Tomato chutney

While this is a traditional Indian chutney, it is very adaptable to western ideas and you can use it as a base for a sauce, a dip for for stuffing vegetables. Or even as an extremely inauthentic pizza base! I think it goes very well with Lentil flatbreads for a light lunch or with sundowners. Unlike ‘chutney’ as most British people would think of it, this is not a preserve, although it will keep quite well for several days.

 

Ingredients

 

1 tsp coconut oil, mustard oil or other oil of choice

1/2 tsp mustard seeds

1/2 tsp cumin seeds

1/4 tsp fennel seeds

a generous pinch of asafoetida)

2 tsp finely chopped ginger or ginger paste

3 or 4 cloves finely chopped garlic or 2 tsp garlic paste

1 green chilli chopped

1 small onion, chopped (optional)

1/4 tsp turmeric

1 tsp ground coriander

3 medium tomatoes, chopped

1/4 tsp salt or to taste

1/4 tsp black salt (kala namak)

1/2 tsp Kasmiri chilli powder, to taste

 

Method:

• In a medium pan, add the oil and heat on a medium flame.
• Once hot, add mustard and cumin seeds and let them crackle.
• Add asafoetida and fennel seeds, and mix for a few seconds.
• Add ginger, garlic, green chilli and optional onion and cook on medium, stirring occasionally, until the onion is golden and/or the mixture smells fragrant.
• Add turmeric and ground coriander and mix well.
• Add tomatoes and salt and cook on low-medium heat, covered, until tomatoes are completely softened.
• Adjust salt and spice. Add black salt and chilli powder to taste. Mix well.

You can continue to cook this chutney down to a thicker consistency or add a little water to make it thinner, depending on what you are serving the chutney with. I like to cook it over a low heat, covered, to make a very thick sauce.

Notes:

• For those who don’t have some of the more unusual curry spices on board, you can leave out the mustard seeds and asafoetida. Use ordinary salt in place of the kala namak and 1/4 tsp chilli flakes as a substitute for the Kashmiri chilli (a mild and very red, Indian chilli powder). You could use 1/2 tsp paprika to enhance the colour of the chutney.
• If the pieces of onion or tomato skins seem too intrusive, you could try mashing the chutney, or give it a few seconds in a blender.  Be careful, however: you don't want it to end up as a purée!

Seitan 'English' sausages

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have been working on this recipe for a while, now, determined to get it right.   I think most people enjoy sausages, with mash, or chips or as part of a huge fried breakfast.  What I love about this recipe is that is definitely a voyaging one, which means that you can have sausages half way across the ocean, should you so choose.  Not something many people can boast of, unless they have a freezer. In true voyaging style, the ones in the photo above are served with 'Surprise' peas.  Judging by the rest of the stuff on the table, the sea is pretty smooth!  These sausages are also quite fast to make, especially if you already have some sausage seasoning mixed: once you've cooked the sausages in the pressure cooker, they only need a few minutes in the frying pan to brown them to your taste.  Apart from my recipe for chorizo, this will be my first post about seitan, and I think it's a particularly good one to start with.

 

I am besotted with seitan recipes: the texture is so different from most other vegetarian and vegan foods, it’s cheap and making ‛meat’ with it is so quick.  These ‛English’ sausages are great on their own, in a bun/sandwich or as part of an ‛English’ breakfast.  The seasoning is based on that used in Cumberland sausage and the couscous is to replace the rusk that is always used in British bangers, to keep the juices in the sausage so that they don’t dry out.  In this way they're quite different from Bratwurst or other 100% meat sausages. In the days when I occasionally ate meat, I always found these tricky to cook because of the tendency of the ‛100% meat’ sausage to dry out, especially if they were also low fat.  Of course, the result isn’t as juicy as a good quality meat banger, but I do feel that the addition of couscous keeps it a little more moist.  If you don’t want to use couscous, go for the chorizo sausage recipe instead (link above) instead, and substitute the sausage seasoning for that included in the chorizo recipe.

