Race Training and Thai Curry

Putting in the top mast.

Mariquita went out for her first race-training sail yesterday in the Solent.  And the day went excitingly well which, with 7 months since our last race in St Tropez and a very new crew, is never a guarantee. My team-mate and staysail 2 for the last two years, Matty, is now bowman and I have with me instead the brand new Mr Johnny Rogers, who coincidently, is another lovely and softly spoken American and yes, that really is his name.

But all went well, nothing and nobody broke and it was, as usual, a joy to once again discover that I hadn’t forgotten what I’m supposed to do on deck. So I can relax and ease back into the full swing of a race season onboard a classic racing yacht – chef and staysail 1.

HECTIC!  It has already begun. 3 training days in a row, 40 odd sandwiches a day to make, a team building session, guests to be pampered, the interior to be turned into a 5 star hotel, accounts to be done and then I have to cook dinner every evening and that’s all before Monday. On account of which I haven’t blogged for ages. Apologies.

Maybe I didn’t quite remember everything from last season then – the sheer madness of it all. So a nice easy dinner menu ensues naturally. And at the top of the ‘easy dinner’ list is always a curry is it not? I mean, let’s face it, some chicken breasts, a can of coconut milk and some spices and Bob’s your Uncle, a tasty chicken curry...

Ok, maybe there’s a little more to it than that but basically that’s the essence of it. That and this next recipe is a fish curry. So it’s not at all like that now is it...

 A salmon and butternut Thai fish curry is the most pleasing curry ever. It tastes outrageously good and you can make the sauce in advance if you are a busy bee and then just pop the fish into the heated sauce to cook just before you serve.

I’m surprised I haven’t put a Thai curry recipe on the blog yet considering I make them quite a lot. It makes a great boat meal as it all cooks on the hob and everybody likes them. Now I know the list of ingredients looks long and if you are unfamiliar with some of the ingredients then you might not bother but please, please give it a go! There is always a substitute if you can’t get all the ingredients and anyway if you leave anything out it will still taste awesome. Trust me.

So for a great salmon and butternut Thai curry for 6 you will need;

3 large onions, sliced
5-6 fresh salmon fillets, cut into chunks
1 butternut squash, peeled and cut into bite sized pieces
1 large bunch of fresh coriander
2-3 red chilli’s – hot or mild depending on your taste
1 large knob of fresh root ginger, grated
5 cloves of garlic, crushed
8 kaffir lime leaves, fresh if possible or dried
1 tsp finely chopped lemon grass (from a fresh stalk or from a jar of ready chopped)
12 whole green cardamom pods, lightly crushed
1 tbsp whole cumin seeds
1 tbsp whole coriander seeds
2 tsp of yellow mustard seeds
1 tsp fennel seeds
2 tsp turmeric
2 cans of coconut milk
8 tbsp fish sauce
3 tbsp soy sauce
2 tsp sugar
2 limes, zested and the juice squeezed

Method;

• Begin by slowly sautéing the sliced onions in a little oil and butter in a large non-stick pan. This creates the perfect base flavour for the curry with all its lovely, naturally sweet oniony flavours.  This can take 20 minutes or so of very, very gentle cooking so that the onions begin to turn a lovely golden brown.

• Once the onions are looking nice and golden stir in the cubed butternut squash and continue to cook on a gentle heat.

• Now this is the fun bit where you can pretend to be a TV chef with your neat little piles of spices all ready and lined up... or is it just me who does that? Firstly finely chop the stalks from your bunch of coriander. Always use the coriander stalks in a curry and the leaves later at the end. Now put the finely chopped stalks into a nice little pile on your chopping board. Next finely slice your chilli’s and proudly put the little pile next to the coriander stalks. Then grate the fresh root ginger and crush the garlic, adding these to the TV chef display of spices along with the lemongrass and kaffir lime leaves. Now how good does that look!?

