Credit: Janette Watson
I had originally intended that the Voyaging Vegetarian would be a book. Thus, in many ways it was set out like a conventional cookery book, but with a few chapters preceding the recipes, that were specifically about cooking vegetarian food on a voyaging boat. Then I decided instead to present it in the form of a blog.
As you will see, most of the blog (to date – August 2023) is in the form of pages of Topics with, recipes and an introduction appearing as posts on the home page. Topics are linked to recipes, but the recipes also stand alone, in case the reader isn't interested in perusing the pages. There is an index and there are also labels. Hopefully the sight is easy to naviagate.
Fortunately, unlike with a printed book, it’s possible to change the layout of a blog should it prove unsatisfactory!
IMPORTANT NOTE: because US and Imperial liquid measures are different, and because most countries apart from USA are at least nominally metric, all measurements are either North American fluid measures or metric, but the majority of recipes use cup measurements. The relationships are approximate rather than exact and wherever possible, I’ve tried to use cup or part-cup measures. Cooking is not an exact science, but even so, you would be better to use either ml or fl oz rather than mixing them in the recipe.
Measurements:
tsp = teaspoon
The recipes generally make two, generous portions, rather than the normal four. The reason for this is that the majority of voyagers are couples and it’s annoying to have to divide everything by two on a daily basis, rather than multiplying by two or three when you have friends aboard. Occasionally the recipe makes more servings, in which case I mention this in its introduction.
Read the recipe through before starting operations. I’ve tried to set them down logically and in chronological order, but there may be some blunders. I’m reminded of the story of the novice cook who was so keen to get to the chopping and mixing, that he failed to notice the introductory instruction to ‘first pluck the pheasant.’
I try to use a minimum of pots, pans and plates, which is probably reflected in the recipes. This reduces the amount of washing up, which is appreciated by the scullion and saves water. It also means that very few of the recipes are labour intensive.
- Boiling means that the contents of the pan are bubbling vigorously.
- Simmering means that the contents of the pan are showing a gentle movement at the surface.
- Cook very gently or just simmering means that the contents of the pan are piping hot, but no movement is noticeable.
If you’re used to cooking, you’ll probably make up your own mind about how carefully to follow the recipes. However, if you haven’t done a lot of cooking, or are unused to vegetarian and whole foods, I would recommend that at least on the first occasion, you follow the recipes slavishly, so that they turn out as intended. Make a note of things that you like or dislike and then adjust the recipe according to your preferences. If I say 1/2 tsp of a certain herb, or one tbsp cornflour or 1/2 cup lentils and you simply put in a random scoop or shape, the food might well prove unsatisfactory. By all means experiment and build upon the recipes, but at least try them as they were intended on the first occasion. Probably the most important thing is following the amount of liquid specified in recipes that call for legumes or grains. Too much and you’ll end up with soup: too little and they may not cook through. I suspect and hope that if you’re someone who objects to following recipes, you won’t have read as far as this, so won’t be irritated at my pedantry.
The ingredients are listed (I hope) in the order in which they’re required. I have really tried very hard to do this. It is a convention, but not one that everyone follows and I find it very confusing myself, if I come to the fourth ingredient, but don’t find any mention of it until near the end of the recipe! The essential ingredients are shown in bold type: those in normal type are optional extras. If you decide not to use them, the recipe will still be good.
Some of the recipes are good enough for Special Occasions. In this blog setting, ideally I would add a label to this effect, but I can’t put labels on the Page/Topics. However, new recipes can certainly be labelled this way. There are times when you have the pleasure of inviting friends around and have access to good shops, so I’ve included some recipes that are definitely not out of the store cupboard.