Instead of the herbs, spices and salt in the recipe, shown in italics, I recommend using 3 tsp Annie's English sausage seasoning, for a more complex flavour (see recipe at the bottom of the page.) There's a generous amount of seasoning, because the seitan otherwise has no flavour. It does in fact, have a slight, indescribable taste, which can be a bit intrusive, and this is why the ingredients include vinegar. Most of the recipes that I’ve seen always insist on ‘apple cider’ vinegar (what other sort of cider is there? Surely the definition of cider is fermented apple juice?), but any vinegar, apart from Balsamic, would work just fine. So no doubt would lemon juice, but vinegar is cheaper.

Makes 6 sausages, 2 servings

Ingredients

1/3 cup couscous

1/2 tsp yeast extract or miso

2/3 cup boiling water

 

3/4 tsp crushed black pepper

1/2 tsp thyme

3/4 tsp sage

1/8 - 1/4 tsp cayenne

1/4 tsp freshly ground nutmeg

1 1/2 tsp onion powder

1/2 tsp salt

 

OR 3 tsp Annie's English sausage seasoning 

 

1/4 cup (60 ml) water

1 tbsp soya sauce

1 tsp vinegar

1 heaped tsp tahini

1 tbsp olive oil or deodorised coconut oil, melted

2 tbsp chickpea flour

1/3 cup vital wheat gluten

• Cut baking parchment into 6 sheets, approximately 200/8" x 150/6".
• Put the couscous in a large bowl.
• Mix the yeast extract/miso in 2/3 cup boiling water and then pour it over the couscous. Cover the bowl and leave it for about ten minutes until the water has been absorbed.   
• Now mix the seasoning into the couscous.
• Add the 1/4 cup of water and mix well.
• Then add the soya sauce, followed by the vinegar, tahini and oil. Mix this all very thoroughly, because once you have added the vital wheat gluten it will be difficult to incorporate the other ingredients evenly.
• Now add the chickpea flour and the vital wheat gluten and quickly mix it in to the rest of the ingredients.  Again do this very thoroughly.   I find a butter knife the best tool.
• Mix as well as you can with your knife and then use your hand, incorporating all the flour that will be trying to stick to the edge of the bowl.  Keep mixing until everything until you have a smooth dough and it stops sticking to your hands. You should end up with a fairly soft mix.
• Place the dough on a board.  (Make sure you clean the bowl really thoroughly, because the gluten sticks as soon as it dries out, making it quite difficult to clean.  Soak it for a while if you've left much behind, before cleaniing.)  Roughly shape it into a rectangle about as long as you want your sausages to be.  (The dough is nowhere near as accommodating as bread dough when it comes to shaping).   
• Cut the dough in half and then thirds so that you have six equal lumps of dough. I usually have to pinch a bit of dough from one or two to get them all more or less the same size.
• Shape the sausages to be best of your ability – the wrapping finishes the job.  Don’t worry about gaps and creases.  The cooking sorts out most of that.  It would be fun to try to make one long sausage, wrap it up in baking paper and then form it into a coil to put onto the trivet.  This would produce and authentic Cumberland sausage shape, which would be fun and impressive, but I’m not sure how well it would work.
• Now put each sausage, centred at the edge of a piece of baking paper and roll it up tightly. This helps make it round.  Twist the paper at either end, until it is squashed against the end of the sausage.  Do this with all six sausages.
   
  
  
   
• Put the trivet into your pressure cooker.  Add about half a cup of water – don’t let it cover the trivet.  Place the sausages onto the trivet – it doesn’t matter if they are stacked – and bring up to pressure; cook for 5 minutes.
• Let the pressure come down naturally.

When they’re cooked, take the sausages out of the pressure cooker and unwrap them.    Put them somewhere where they can cool and dry out a little before storing them.  I find they keep best in my wooden bread bin!  Fry them before using them – the added olive oil gives additional flavour and I enjoy cooking them until they are slightly crisp.

 

 

Serve with mashed or smashed potatoes and vegetables, or any way that you enjoy your sausages.  They will stand up happily to barbecuing or cooking on the beach.

