my goal is at least 18 more this year), so relatively low-carb food is a bonus.
If you have any specific recommendations for dishes that are easy or at most moderately difficult to make, don’t require lots of special equipment (e.g., I have no food processor or blender, and I’m not likely to get either because I have no idea where I’d put them) and are or can be low-salt and tasty, please let me know. Also, if you have favorite sites that offer low-salt recipes or recipes in which I can easily leave out the salt with good results, I’d love to know those, too.
Thank you for whatever suggestions you have, and for anyone who’s going through a similar journey, may I say that I’ve had good results with leaving out the salt in Madhur Jaffrey recipes. Her Spice Cookbook might be particularly good that way, because the variety of delicious spices really won’t have you missing salt. One favorite of my parents when they were alive, and also of mine, is her Chettinad Fried Chicken in “A Taste of India” (p. 206), but we always loved urad dal and use at least 4 times more than she asks for. I made this dish with my girlfriend a few weeks ago, and while I really need a wok to do it in a shorter time, we managed to make a delicious rendition in my pan.