• Next bit is also pretty fun. Get a frying pan nice and hot but with no oil. Add the coriander seeds, the cumin seeds, mustard seeds and the cardamom pods which have been slightly broken open by thwacking them with the flat of a blade or just crushing them with your palm. Let these roast for about 2 minutes in the pan. The smell will be amazing. Then tip the seeds into a pestle and mortar. You will need to open the cardamom pods and take out the little seeds which is a bit fiddly but sooooooo worth it. Then give all the seeds a good grinding until they are pretty much a powder.

• Turn the heat up a little under the onion and butternut and pour the ground spices in, giving it a good stir. It should all start to have a nice little sizzle and the smell will be making anyone within smell shot, extremely hungry.

• Now tip in to the pan, in your best TV chef impersonation the chilli’s, lemongrass, lime leaves, coriander stalks, ginger, garlic, fennel seeds and the turmeric. Stir it all in well and cook for a few minutes.

• Pour in the coconut milk, fish sauce, soy sauce and sugar, the lime juice and zest. Season with some salt but not too much because the fish sauce and soy sauce are salty too. Bring to a gentle boil then turn the heat down and let the sauce simmer until the butternut is cooked through.

• When you are pretty ready to serve, add to the simmering pan the fresh salmon. Cook for about 5-8 minutes making sure the salmon is cooked through. Now most importantly taste the curry and adjust the seasoning. It may need a bit more salt or a little bit of sugar. Close your eyes and really figure it out.

• Stir through the fresh coriander leaves and serve with lots of wedges of lime. Serve with perfectly cooked rice and naan breads (even though they are Indian, have them anyway. I love naan).

Now I know that was pretty long and only a small percentage of you have made it here, Hi Mum, but really once you have made this a few times it becomes easy and better every time. And experiment! That’s the beauty of a curry. If you don’t have all the spices or ingredients it doesn’t matter a jot.

Now I’m off to bed because we’re training tomorrow and I can hear the wind start to pick up and have a little howl through the halyards. Should be fun tomorrow. I feel the wet weather gear and harnesses may become useful.

I’ll let you know how it goes. Thanks for reading.

Cheers!

Adam's brilliant gold leafing on the top of the top mast about to be hoisted.

Thats my Fiancé up there! What a hero...

Thai style Mackerel & Vegetable Spaghetti

I’m trying to multi-task. Sadly I’m not very good at multi-tasking despite being supposedly of the right gender in which to do so. I apologise to my fellow females for letting the side down.

I am attempting to write this blog and clean my wardrobe up so that stuff is either lying neatly on a shelf or hanging in a vertical fashion. Less of the crumpled, stuffed-in glob of clothes and more of a neat, well looked after array of lovely things. At this very moment it’s a bit of both.

Living in the crew house during the winter season is wonderful because I can have my very own wardrobe full of clothes. Unlike living on the boat in the summer season where I have 2 drawers and share a wardrobe the size of a shoe box. However it does mean that the potential for clothes explosions are vastly limited.

So dinner tonight needed to be simple or I really was going to be struggling with the whole multi-tasking shenanigans. A meal not just quick and easy to make but a meal of tasteful simplicity; an uncomplicated honesty of ingredients to un-clutter my brain.

Mackerel it was. A fish that needs very little doing to it if you have a lot on. I teamed the mackerel with a gentle, Thai flavoured coconut sauce and some steamed vegetable spaghetti (which I make with a clever little tool). The mackerel was infused with fresh coriander, slices of lemon; some cumin and fresh ginger before being stuffed in the oven which took literally seconds but tasted heavenly.

It did look good, it certainly tasted fantastic and I felt healthy and serene whilst eating it.

Back to the wardrobe.

So for a tasty meal of simplicity and calm whilst all else is in a crumpled heap you will need;

One Mackerel per person, gutted and cleaned

1 lemon

2 inch knob of ginger

1 bunch of fresh coriander

1 tsp ground coriander

1 tin of coconut milk

1 fresh red chilli

2 cloves of garlic

1 tsp ready cut lemon grass from a jar

3 kaffir lime leaves

½ tsp turmeric

3 courgettes or carrots or both

1 red pepper

Method;

• First make the coconut sauce so that all the flavours can be mingling and mulching together as you get on with the rest of it. Peel (with a teaspoon) the ginger and grate or finely chop, set half aside for the mackerel. Finely chop the fresh chilli, and the fresh coriander stalks, setting the leaves aside for later. Crush the garlic and slice the kaffir lime leaves into very thin strips.

