Main-course recipes, vegetable-based

Credit: Janette Watson

 

This page is for recipes that are good with a variety of accompaniments. Admittedly, some pasta dishes are fine with rice, quinoa or another starch; equally some might choose to make a pilaf with barley, but I have (somewhat arbitrarily) decided that these recipes should have their own pages. However, there are quite a few recipes that I make that I eat with a variety of accompaniments. The most versatile seems to be chilli sin carne, which I eat with kumara (sweet potatoes), or polenta, or pasta or rice. I suspect it would also go very well with baked potatoes or mashed, for that matter. I simply haven’t ever tried the combination.

 

I’ve seen a number of vegetarian cookery books which have separate chapters on legume-based and vegetable-based recipes. However, this in itself is somewhat ambiguous: if, for example, the chickpeas and the mushrooms are equally important, does the recipe come under the heading of legumes or vegetables? Legumes are, anyway, vegetables, so I’ve decided that any recipes that aren’t seitan based; pastry based, rice based, pasta based or Indian recipes will end up on this page. As I suspect most people will go simply to the Index or tags, it’s probably ultimately irrelevant!I suggest that you also look at Curries for cooks or Vegetable side dishes for more ideas.  (The addition of a cup or so of beans will turn many side dishes into a full meal!)

If you feel that there’s a better way to arrange things, please let me know in the comments.

RECIPES 

 

Black-eyed pea curry

 

Black-eyed peas are popular in India and they have the great advantage of not needing to be soaked, if you are going to cook them in a pressure cooker. This means you can make a curry with more substance than a dal, or even whole lentils (including Indian ones such as mung). They also cook in about the same time as whole lentils, so are ideal for when you’ve been out (or sailing) all day and want to get a meal underway as soon as you’re back on board, or have the anchor down. Their earthy taste is quite unlike any other legume I can think of and goes very well with curry spices.

This is also a quick and easy curry to put together. Although there is a blender alert, it isn’t really necessary to use one: you’ll just end up with a slightly different texture. In this black-eyed pea curry, no tempering is required after the initial cooking, so the whole thing goes together quickly. The beans are cooked in a sauce flavoured with onion, tomatoes, and coconut, along with seven other spices which, apart from asafoetida, you’ll probably have on board. It’s well worth adding to your standard repertoire and makes a change from chickpeas, which tend to be the obvious ‘go to’.

 

Because this recipe doesn't have that many ingredients, you don't have to be a dedicated curry cook to make it.  The only thing you are unlikely to have on board is asafoetida and possibly garam masala.  You can leave them both out and perhaps add a pinch of ground cinnamon, cloves and/or nutmeg and a tad more cumin. 

 

Black-eyed pea curry 

 

Broccoli, chickpeas and tomatoes

 

This is a quick, light dinner, ideal for when you come home late, have had sundowners with lots of snacks or simply aren’t feeling very hungry. In spite of its simplicity, it’s really quite delicious: somehow chickpeas and tomatoes are an unbeatable combination.

 

Broccoli, chickpeas and tomatoes

 

 

Cauliflower cheese

 

When I was a little girl and money was a bit scarce, cauliflower cheese was something my mother used to cook regularly.  Indeed, it was one of the few vegetarian meals that we ate (two of the others being baked beans on toast and Welsh rarebit).  My father would get a piece of bacon or Ulster Fry with his - the man of the household couldn't go without his piece of meat!  Mum would put the cooked cauliflower into a dish, pour the cheese sauce over it and brown it under the grill.  She'd serve it with delicious chunky chips (usually managing to splash some hot fat on her hand in the process, while she sliced the chips directly into the pan!) It was - and remains - one of my favourite meals.
 
However, as a wannabe vegan, my mother's recipe would not suit, made as it was with milk in the cheese sauce and, of course, dairy cheese.  There are of course, vegan substitutes for both, readily available in supermarkets in some parts of the world.  I can buy plant milk, but only in 1 litre containers which are far too large for my needs and vegetarian cheese after a fleeting presence in some shops, is now unobtainable in my part of Aoetearoa New Zealand.   I love cauliflower so have done my best to recreate my mother's sauce, which I serve with either 'roast' potatoes, cooked in the frying pan, or chips (an oil filter keeps the sunflower seed oil that I use, amazingly fresh from batch to batch).
 
I make this using gram flour, white sauce, appropriately flavoured.  I've tried adding home-made nut milk to it, but it isn't really worth the extra work and washing up, in my opinion.  
 