Annie’s English Sausage seasoning:

Makes enough for about 60 sausages, or 20 servings

Ingredients

1 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

1 tsp ground mace

2 1/2 tbsp salt

2 tbsp black pepper

2 tbsp rubbed sage

2 tsp onion powder

1 1/4 tsp ground ginger

2 1/4 tsp thyme

3/4 tsp cayenne

1 1/2 tsp ground coriander

• If you don’t have ground nutmeg or mace (which don’t keep well ready-ground) grind up about 1/2 a nutmeg in a mortar or blender. Remove 1 1/2 tsp and add to a bowl.
• Take several blades of mace, grind to a powder, remove 1 tsp and add to the nutmeg.
• Now add all the rest of the ingredients and mix thoroughly. Put into a glass jar and keep as cool and dark as feasible.

Add 3 tsp of sausage seasoning to 1/3 cup vital wheat gluten, ie, per 6 sausages.

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 pizzas I have bought. I've found that I get excellent results fromcooking 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, theres no need for any special equipment, although a rolling pin is nice to have. Nor do you 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 fantastical about pizza, I suppose you could 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 pizza (cooking the second while eating the first) or invest in a larger frying pan! Just keep the proportions of the dough ingredients the same.

Serves 2

Ingredients

2 tsp olive oil

1/4 cup lukewarm water

pinch of salt

1/2 tsp instant dried yeast

1/2 cup wholemeal flour

• If you’re using an oven, pre-heat it to a moderate heat.
• Put the oil and water into a small mixing bowl and mix them together. You can use seawater, if you prefer, and leave out the salt.
• Add the salt and the yeast and then blend in the flour with a spatula or something similar.
• When the ingredients have combined into a dough, knead this gently for a couple of minutes. You will probably need a little more flour for this.
• Roll the dough out so that it fits your frying pan or baking sheet. Leave it to rise for at least a quarter of an hour, longer is you're very organised. If you are in a cold place, warm the frying pan or put something like a night light in the oven to keep the dough warm.
• Cook over a medium flame on a flame tamer for about 10 minutes, or cook in a moderate oven for the same time. Turn the base over and add the topping.

All sorts of goodies can be used to top pizza, of course, and you probably have your favourites.  If your lockers contain tomatoes, olives and capers, you’re almost there. I can also recommend vegan chorizo salami, but would warn against overloading your pizza with too many different flavours. After all, a pizza Margherita is immensely popular in Italy and as simple as it comes.  The following recipe is a voyaging one, for when you aren't overloaded with fresh vegetables. 

PIZZA TOPPING

1 tbsp olive oil

1 small onion. diced

1 garlic clove, diced

2 tomatoes, finely chopped

1 tbsp Annie's Mixed Herbs

6 black olives, sliced

optional tomato purée

grated cheese – as you like

• Heat the oil in a pan. Add the onion and garlic and fry until softened.
• Lower the heat and add the tomatoes and mixed herbs. Cook until most of the moisture had evaporated leaving a thick sauce. This depends a lot on your tomatoes - you may need to add some tomato purée to thicken it up. On the other hand, add a little wine or water if the mix looks very dry.
• Throw in the olives.
• Take the half-cooked pizza base, turn it over and spread the sauce over the base, right to the edges, spreading it carefully and as evenly as possible.
• Grate over as much cheese as you want.
• Turn down the heat and put the pizza back to cook (covered, if you’re using a frying pan), until the cheese has melted.

Notes:

• If you don’t have fresh tomatoes, you can use a couple from a can. Put the rest of the tomatoes into a glass jar and use them the next day (or put them in the fridge). Or you can use some passata, if you have some. If all else fails, just use tomato purée suitably diluted with water.
  
• For vegans, leave off cheese and sprinkle with generous amounts of "Parmegan".  Alternatively, this is one place where vegan 'cheese' is acceptable.  I've heard that there is some excellent vegan cheese around, but have yet to find any in New Zealand.
  