• In a frying pan, heat a little sunflower oil. Add the garlic, ginger, coriander stalks, chilli, lemon grass and the turmeric and let it all come to a little sizzle. Let it sizzle for a minute or two and then add the coconut milk. Add the kaffir lime leaves and a good pinch of salt. Bring to a gentle boil and then turn the heat right down to low and leave to simmer very gently. Remember tranquil.

• With a sharp knife score the mackerel three or four times on both sides, fairly deeply. Rub the saved fresh ginger into the slashes and also into the cavity of the fish. Stuff the fresh coriander leaves into the cavity of the mackerel and then season the fish with the ground cumin and some salt rubbing it all over and into the mackerel well. Add some slices of lemon into the mackerel and drizzle with a little olive oil.  Then pop into your hot oven.

• If you haven’t got a vegetable spaghetti tool then you can slice the courgettes finely and all will be just as tasty. Courgettes and carrots are great vege’s to make into spaghetti though and they steam quickly and easily and make a great substitute for pasta or noodles if you’re feeling… light.

• As your vegetables are steaming and the mackerel has had 15 minutes in the oven, turn on the grill and grill the mackerel till they are a crispy golden brown.  The fish and vege’s will be ready at the same time as the vege’s literally need only a few minutes to steam.

• Stir some fresh lemon juice into the coconut sauce and flood your serving plates with it. Arrange a pretty little pile of the steamed spaghetti vege’s and lay the mackerel beside. A very little drizzle of sesame oil and soy sauce and serve.

All this serenity is good for varnishing, the main focus of the jobs onboard this week. The sunshine we’ve been having is well timed and the boom, gaff and spinnaker pole have all had a good coat of Epiphanes. They look so good with their new coat of varnish on, which sort of makes up for the work involved in having to sand them. Just.

Hope you’re enjoying some cheery winter sunshine too?!

Thanks for reading

Cheers!

We Caught a Fish!

This is the third time I have started this blog. I do believe I could well have the time at last to finish this one in the same sitting. But then who knows, I have my beef Carpaccio to finish and my very nice glass of red to drink, the bill to pay and a dinghy ride back to the boat to interrupt things. Let’s see how we get on.

Here I sit, in a little French restaurant in Cogolin, near St Tropez and back in France. I have to remember to say Oui and not Ci, Merci and not Gracias. Its all very confusing for the bilingually challenged you know.

So how did the regatta go in Mahon you may well ask?  It was a great regatta with some brilliant sailing and plenty of wind; one first place and two second places, so we claimed a second overall. But we did beat Moonbeam 4 twice out of 3 races over the line which says it all for us…

The sailing was awesome, the entertainment was spot on and our guests were a joy to have.

But the best news of the week, the highlight of the season so far and I’m sure you’ve all been waiting with baited breath (relevant joke in there);

We caught a fish! 

We left Menorca for France on a 48 hour trip on Monday afternoon. I was just considering taking the roast leg of lamb out of my little galley oven that evening for dinner (which of course wasn’t cooked through enough despite having been ‘roasting’ away for an hour and a half…don’t get me started). Then came the most exciting call of ‘FISH’ as the engine was swiftly dulled to neutral and the entire crew rushed up on deck.

Have you ever caught a fish on a line before? It is a very exciting hunter’s desire to battle yet adore what is fighting so hard against your line and hook. What a moment when you first catch a glimpse of his huge powerful body as he is slowly drawn nearer on the reel. Then you finally manage to get him in the air and he is still fighting like the king of the sea that he is. You can’t rest once he is on the boat. He will continue to fight hard and you have to fight to keep him there. The swiftest blow to the head and a well directed knife will ensure he is all yours with as little struggle as possible. He was so beautiful and so big. George was literally shaking with adrenaline.