It's a bit difficult to specify how much cauliflower to use.  It depends how far through the cauli you are.  I would suggest that two or three florets, about the size of a teacup, per person would be correct. Use the leaves, too, if you wish.

Cauliflower cheese 

 

Chick pea and Aubergine Casserole

 

This is one of my favourite recipes. It’s easy to cook, absolutely yummy to eat and fit to offer guests. Aubergines, alas, are not always easy to come by, so if you like them anywhere near as much as I do, you want to make the most of them while you can. I’ve never bothered faffing around with salting and squeezing aubergines. I am told that if you do so, it makes them less like blotting paper around the olive oil, so I tried it once. It didn’t seem to make a lot of difference and although I did manage to get some of the pieces to fry brown and crisp, it didn’t seem to make the slightest difference to the end result. From all accounts it is simply unnecessary with modern varietals. So I decided that I was right. 

 

Chickpea and aubergine casserole 

Chilli sin carne

This is one of the first recipes I ever cooked and it was pretty exotic for an English girl in the mid 70s!. Nowadays, in one form or another, it’s a standard for both omnivores and vegetarians.People make all sort of punning and witty names for the vegetarian version, but surely chilli sin carne is the obvious version - chilli without meat!  I have tweaked the recipe over the years and now have something that everyone seems to really enjoy. Full of flavour, with a nice lift of chilli, warming and filling, it is wonderfully welcome on a cold, damp evening. Moreover this recipe is one that can be cooked in just about any conditions at sea – and I have done so. You can eat it with bread, rice, pasta, polenta, potatoes sweet or otherwise and no doubt many other things.

If you aren’t used to ‛spicy’ foods, ie, chilli, you might want to go easy on the chilli flakes. If you like more spice, swop out the flakes for cayenne pepper.

Everyone, I’m sure, has their own version of this dish and mine is less authentic than most. The bulgur wheat makes a fine substitute for mince, while keeping the dish looking similar. I add some cocoa, which darkens the sauce and adds what I fondly believe to be ‘that South American touch’. In defence of my creation, I will say that everyone seems to enjoy it.

Chilli sin carne

Pizza

 

  Pizza must be one of the most popular dishes on the planet and while it is difficult to make it to the standards of the best pizzas ashore, even in a simple galley, you can certainly make something very acceptable and considerably more appetising than some of the pizzas I have bought. I've found that I get excellent results from cooking them in my frying pan, which is also a lot more economical on fuel than cooking a pizza in the oven; however, this does limit its size. You also need a first-class quality pan for pizza, because they have to get very hot. I recommend that you used one made of cast metal, ideally with vertical sides, ie a skillet. Cast-iron pans are relatively inexpensive, if you shop around, and often available second hand. Personally, I prefer cast alloy, but they are a considerable investment. If you don’t have an oven, your frying pan will constantly be used as a substitute, so one of good quality is an investment that is well worth while for oven-free cooks.

If you do have an oven, there's no need for any special equipment, although a rolling pin is nice to have. Nor do you have to roll out the dough into a perfect circle; indeed, if you simply roll it out to fit your baking sheet, you will be able to make a larger pizza and make best use of your oven.  I can see nothing unattractive in the ‘rustic’ appearance of a near rectangle. Even when I had an oven, I found I got the best results from partly pre-cooking the dough. I'm pleased to be able to report than an Italian sailor I met, told me that his mother always made them like this, so I reckon that I am not alone in finding that it’s simply not possible to have a standard oven retain its heat sufficiently for the sort base that you get at the local pizzeria. If you're fanatical about pizza, I suppose you could buy a pizza stone to put in your oven, but it would be a nuisance to store safely and I suspect it would be more trouble than it's worth, on a boat.  Whether using the oven or a frying pan, I suggest that you pre-cook it and flip it over before adding the topping. That way it both rises and cooks properly.

The following recipe makes a base for a 230 mm (9 in) frying pan. I have to admit that when I make it for myself, I usually manage to get through two-thirds of it, but I’m not a delicate feeder. I prefer not to have too thick a base, but if you are feeding two hearty appetites, you can make more dough for a thicker and more substantial base, make two smaller pizzas (cooking the second while eating the first) or invest in a larger frying pan! Just keep the proportions of the dough ingredients the same.

Pizza 

Swiss chard with white beans

 

It is often difficult to lay hands on the actual beans called for in a recipe, so I'm trying to remember  to use the phrase 'white beans' in the title, while suggesting what would be ideal, in the text.