Equally, I should like to be able to show which recipes can be cooked almost regardless of the weather: dump everything in the pressure cooker, clamp to the stove and cook. This rather depends on the size of the boat, the size of the galley, the experience of the cook and, probably most of all, how the galley is set up. Some 30 footers have galleys that work well in a gale offshore; some 40 footers have a galley that is poor in anything outside the marina. So nearly all the recipes are - or should be - labelled. Voyaging, implies that this is a meal that can nearly always be cooked underway and with the ingredients that most boats will still have on board, after a couple of weeks at sea. Cruising implies that you will be sailing in moderate conditions and that you will have a greater range of fresh produce available. Thus you might have broccoli or green beans, but are unlikely to have fresh spinach, which - without refrigeration - only keeps for a day or two. Any recipe that suggests using a blender comes under this label. The final tag: At anchor implies either that you require super fresh ingredients or calm conditions. Occasionally, therefore, At anchor food could be cooked a thousand miles from the nearest land, in calm conditions.
Because
a lot of the time you won’t have much choice about the shape, size
and variety of your fresh produce when voyaging, I’ve tried not to
be too pedantic. In addition, you won’t be using scales, so
150 g (5 oz) carrots, or 120 g (4 oz) of mushrooms is not a lot of
help. Therefore, I tend to say two carrots, eight mushrooms, etc.
Below is the ‘standard’ size that I envisage for my recipes, so
you can tell if you should use two, or a half of the particular
vegetable you have in stock. This is just an indication –
but different people have different ideas about what constitutes the
norm. If you are an experienced cook, you will know what can be
added, subtracted or substituted. Occasionally I'll use cups of chopped vegetables instead.
- Carrot – about 25 mm (1 in) in diameter and 180 mm (7 in) long. Sometimes, you can only buy enormous carrots, so unless it’s cool enough that a cut one will last a day or so, best use the lot – or have some at lunchtime with a salad.
- Garlic clove – about 30 mm (1¼ in) and quite fat. I use dried, minced garlic in quite a number of recipes: if you don’t have any, each ¼ tsp is the equivalent of one fat garlic clove. I find garlic paste in a jar works well with Indian food, but a lot of people seem pretty dismissive of the stuff, so I can’t actually recommend it as a substitute.
- Ginger root – is getting so easy to find and keeps so well that you can now consider it a standard item. For two people, a piece about the size of a walnut is appropriate. Use more if you want to, omit it if you hate it. I don’t bother to peel it unless the peel comes off almost by itself. I also find the minced stuff in the jar excellent.
- Red/Green pepper – about 70 mm (2¾ in) diameter and about 90 mm (3½ in) long, Some peppers are truly enormous and could overwhelm the dish, some are tiny and you will need to use a couple. There are so many names for these that I couldn't decide what to call them: bell peppers, capsicums, sweet peppers. In the end I decided on 'pepper' on the assumption that the average reader won't assume I mean peppercorns. The small fiery peppers I refer to as chillis. It's useless specifying beyond this: when you are selecting them on market in Morocco or Brazil you'll take what's on offer, not start quibbling about whether it's a habanero or a cayenne.
- Mushrooms (button) – about 40 mm (1½ in) diameter. I’m assuming white ‛button’ mushrooms, but of course if other types are available, you can generally use what you fancy. The only exception is in a light-coloured sauce, where the portobello, cremini, Swiss, etc turn everything dark brown. This would weigh about 30 g or an ounce.
- Onion – about 75 mm (3 in) diameter. I generally use ‛yellow’ onions, which keep very well, but use whatever is available. I really don’t understand why so many cooks recommend red/purple onions (except in salads) and in my experience they don’t seem to keep anywhere near as well as the yellow ones and are usually more expensive. I’ve tried using them while preparing this blog and comparing them with the yellow ones, and have yet to see why you ’d bother. If you prefer them, then go ahead and use them. Not many places generally sell ‛white’ onions. I’ve also experimented with shallots. Again they cost a lot more, keep less well and while one might notice the difference in gourmet cuisine, I really didn’t find they altered the meal much. But if they are cheap and plentiful you might as well buy some and experiment.