What a moment we will never forget. And just for those who think that surely I should be supporting the over-fishing cause, well this is how it should be done. One line; one fish at a time. If you’re still not convinced please read my blog ‘Mariquita’s mackerel meal with a message’

 

So roast lamb was served once Mr Tuna was gutted, skinned and filleted and the beautiful meat was wrapped and put on ice. I thanked our fish further as the lamb was given more time to complete it’s cooking in my ‘Force Ten’ oven due to the distraction he gave.

He also gave me a chance to try out my new Global knife and my long dormant sashimi knife. Bless that tuna. Big respect.

And what did I do with it?  Where shall I start?  I decided on a seared tuna steak salad for lunch. A Nicoise of some sort. The simplicity is a necessity when your prize catch is to be the star of the show and as we were France bound I thought it appropriate.

 The great thing about this salad is how each ingredient compliments the very briefly seared tuna so brilliantly. The crisp iceburg lettuce and a garnish of firm green beans. The lightly roasted new potatoes with lemon zest and black pepper, cooled to just warm. HHHHhhalved boiled eggs and a tangy, garlicky, zesty lemon salad dressing. So you see, absolutely nothing complicated served with some warmed herb ciabatta bread (great for deliveries because it lasts and heats well). And when you sear the tuna the pan must be so hot that the tuna sears instantly just on the outside and remains in the pan for no longer than 2 minutes so that the inside of the steaks are still completely pink.

It was delicious. As was dinner. This time I took the Japanese twist as one really must with freshly caught tuna. The main star of the show was to be perfectly raw tuna Carpaccio, laid thinly on large serving plates, drizzled with hot sesame oil and freshly squeezed lime juice. Just the smallest pinch of salt and dash of soy sauce, a garnish of Furikake seasoning and nori, served with coconut rice infused with cardamom and star anise. I stir fried some vegetable spaghetti (with my clever little vege spaghetti tool) in ginger, garlic, chilli and fresh coriander. And of course I cut a lot of sashimi served with the obligatory wasabi, ginger and soy sauce. Ace. Really, very ace.

We are all so lucky.

So here we are back in France amongst all things French. It feels a bit like being home which is funny. And we’re at anchor again. You know how much I love that…

Talking of which, I best pay the bill here and catch a ride back to the boat. Pretty chuffed I managed to start and finish this blog and eat dinner at the same time. It did take two glasses of vin rouge however. I wonder if I look funny sitting alone in a restaurant, typing and reading bits out aloud to myself whilst munching on fries…

I really can not rave enough about how much nicer it is to be a little bit cooler though. I was getting quite bored of sweating from dawn till dusk and then some. That’s a nice little bit of information for you!

Thanks for reading. I’ll be with you again shortly with a September recipe. We have some time to relax and repair our aching bodies before the next regatta so I’ll be cooking up a storm or two in my hopefully less than 33 degrees galley.

Cheers!

A Frittata that tastes like Summer

When I’m being nosey and I’m looking at what some people have typed into Google to get to my blog I feel that I may have let a few people down. I’m not sure that all three of the people who typed in to the Google search box; ‘Hot Sweet Cherry’, intended to get to a recipe on how to make a classic French pudding. But perhaps it gave them a tantalising idea on how to cook up a little more romance into their lives.

Likewise, the person needing advice on how to deal with the terrible affliction of ‘finger burns’ from smoking a particular illegal substance more than likely retreated quickly from my blog; or read on in desperation and discovered that sailing gloves could be the way forward. Or oven gloves, both a viable consideration for avoiding burns to the fingers. Of any kind.

Maybe I have been useful after all.

But the most common search questions, where I feel I can be of most help, have been ‘Why is my frittata soggy?’ and similar frittata worries. Now that’s right up my ally. I thought I’d put in this very light salmon and leek frittata with goats cheese and I’ll explain about the ‘do’s and don’ts’ of frittata making as I go.  It’s a real simple, light summer dish that looks so pretty and makes for a great crew lunch. It even tastes like summer.

For Smoked salmon and leek frittata you will need;

3 leeks, the white parts only (the sweetest bits) finely sliced and washed

About 1 medium pack smoked salmon or around 4 decent slices, sliced!