Variations:

• Top with microgreens or rocket (arugula), if you're lucky enough to have some. 
• Pepperdews, mushrooms, or sliced green or red peppers, all go well with the above.
• A great alternative topping is sun-dried tomato pesto.  
• If you don’t have black olives, try green olives instead. The stuffed ones are particularly good.
• Add a tsp capers with the olives.
• If you've got fresh tomatoes with a really good flavour, you can simply slice them quite thickly and lay them out on the pizza dough.  Cook a few mushrooms and a little red pepper and put those on top with some olives and capers, and cheese if you have it.
  
• If you are getting short of inspiration, row ashore and wander along to the nearest pizza parlour. You’ll soon get a whole slew of new ideas!

Pizza made with dairy cheese and topped with microgreens

Vegan "scrambled eggs'

 

No tofu; no chickpea flour

Blender Alert (but there is a possible suggestion in the Notes if you don’t have one).

I really love scrambled eggs for breakfast, and since I became vegan, they are something I miss.  However, there are many reasons for the ethical vegetarian not to eat eggs, so I rarely buy them.  I have been working on this recipe for scramblers for some time.  What I wanted to achieve is something with a similar appearance, colour and texture as the Real Thing, which to my mind is soft and barely set.  All the vegan recipes I’ve tried produce a very dry, rather rubbery result.  I’ve never tried making it with silky tofu – I can’t buy it locally, and when I get to a larger town where it’s available, it comes in packs that are too big for me to use.  I’m prepared to eat a lot of failed experiments in search of the Ideal Recipe, but I’m not prepared to waste food!  Besides, how many voyagers are going easily to be able to buy silky tofu or are likely to have it on board? This recipe comes from ingredients that you are likely to have in your lockers.

Veganism is still a fringe way of living, especially away from the Western world (although of course many people are vegan without even thinking about it!), so in all these recipes, I am trying to avoid branded or really weird ingredients, which might well be expensive and/or unavailable to the average voyager.  If you’re interested, see the notes below for a discussion as to how and why I’ve chosen these particular ingredients and some substitutes.  I am sure this recipe can be improved, so please leave a comment if you have a suggestion.

 

I can see an argument for mixing all the dry ingredients together in quantity and keeping a supply in a jar, so that you can make this more quickly: just add water!

Serves 2

1/2 cup blanched peanuts

1 cup water, divided

4 tsp tapioca flour

2 tsp nutritional yeast

1/4 tsp black salt

1/4 tsp turmeric

1/4 tsp garlic granules OR 1 large clove, roughly chopped

2 tbsp olive oil

salt and pepper

• Put the peanuts into the blender and whizz them into a coarse meal. 
• Now add 1/2 cup water, the flour, nutritional yeast, black salt, turmeric, garlic and olive oil.   
• Blend quickly - you don’t want to pulverise the peanuts: this gives the scramblers some texture.
• Scrape the contents into a small saucepan and rinse out the blender with another 1/2 cup of water (put it back together and give it a good shake) and pour this into the pan. This is the easiest way to make sure everything goes in the pan!
• Heat the mixture over a moderate flame and stir regularly until the mix is hot and starting to thicken. Turn the heat right down, continue stirring occasionally, taste and season with a generous amount of black pepper and more salt if you think it needs it.    Add some more water if it is getting too thick.

Serve hot on fried bread or toast, or with fried tomatoes, mushrooms, etc as part of a cooked breakfast.

Notes:

• Blanched peanuts are cheap; they are also better for both workers and the planet than cashews, which would be most people’s choice.  Peanuts require much less water than most nuts, they are nitrogen-fixing and their preparation doesn’t generally exploit low wage-people working in poor conditions.  I don’t understand why they aren’t used more often. However, use cashews if you prefer them or can’t get peanuts.
• Tapioca flour doesn’t seem to need cooking the same way as cornflour, once it starts to thicken, which is why I suggest it.  Uncooked cornflour has a definite taste and sensation to it.  Using a little flour creates a more convincing texture as does the slight ‘stretchiness’ of the tapioca flour.
• The small amount of nutritional yeast does, I think, improve the flavour, but you could leave it out if you don’t have any.
• The black salt is to give the sulphur scent that eggs have.  Don’t use it with a heavy hand and if you like your scramblers more salty than the recipe, add some more normal salt. Again, you could leave it out, but the result will be a less convincing substitute for eggs.
• The turmeric is necessary for colour: again, use a light touch – it’s a powerful dye! This amount makes the scramblers a light yellow.
• I love a little bit of garlic in my scramblers. Leave it out or substitute 1/2 tsp onion powder if you can’t face garlic at breakfast. Neither is crucial.
• If you don’t have a blender, this might work with 1/2 cup ground almonds, but they have a much stronger flavour than peanuts.