- Potato – about 90 mm (3½ in) long and 60 mm (2½ in) wide. I doubt there are many vegetables that vary more in size from the size of a pea (with baby new potatoes) up to the size of a brick, on occasion!
- Sweet potato/kumara – I would always choose the orange ones (Beauregard in New Zealand) for both colour and texture. I find the red ones with the white flesh quite coarse in comparison. A ‛standard’ one would be about 200 mm (8 in) long and 50 mm (2 in) in diameter. They often come a lot bigger. I don’t find them anywhere near as filling as ‛Irish’ potatoes, hence the difference in size of the ‛standard’ one.
- Tomato – about 60 mm (2½ in) diameter. In many places, fresh tomatoes are both cheap and readily available. I would always use these in preference to canned because you can use exactly what you want. Small cans of tomatoes seem unavailable these days, and a large can is often too much for one person. I don’t bother with all the taradiddle about peeling them and removing their seeds, but don’t let me stop you. If you want them peeled, drop them into boiling water, take off the heat and leave (with the lid on) for a couple of minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon and you should find the skin just sloughs off. I find that once they’re diced or sliced and cooked, the peel more or less vanishes. Moreover, the fibre’s good for you. However, there are sufficient places were tomatoes are expensive, and on passage, you will probably prefer to eat your tomatoes raw, so most of the recipes call for canned tomatoes. Use whichever you prefer, substituting about 4 fresh ones for each can. Needless to say, the dishes will taste different depending on whether fresh or canned are used. Either way they should taste good and the change will be pleasant. Tomatoes also vary enormously in size – and shape, but as we can all visualise a standard can, I think it’s easy to guess what’s needed. If they are very expensive and you don’t want a full can (and can’t keep leftover tomatoes) a couple of good tablespoons of double concentrated tomato purée (paste in N America) mixed in a about 3/4 cup of water is an acceptable substitute. If the dish that you’re cooking is quite strongly flavoured, adding some chopped up sundried tomatoes in oil, adds texture and richness.
A number of the recipes call for ‘cheese’. This is deliberately vague, because all too often you will have no choice of what’s available. In the past, I generally made the recipe with Cheddar or its equivalent and I assume that’s probably what you’ll have to hand. I say if something different is required. As a near vegan, I hardly ever use cheese and will try, where possible to offer an alternative. Nutritional yeast has its place in the scheme of things, but most vegan cheese I’ve tried has been pretty dreadful. I can’t imagine, either, that it’s readily available in Morocco or Carriacou or Samoa. I lived without it for years and will try to offer lots of cheese-free recipes. Vegan ‛Parmesan’ is an excellent substitute for the real thing in most cases, and there’s a recipe for it on the blog. Thus far, I have found very few satisfactory subsitutes - home-made or otherwise - for the real thing.
I had a friend who used to be driven demented by the way that Rose Elliot always said to peel the onions. Knowing how completely innocent of cooking techniques some people are, I do sympathise with her pedantry here. However, in deference to Louise, I shall say here that onions and garlic are to be peeled, that green and red peppers are to be de-seeded, that mushrooms are to be wiped clean and that carrots and potatoes, sweet or otherwise are to be scrubbed, unless otherwise indicated or unless the skins are really too horrid. Lots of micronutrients are concentrated just under the skin, so peeling them should be avoided. Even Turnips and similar root vegetables often don’t require peeling, especially if they’re small. All vegetables should be washed before using, if you didn’t do so before putting the in the locker. Seawater is fine for scrubbing vegetables.
When vegetables are described as chopped, this means in approximately 1 cm/½ in squares or cubes. When vegetables are described as diced, this means about half that size. But again, don’t get too compulsive about this. It makes a little difference to the cooking times, but a lot of difference to the appearance of the finished dish.