8 eggs beaten

3 medium potatoes, sliced and boiled till cooked

1 tsp fennel seeds

80g soft, mild goat’s cheese

2 tbsp chopped flat leaf parsley

1 tbsp chopped dill

Method;

• Sauté the leeks in some olive oil and 1 tsp sugar and a good pinch of salt over a medium heat in a large non-stick frying pan. Make sure the leeks don’t brown; you’re just looking to soften them. Sauté till good and soft and any escaping liquid has been absorbed, about 10-12 minutes.

• Now this is important because if you don’t do this before you put the eggs in then you will get a soggy frittata! Any vegetable that you use that has a high water content must be sautéed before you add the eggs or they will release their water as they cook in the egg. In fact all vege’s should be sautéed. Also fresh mozzarella is best avoided because this has the tendency to ooze water out after the eggs have been added. Mushrooms should be well sautéed till they have gone a lovely intense mushroomy brown. And I rarely add tomatoes to a frittata.

• Add the cooked sliced potatoes to the leeks and the fennel seeds and continue to sauté for a few minutes, mixing them well but gently so the potatoes don’t break up.

• Turn the heat right down to very low and add the smoked salmon pieces, sort of resting them over the top of the leeks and then do the same with the goat’s cheese. Sprinkle with the fresh dill and parsley and then pour over the beaten eggs.

• I use a fork or small knife to jiggle the eggs into all the ingredients so that the eggs get to the bottom and bond with everything in the pan. Keep the pan on the very low heat for about 5-8 minutes then put the frittata under the grill to brown the top.

• Once the top has browned put the frittata back on the heat but again on a very low flame. This should take about another 10-15 minutes before the whole thing has cooked through. If you have the strange notion that a frittata should be bunged in an oven for half an hour then please try the method I am suggesting; stiff over-cooked egg is disappointing at best. Like a steak, give the frittata a little poke and you should be able to tell when it has cooked through. It should be set but creamy and delicious not stiff and rubbery.

• Let the frittata rest in the pan for a while before serving to ‘set’. Then making sure the edges are free from the sides with a pliable spatula or palette knife, turn the frittata onto a board. I like to turn mine over again so that it is as it was in the pan but on a pretty serving plate or rustic wooden chopping board.

Serve with a cold glass of rosé and take all afternoon about it too.

Palma is so incredibly hot. It’s like breathing soup. I can’t bare it. But I’m looking forward to the racing which starts on Wednesday. If we have some breeze I shall be a different person, full of my usual beans.

So please join me for regatta adventures. Sian and I are very excited about the Gin and Tonic tasting on Saturday night. And of course the racing. But equally serious for both events.

Thanks for reading.

Cheers!

Paella Performance and Cocktails.

Do you know, I don’t think I’ve made paella since (long pause) crikey, cookery school, 10 years ago. And how much better is a freshly made paella then those stodgy, hours old, tourist grabbing, yellow glowing paellas that practically have a bottle of factor 30 in hand, they’ve been sitting in the sun that long.

I’m sure there are some jolly nice paella restaurants out there (in fact there is one here that specializes in them, don’t worry I’ll try it out). It’s just that it is such a great dish that should be served and enjoyed uber fresh and hot off the stove.

I could have bought a huge paella pan to make mine in. Oh the temptation! There they were, from small to about 1 meter across, hanging off the wall of a lovely kitchen shop in town. I was busy justifying the expenditure and locating secret hiding places in the bilges or the lazerette that could house a massive paella pan, disguised maybe as a vital bit of boaty equipment. Give it a rollick and an oar and you could probably row some considerable distance in it; who would question it? But before I got too excited I had to remember that firstly I would have to cycle back to the boat with the thing possibly balanced on my head and most importantly my cooker is less then 2 ft square and I have no room at the inn for any more pans or fun equipment and certainly not the budget.

Dull.

Hey-ho. My stainless steel saucepan would have to do. It’s best not to use non-stick pans and use the frying pan with the biggest flat base that you have. It shouldn’t be too heavy or cast iron because they retain their heat too much which will mean that when your resting your paella, once you have finished cooking it, the rice will still be cooking on the bottom. So it needs to be a pan that cools quite quickly. Either that or stick the base of the pan into a sink full of cold water. The important bit of the paella is the crust stuck on the bottom where the rice has toasted onto the bottom of the pan. So non-stick pans are not helpful for that.