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!  The photo above, shows it served with kumara/sweet potatoes: I'd never heard of either back then!  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.  

With fried yams

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.

Serves 2

Ingredients

1/2 cup red kidney beans, soaked in 1½ cups water

1/4 cup bulgur wheat

1 tbsp soya sauce

1 tsp cocoa

1 onion, chopped

2 garlic cloves, diced

2 tbsp olive oil

1/2 green pepper

1/2 tsp chilli flakes

1/2 tsp ground cumin

1/2 tsp smoked paprika

1/2 tsp oregano

400 g/14 oz can chopped tomatoes, OR 3 fresh tomatoes OR 4 tbsp tomato purée

salt and pepper

 

Method:

• Put the soaked kidney beans and their water in a pressure cooker, together with the bulgur wheat, soya sauce and cocoa. 
• Bring to pressure and cook as usual.
• Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in another saucepan, add the onion and garlic and fry for about 5 minutes until they’re softened.
• Chop and add the green pepper, lower the heat and cook for a few more minutes. Add the chilli flakes, cumin, smoked paprika and oregano and stir until they are well mixed in.
• Stir in the tomatoes and lower the heat. If you're using tomato purée add and extra ¼ cup of water.  Bring to the boil and then simmer over a low heat.
  
• When the beans are cooked, add them to the saucepan. Stir gently to combine and season carefully with salt and a generous grind of pepper.
• Simmer until the sauce has thickened to the consistency you want and the flavours have have combined – at least ten minutes.

Serve hot.  I like chilli best, served over ‛baked’ (ie, cooked whole in the pressure cooker) and split kumara (sweet potatoes). But it also goes well with bread, rice, pasta, polenta and quinoa. I have never tried it with potatoes, but am sure it would go well with them in just about any form.

Note:

• Chilli is one of those meals that improves with keeping, so you can make it earlier in the day if you feel like it, or if you’re making it for company. Re-heat it very gently to prevent it burning and add a little more water if necessary.

With polenta

 Variations: 

• In rough conditions, fry the vegetables in the pressure cooker, add the kidney beans, the water, bulgur wheat, soya sauce, cocoa, oregano and spices, cover and bring up to pressure. Let the pressure reduce gradually while cooking pasta in another pan. Add the tomatoes and seasoning after the pressure has reduced.
• In really rough conditions, Just dump everything into the pressure cooker, along with a further cup of water and 1/2 cup rice. Bring up to pressure and cook for 10 to 15 minutes. Reduce pressure naturally.
• As an alternative to using rice, dump all the chilli ingredients into the pressure cooker, stir well to mix them all together and then put some kumara (sweet potatoes) on top. If they are small ones, you will need to handle them with care because they will be very soft after all that cooking, but still delicious.
• You can substitute TVP for the bulgur wheat. If you do, fry it with the onions and garlic and add some extra water when you tip in the beans./Substitute 1/4 cup whole lentils for the bulgur wheat.
• If you're making 4 servings, the one can of tomatoes will suffice. You may need to add more water to stop the sauce getting too thick.
• Use red pepper if you don’t have green.
• This also works well with black beans.
• Leftovers can be used to fill empanadas.
  

Pasta with chickpeas and vegetables in tahini sauce

I have just suggested 'Pasta' for his recipe, because it will really go with just about any short pasta.  Indeed, if you make more sauce, it would also successfully coat a longer type of pasta.  While I've suggested specific vegetables, this is essentially a meal that can be made using ingredients you’d have in your lockers, with whatever vegetables you have to hand. There is, however, one proviso to this: I suggest sprinkling black sesame seeds over the meal when it’s served: white sesame seeds can be used as a substitute, but the black ones look and taste great!