I assume that when you’re cooking legumes, you will generally be using a pressure cooker and give the cooking times as appropriate. These times will depend on your particular type of pressure cooker. The fuel you cook on will also make a difference – paraffin/kerosene is a lot hotter than meths/alcohol, the size of your burners and the size of your pan: a small pressure cooker with 1/2 cup of lentils and 1 cup of water cooked on paraffin, will get up to pressure much more quickly than a 5 litre pressure cooker containing the same amount heated on a meths stove. The food will be cooking as it comes up to pressure, so bear this in mind. For legumes, a bit of overcooking doesn’t usually matter, but it does for fresh vegetables, so err on the conservative side until you’re used to your set up. In addition, if your chickpeas are older or larger than ‛standard’ ones, they will take a little longer; if your kidney beans are newer or smaller, they will take less time. Try the recommended times first and then experiment.
I use olive oil for all my cooking, with the exception of sweet dishes. Often, olive oil would be suitable for them, too, but not if it’s a full-flavoured one. For curries, I use coconut oil, which in colder places is often set solid. You can buy stuff that has been refined and this has no flavour. I prefer the one that tastes like coconuts.
Occasionally,
the recipes call for butter. If this is unobtainable, too
expensive, you can’t stop it from melting into oil, or you're vegan, use olive
oil instead, tbsp for tbsp. I don’t expect anyone literally to
measure out 1 tbsp of butter, except for baking. An
appropriate-sized knob is all that’s required. Refined coconut oil
is a good substitute – the label should say that it’s ‛aroma
free’ - but of course you won’t get the buttery flavour. You can also use cream of coconut, if the flavour seems appropriate.
Salt and Pepper mean whatever salt you prefer and either freshly ground, or cracked black pepper. The salt can often be replaced by seawater, but in my opinion you don’t want to use more than one third seawater for rice, pasta, potatoes, etc. Where possible, you should ensure your salt is iodised. Lots of soil, all over the world, is iodine deficient and therefore, so is the food that grows in it. If you are cooking something on the trivet, and therefore out of the water, you can use all seawater.
I try to avoid using the phrase chilli powder, but just in case I have, I use it literally, ie powdered chilli pepper (usually cayenne). In USA, the phrase is used for a blend of spices, which contains far more other ingredients than it does chilli powder, so is fairly mild and can be used generously. In most parts of the world it means powdered chilli peppers.
A
number of the recipes call for milk and this is assumed to include plant milk. In almost every case,
this is to add a richer flavour. Obviously, on a boat there are
various ways of getting this commodity, varying from fresh, through
sterilised to evaporated and dried. I leave it to each cook to
provide it in the manner she knows best. (There is more on this
subject in a later Topic.) If you dislike milk, or are a vegan, you
can usually substitute water or, of course, soya or other plant milk.
Dried cow’s milk is probably the most convenient on a boat: sadly
there is no vegan (affordable) equivalent. Yet. If you’re happy
to consume dairy, I recommend dried milk because you can mix whatever
is required and then add it to the recipe, or put the water into the
pan and then add the dried milk, which saves on washing up; and the
milk requires no refrigeration. Normally the proportions are 4 parts
of water to 1 part of milk powder, but it’s worth checking on the
package when you buy a new brand. The volume of liquid will only
increase by about 10% - too little to concern us in most of my
recipes. If the recipe calls for full-cream milk, again it’s
simply for a richer flavour. If you only have skimmed milk, use
that. Skimmed milk can be made creamier by adding some dried
full-cream milk powder, or a lump of butter, a dollop of cream or
even some extra olive oil. Vegan milk is easy to find and keeps much
the same as dairy milk. I shall give some recipes for making one’s
own (as I perfect them!). In fact vegan alternatives are great, even
for the lacto-vegetarian, in places where cow’s milk is expensive
or hard to obtain. Vegan milk can be enriched with a little olive
oil, nutritional yeast or grinding up a quarter cup of nuts to
substitute for cream. Or you can make some vegan cream in a blender.