Making paella is fun. It’s a dish you can be as traditional or as simple or as experimental as you dare and it always tastes lovely. Looks pretty good too. A feast for the eyes.  I stuck with a fairly traditional recipe using pork, chicken and seafood, peas and parsley and lots of lemon zest. They can be vegetarian too. And I made mine a little bit spicy but then I knew my audience.

Have a party! It’s summer and the evenings are long. Paella is best cooked on the barbeque or a grill where the heat will cover the entire base of the pan so that’s your perfect excuse to get some mates round for some paella and sangria in the garden. Actually I’m thinking Paella and Pimms evening, loaded with fresh mint…The old salad and crusty bread accompaniment and what a lovely evening.

I would if I were you.

For traditional (I think!) Paella for 6 people you will need;

2 medium brown onions finely chopped

1 large red pepper finely sliced

3 cloves of garlic, crushed

1 large bunch of flat leaf parsley

1 small red chili (optional)

3 large tomatoes deseeded and roughly chopped (and skinned if you can be bothered)

2 chicken thighs, 2 drumsticks and 2 chicken breasts, cut into bite sized pieces.

8 rashers of bacon or a chorizo sausage or 2 pork chops, roughly chopped

400g paella rice (most supermarkets stock Spanish paella rice)

large pinch of saffron (optional, it’s expensive)

Saffron

2 tsp sweet paprika

about 2pts, 1.2 litres of vege stock

12 fresh mussels all cleaned of beards and barnacles                     

1 small pack of cooked peeled shrimp

12 raw prawns with their shell

1 cup of peas

any other fish or shell fish that you fancy that’s in season

Method;

• Begin by sautéing the chicken pieces in some oil until lightly browned all over and then set aside.

• Using the same oil, fry the pork/bacon pieces until lightly browned and set aside.

• In another pan, steam open the mussels and discard any that remain closed and set aside.

• Back to the paella pan using the bacon fat, sauté the onions with a tsp of sugar until softened but not too coloured. Add the red pepper slices and chopped tomatoes and continue to sauté for a few minutes.

• I finely chopped the tender parsley stalks and added a good tbsp. Then stir in the paprika, and chorizo if using.

• Now pour in the rice and stir well to combine with all the lovely ingredients over the heat and sauté like this for 3-4 minutes. Then pour in the hot stock and add the pinch of saffron.

• Return the chicken and bacon or pork to the paella and bring to the boil. Give it all a little seasoning with salt and black pepper. Then turn down the heat to a gentle simmer and stirring occasionally let the stock be absorbed by the rice. This will take about 20 minutes.

• Before the 20 minutes is up, add the raw prawns and peas to the paella so that they have a good 6-8 minutes cooking time and have gone a nice pink colour. Once they have gone pink and the rice is almost cooked add the chopped parsley, lemon zest and cooked prawns and mussels to the paella giving it a brief and gentle stir, kind of more of an incorporating wiggle.

• Serve with lemon wedges and salad.

So apparently the first paellas were made with Water vole meat, eels and snails. Probably wise to stick to chicken and/or fish I reckon. Not sure where to get Water vole. Saying that you can get some ‘out-there’ things at the markets here. They have a fair amount of offal for sale. Any part of any animal you’d like to munch on is available…

Like I said; I’ll stick to the chicken and fish.

Thanks for reading. Hope you have that garden party with paella and Pimms. Let me know how it goes. Don’t forget the fresh mint.

Cheers!