 

Serves 2

 

Ingredients

1/2 cup of chickpeas, soaked and cooked

olive oil

1 onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

about 4 button mushrooms, sliced

1/2 red pepper, chopped

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp chilli flakes, or to taste

about 6 florets from a head of broccoli

4 handfuls of pasta, such as fusilli

2 tbsp tahini

reserved water from the pasta

salt and pepper

1 tbsp black sesame seeds

 

Method:

• Cook the chickpeas in the usual way and set aside.
• Add olive oil to a large saucepan over a moderately high heat.
• Add the onions and garlic and cook for a few minutes until the onions are softening, stirring frequently to ensure nothing burns.
• Add the mushroom and red pepper and sprinkle with salt, stir into the onions and garlic and cook for a few minutes until there is some colour on both the onions and red peppers, then lower the heat. Add in the chilli flakes, stir well and cover. Leave over a low heat while you cook the pasta.
• Bring salted water to boil in a saucepan and throw in the pasta. Stir well to ensure that it doesn’t stick together. Bring back to the boil, cover and lower the heat so that it doesn’t boil over. Set the timer for 5 minutes
• When the timer rings, add the broccoli florets and cook until both pasta and broccoli are just not soft. If you like crunchy broccoli, wait a bit longer before adding it.
• While this is cooking, put the tahini into a small, together with generous amounts of salt and pepper. When the pasta and broccoli are done, remove them from the water, using a slotted spoon, or drain the water into a jug, and add them to the vegetables.
• Add a tablespoonful or so of pasta water to the tahini and mix to a smooth consistency. Tahini varies tremendously in how thick it is, but you want to end up with a sauce that pours easily and will coat the pasta and vegetables. Mix with a butter knife or mini whisk until it becomes a creamy colour, then add to the pan.
• Stir gently until everything is mixed and serve.

Garnish with a generous amount of black sesame seeds.

 

Note:

• If you have no black sesame seeds, substitute with white.
• I'm not sure the pasta water has the same effect when used with gluten-free pasta, but it can't do any harm!
  

Variations: 

• Use white beans instead of chickpeas.
• Replace the broccoli with cauliflower florets.
• For a voyaging variation, use chopped cabbage.
• Add green beans or asparagus with or instead of some of the other vegetables.
• Replace the red pepper with carrot.
• Add a couple of tbsp of freeze-dried peas with or instead of some of the vegetables.
• Use bulgur wheatinstead of pasta. In this case you will have to cook the broccoli separately.
• Add chopped fresh herbs, if you have some.

Voyagers' pasta

In a cool, damp place, or when, as is usually the situation on a boat, you’re watching your water consumption, the conventional way of cooking pasta is far from satisfactory.  The instruction tell you to fill a large saucepan with water, bring it to a full rolling boil, plunge in the pasta and boil it, uncovered for the apppropriate length of time.  In anywhere that isn't actually hot, with all the hatches open, this method steams up the boat and in any situation, it uses far too much water. I have two ways of cooking pasta, which both yield very acceptable results without resulting in a steamed-up boat or using excessive amounts of water.

 