Cooking times are approximate. I’m sorry for that, if you’re new to cooking, but boat cookers vary enormously. However, if you follow my timings, you usually shouldn’t overcook the food. If it doesn’t look or feel as expected, give it a bit longer. If it smells like it’s burning, reduce the heat or take the pan off. In my opinion, you cannot cook without some sort of flame-tamer to enable your food to simmer very gently. Unless you can do this, you can’t hope to get much past the basic recipes, unless you’re prepared to stand over your pans and put them on and off the flame every few minutes. Taylor's paraffin cookers have wonderful cast plates to go over the flame. (When the enamel started chipping on mine, I had the whole cooker top replaced with a bronze one, made by Lunenburg Foundry, in Nova Scotia, Canada. They used the old one as a pattern and the replacement was cheaper than buying a new cast-iron one from Taylor’s!) Flame tamers can be bought commercially, or a sheet of 4 mm (3/16 in) aluminium, stainless steel or ‘asbestos’ could be used. Make sure that you have a good, secure lifter for it and somewhere that it can be put down safely, straight from the flame, when the boat is underway.
Ovens, on boats, tend to be very idiosyncratic, and few yachts enjoy the luxury of a thermostatically controlled one, or even have an oven thermometer. These can be bought in kitchen shops and tend to be common in North America, (Taylor brand, no relation to the cooker), less so elsewhere. No doubt you can buy them online and if your oven doesn’t have one, you might want to get one before you set off on your voyage: it does remove some of the guesswork. My oven timings have been cross checked with other cookbooks so should be accurate. If you’re new to cooking, follow my times slavishly to start with but make a note of the results so that next time you will know whether to use more or less heat. For those who are worried about not being able to obtain precise temperatures from their ovens, I should mention that when I cooked on a Dickinson diesel range, the oven was generally at 180°C (350°F) – ‘Moderate’. I found that everything that I tried seemed to cook quite adequately at this temperature, although I don’t suppose meringues would have been a great success. A friend produced profiteroles from the oven of her Taylor cooker, which I found hugely impressive.
With all of the above in mind, I’ve reverted to using the old phrases instead of precise oven temperatures. The equivalents are given below:
Description °C °F Gas Mark
Very Cool 110 225 1/4
Cool 120 – 140 250 - 275 1/2 - 1
Low 150 – 160 300 –325 2 - 3
Moderate 180 – 190 350 - 375 4 – 5
Hot 200 – 220 400 - 425 6 - 7
Very hot 230 - 240 450 - 475 9
Extremely hot 260+ 500+ 9
Nothing in the following recipes require the lowest temperatures and settings, for the simple and sufficient reason that I very much doubt that most boat cookers can be set low enough.
In most cases, I’ve given an alternative to oven cooking, aware that for many cruising cooks an oven is either unavailable, or too greedy on fuel to be regularly used. The top plate alternative is nearly always faster and usually as satisfactory.
All the recipes are - or should be - labelled. Voyaging,
implies that this is a meal that can nearly always be cooked underway
and with the ingredients that most boats will still have on board, after
a couple of weeks at sea. Cruising implies that you will be
sailing in moderate conditions and that you will have a greater range of
fresh produce available. Thus you might have broccoli or green beans,
but are unlikely to have fresh spinach, which - without refrigeration -
only keeps for a day or two. Any recipe that suggests using a blender
comes under this label. The final tag: At anchor implies either that you require super fresh ingredients or calm conditions. Occasionally, therefore, At anchor food could be cooked a thousand miles from the nearest land, in calm conditions.
And finally, while this is not a health site, or indeed, about veg~anism as a food fad, my friend Bob on Sylphe, made a plea for me to add labels for Gluten Free, because he truly cannot eat it: I am doing so. I assume that Bob, and anyone else who genuinely requires a gluten-free diet, has enough brains to read the labels on bottles and jars to ensure that they contain no grains, ensuring, for example, that they buy pure soy sauce and not some that has been adulterated with wheat and that they buy gluten-wheat pasta, which is readily available these days, and explains why pasta recipes are labelled GF, if they don't use any other wheat, etc ingredients.
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