This recipe is quick to make and when eaten with bread as intended, would make a substantial starter for four, or a good lunch or light dinner for two. If you use canned beans, which speeds the whole process up substantially, it would also make a good snack with something like large crackers or Melba toast, to give to visitors who have lingered until sundowners.  The combination of bread, beans and Swiss chard make for a pretty well-rounded meal nutritionally.

 

I first made this when I had no appetite and little enthusiasm for cooking, but had a large bunch of chard looking at me.  As it soon yellows, it had be to be eaten up!  I slightly altered the recipe to what is shown below, and ate it on the previous day's naan bread (= ½ cup flour), reheated on the toaster, rather than the recommended sourdough.  It was still was surprisingly good; indeed, I ate more of it than I'd anticipated.  Although the original called for cannelini beans, I can only buy them canned and as I prefer to cook my own legumes, I used haricot beans. However, using canned beans would make this meal almost ‘instant’.

 

Although the stems are a little more sturdy, the leaves of chard tend to disappear like spinach, when heated, so you will want at least six large leaves of chard and possibly more. 

Swiss chard with white beans

 

Tomatoes, stuffed with almonds and mushrooms 

I think the first time I cooked stuffed tomatoes was in Portugal.  The markets on the Algarve were overflowing with delicous fruit and vegetables.  They varied too much in shape and size ever to be acceptable to supermarkets, but they tasted sublime.  I would walk all around the market, ostensibly comparing prices, but in reality, just soaking up the wonderful scents and sights.  And as the food was entirely affordable, I could shop to my heart's content.  I always think that a tomato will taste good if, when you sniff the stalk cluster left on (and it should always still be on!), it has an almost peppery scent to it.  Most tomatoes I buy these days not only come without that little green star, but even when they do, have no scent and not much flavour.  I can understand why when voyaging people sell up and move ashore, they nearly always start growing their own fruit and vegetables in an attempt to recapture the glorious produce of good markets.  Some supermarkets sell 'beef' tomatoes and occasionally, these are fairly good.  But the huge, oval, rather flat tomatoes I would buy in Latin countries, starting to split at the top because they are so engorged with juices, are but a distant memory.  I used to buy them, cut the top off, stuff them and serve them for dinner the same evening.  The taste is just so wonderful.

 

However, we must make the best of what we have and recently, I bought some tomatoes from Jack, who brings a well-supplied market stall to Russell every week, and I picked up a bag of tomatoes (it's OK, he takes back the plastic bags and re-uses them!), which contained two lovely, large tomatoes.  They weren't the rich red of those in Portugal, nor bursting with luscious juices (considering it's August, mid-winter, they must have been grown in a poly-tunnel), but they brought back such wonderful memories that I had to stuff one for dinner.  It was good, but ...

 

I generally find stuffed vegetables unsatisfactory and am convinced that they contradict the laws of physics.  You remove all the flesh, cook it with other ingredients and then try to stuff the result back in the empty shell.  I always have heaps left over because even softened, you still have all the original vegetable to put back in plus all the extra ingredients!  The great thing about stuffed tomatoes, is that you don't use the tomato you take out (although you can use it in the accompanying dish), so that there is actually some room to take the stuffing.  This recipe is a genuine voyaging recipe and small-income to boot.  Good fresh tomatoes keep well at sea (and I doubt you could resist the temptation to eat them for long, anyway.  Almonds, although not exactly cheap, are often grown in the same sort of places where you get these great, big tomatoes, and can be replaced with something cheaper (see Variations).  You should get a week out of your mushrooms at sea, but can use dried if necessary.  The tomatoes can be cooked in a variety of ways, which you can find in the Notes.

 

If you can buy really good tomatoes,  this recipe is great for entertaining, being easy to prepare and very attractive - but don't get distracted and overcook the tomatoes!! 

Tomatoes, stuffed with almonds and mushrooms

White bean chilli with winter vegetables 

As someone who really enjoys food with a dash of chilli in it, particularly in cold weather, this is one of my favourite dishes. If you make the recipe as shown, you will have sufficient for two hearty appetites. If you want to feed more people, serve with kumara or sweet potatoes or baked potatoes. 

 

The original recipe just used the lower part of the leeks, and this is what I’m following. I usually use the whole thing, because I find the green part is rarely tough or stringy. Besides, it’s going to be cooked in the pressure cooker! Split the leeks in four lengthways as far as the root, and rinse thoroughly in plenty of clean (sea)water, if they are full or soil or grit, before preparing them. One is always told to remove the ‘woody centre’ from parsnips: I have yet to find one. But if yours have a woody centre, then by all means remove it.

 

White bean chilli with winter vegetables