Even North American cookbooks bottle out and resort to ounce measures when including recipes for pasta, because it's usually fiendishly difficult to guess how much to make.  a thrifty voyager doesn't not want to waste pasta and it's one of the least useful leftovers unless you happen to have a passion for pasta salad.  Of course, if you have a new pack, you can work out that you need a quarter, or whatever, for 2 servings, but many voyagers – and I am one of them – decant their pasta into large, plastic containers to save them from weevls.  Moreover, once you've taken out the first serving, it becomes more and more difficult to divide up what's left, let alone remember how many servings have already been removed. I am therefore assuming this is the situation and as we can’t use scales underway, I am giving my measurements by the handful. I generally use about 4 handfuls of pasta for 2 people, assuming a generous amount of sauce, because this is a main course, rather than the smaller amounts used more to flavour the pasta, of traditional Italian cuisine.  I have small hands, but after experimenting, I reckoned that a handful is about the equivalent of a cup. Of course, this only works for small pasta, but if you follow the same plan, I’m sure you’ll soon work out what is appropriate for you.  I'm afraid it will be a matter of trial and error.  With spaghetti, or linguine: pull it out of the container and make a column of pasta with a diameter of about 25 mm (1 in). this seems to be about right for two.  You can actually get sticks with holes in them for measuring long pasta, and they're very good.  I've had two in my time, but both got thrown overboard (not by me!).  I generally use Method 1, but Method 2 is useful when preventing the cabin from steaming up is really important.

 VOYAGERS’ PASTA

 

Serves 2 

3 cups water + 1/2 tsp salt OR 2 cups fresh water, 1 cup seawater

4 handsful pasta OR 25 mm (1 in) column spaghetti, etc

1 tbsp olive oil

Method 1

• Heat water to boiling point.
• When the water is boiling rapidly, add the pasta and stir several times to separate the pieces from one another. If you are using long pasta, plunge one end in the water and then gently press down the other end until it’s all in the water. Then stir vigorously so that it all separates.
• Cover and turn down the heat so that the pan doesn’t boil over – it needs to be very low and often you need to move the lid slightly to let excess steam escape. Cook for +/- 10 minutes until the pasta is the texture you like. The only way to check this is by sampling a piece. A pasta spoon (the type with spikes) or kitchen tongs are ideal for this.
• Drain and serve with butter or olive oil and plenty of coarsely-ground black pepper.

Method 2 uses a pressure cooker and although unconventional, keeps steam to a minimum.

• Heat water to boiling point. Add olive oil or a knob of butter to help prevent the pasta from frothing up and boiling over.  This will mean that the sauce won't cling to the spaghetti as well as you'd like, but it will stop the vent from getting clogged.
  
• When the water is boiling, add the pasta and stir several times to separate the pieces from one another. If you are using long pasta, plunge one end in the water and then gently press down the other end until it’s all in the water. Then stir vigorously so that it all separates.
  
• Put on the lid and clamp it; keep the heat fairly high until the cooker comes up to pressure.
• Lower the heat and cook for no more than 3 minutes - you may need some trial and error with this, depending on how hot your flame is, how big the pressure cooker and at what pressure it cooks.
• Remove the pressure cooker from the heat and let the pressure reduce gradually – if you de-pressurise rapidly, the pasta collapses. The pasta will cook perfectly with this method.
• Drain and serve with butter or olive oil and plenty of coarsely-ground black pepper.

Notes:

• If you’re cooking for more than 2 people, keep a careful eye on things when you close the lid, to ensure that the liquid doesn’t froth up into the vent. This is unlikely to happen unless the pressure cooker is more than half full and you forgot the oil. 

• If you’re very concerned about condensation, lift the pasta from the pressure cooker with a pasta spoon or tongs, rather than tipping it through a colander, which always produces clouds of steam.

Oddly enough, I had only just finished writing this post when I came across an article on the Guardian website about cooking pasta.  It bore out my method!  https://www.theguardian.com/food/2023/jun/28/10-food-rules-you-should-ignore-felicity-cloake

Chickpeas and fusilli in tomato sauce

 

 

This is an old favourite of mine. Incredibly simple to make, but astonishingly good to eat. Moreover, this is perfect voyaging food, because it is made from ingredients that you will have in your lockers. I prefer it with fusilli – spirals – but of course it will go with whatever pasta you have on board.

Serves 2

Ingredients

1/2 cup of chickpeas, soaked and cooked

a good glug of olive oil

1 onion, finely chopped

2 cloves of garlic, crushed or diced

425 g/14 oz can of tomatoes (See Notes)

a little wine

about a dozen black olives

1 tsp capers

1 tsp Annie's Mixed Herbs

up to 1/4 tsp chilli flakes

salt and pepper

4 handfuls of fusilli

Method:

• Cook the chickpeas as usual.
• Pour the olive oil into a large saucepan over a medium heat. Add the onion and cook until softened and translucent. Add a little salt to speed things up, if you want.
• When the onion is almost cooked, add the garlic and cook until it’s soft.
• Now add the tomatoes and rinse out the can with wine, if you’re using it. If you’re using whole tomatoes, break them up with your spoon.
• If you’re using them, stone and halve the olives. Add the drained capers.
• Season with herbs andchilli flakes - which give a nice lift - and a generous amount of black pepper. Taste and add salt if it can take it.
• Bring to the boil and add the chickpeas.
• Lower the heat and cook until the sauce has become quite thick.
• When the sauce is almost ready, cook the fusilli until it reaches the consistency you like.
• Remove it from the cooking water with a slotted spoon, or drain it into a jug (you may need some of the water to thin down the sauce) and add it to the other pan. Cook for a few minutes longer. Check the seasoning and serve.

Add Parmesan (vegan, if you prefer) at the table, if you like it.

Notes:

• Ideally, use chopped tomatoes in purée, but if you don’t have those, any others will do. It’s worth using better quality tomatoes in this recipe (most recipes for that matter!) for the extra flavour. They seem to be less watery, too.
• Substitute dried, cooked chickpeas with a can

Variation

• Use cannellini or butter beans.
• Add finely diced celery if you have some.
• Try this with pasta shells, or similar. You want a pasta that will hold the sauce.

Carrot and lemon soup

Not a main-course soup, but a very pleasant starter. Carrots and lemons combine together beautifully and the coriander complements both.

Use 1/3 seawater to 2/3 fresh, if the sea is clean, and leave out the salt. 

Serves 4 as a starter

 

Ingredients

 

1 onion

6 carrot

2 tbsp butter OR 1 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp gram flour

2 tsp ground coriander

3 cups water

1 tsp grated lemon rind

2 tbsp lemon juice

salt and pepper

chopped parsley

Method:

• Dice the onion and carrots. Fry gently in the butter for about 10 minutes in a covered pan. Stir every minute or so and don’t let them brown.
• When the vegetables are soft, add the coriander and stir it in. Mix the gram flour with 1/4 cup of water and add it to the pan, stirring it carefully so that everything is blended .
• Add 3/4 cup of water and mix again.
• Pour in the rest of the water and the lemon rind, if you have any. Bring to the boil, cover and simmer gently for 20 – 25 minutes until the vegetables are thoroughly softened.
• Mash to a purée with a potato masher, or use a stick blender, and season with salt and pepper.
• Add the lemon juice, reheat and serve sprinkled with chopped parsley, if you have any.

Split lentil and carrot soup

The sweetness of carrots marries well with lentils and lemon, and the soup comes out a very pretty orange colour. This recipe is intended for a starter – main course lentil soup is generally thicker than this.

Use 1/3 seawater to 2/3 fresh, if the sea is clean, and leave out the salt.

 

Serves 4 as a starter

Ingredients

 

1 large onion 

1 tbsp olive oil

1 tsp crushed coriander seeds

3 carrots

3/4 cup split lentils

4 cups water/stock

2 tbsp lemon juice

salt and pepper

Method:

• Dice the onion.
• Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan and add the onion. Cover and cook over a low heat for 5 minutes.
• Meanwhile, dice the carrots, scraping them if necessary. Add the coriander and cook for a further minute, then add the carrots and lentils and stir well.
• Pour in the water and bring to the boil, stirring occasionally. Cover, lower the heat and cook for 25 minutes, by which time the lentils should have disintegrated and the carrots should be completely softened. Give them a little longer, if necessary.
• Take off the heat and mash into a purée, using a potato masher or a stick blender. Add the lemon juice and season to taste. Add a little more lemon if you prefer it to be slightly sharper.
• Reheat before serving.

Variations:

• A tbsp of tomato purée makes a pleasant change.
• Add a swirl of cream to each bowl.
• Use lime or orange juice instead of the lemon.
• Garnish with some twists of the appropriate peel.