The night lights of Barcelona

Spanish Highs and Salt 'n' Papper Squid

I can say with the upmost certainty that we are absolutely loving Barcelona already and we’ve not even been here a week. It’s a whole new world of food inspiration and food exploration. The city is alive and kicking everyday, all day and well into the night. The pace slows slightly during the hours of siesta but not enough to stop any necessary shopping or eating. Tapas and Catalan restaurants abound; some great, some touristy and not so great, but you soon get the hang of spotting the good, locals-filled places, inviting you in with their thirst quenching mojitos, sangrias and Cava; and most importantly their tasty little morsels of mouth watering tapas. The new modern twists on old fashion-styled tapas are so far my favourites. They are inventive bursts of flavour on the end of a cocktail stick or in bite-sized portions. Perfect on a hot summer evening with a glass of something cold and clinking with ice as you people-watch under an umbrella, serenaded by a spot of live jazz. Music, food and shopping; we’ve been spoilt so far.

Funny how I thought that I was now becoming an early-to-bed sort of a girl; being 30-something, you know how it goes. However as luck would have it, it appears that I am still more than capable of dancing till 3:30 in the morning. And Oh how I danced! (a bit like no one was watching in fact – except they were watching apparently, all of them. Watch and learn people, watch and learn).

My next bit of news is that I have experienced my first Spanish market. You know what’s next by now – a plethora of market photos to patiently scroll through. Forgive me. Hey, you would too if you were there. It was ace. And it has coffee shops and bars and if you like, as the man next to Sian and I having a coffee at 9 30 in the morning, plainly did feel like, you can happily sit and eat tapas and drink beer or wine too.

‘Colourful’ seems a reasonably dull word to describe it. Inspirational it definitely was. I came back to the boat armed with the freshest squid and tortilla ingredients for the final crew lunch before we embark on our regatta sandwich diet. (The roof of my mouth is shuddering with the memories. A week of eating baguettes everyday deteriorates the hardest of gums. But from years of regatta baguette eating, I have learned the essential trick; turn the baguette upside-down. The softest side of the baguette then will not slice open the roof of your mouth on an everyday basis).

Salt ‘n’ pepper squid. That’s also Ace. And easy to make and the crew think you’re a genius. I never discourage that kind of thinking. Smile bashfully and soak it up. You never know when it’s going to stop.

This isn’t too painful in the mid-day heat either if you are as lucky as us not to have air conditioning – oh no hang on…

For salt ‘n’ Pepper squid you will need;

Fresh squid. For 12 people I bought 10 squid but that was as a side dish so you could eek that up to 15 or so if you would like bigger portions.

Sunflower or vegetable oil for deep frying

½ cup plain flour

½ cup of corn flour

1 tbsp rock/big salt

1 tbsp peppercorns

Method;

·        You can easily ask your fishmonger to clean the squid so all you have to do is slice the squid into rings or open it up and slice into 1 cm wide strips. Make sure you get the tentacles too – my favourite bit. If however you get your squid fully intact with ink, guts and skin then all you do is pull off the head which will be attached to the tentacles and pull out the insides of the squid including the funny plastic looking, lolly-pop stick-thing that goes all the way up inside it. Then peel off the purple skin, it comes off quite easily. Give everything a little rinse and hey presto, slice into strips as I mentioned above. The tentacle bit has the head and ink attached. Cut the head bit off which may contain the ink sack so that you are left with the tentacles. Make sure you can stick a finger through the skirt of the tentacles which will mean you’ve taken all the bits out that you need to. Easy. Rinse and pat dry with kitchen roll.

•       In a large bowl add the flours and mix well. Then in a pestle and mortar, bash the peppercorns and   salt up together into a rough powder. Add this to the flours and mix.

•         The squid might still feel a bit gooey but that’s ok, just bung it all into the flour mixture and with your hands toss well so that it is all well coated.

•         Heat the oil in a large, deep saucepan. When the oil is hot enough to brown a small cube of bread in 30 seconds then it is time to fry the squid. I did small handfuls of squid at a time. It will take a few batch-fulls.

•         After 3-4 minutes frying time, place the golden, crispy squid on a kitchen roll lined plate until you have got through the whole lot. Make sure the oil is fully re-heated after each batch before putting the next lot in.

•         Serve with sweet chilli sauce, garlic mayo or a fresh chilli, coriander, lime and fish sauce dipping sauce like I did.

Our regatta starts on Thursday; the regatta crew is turning up as I type. We will be training with them tomorrow and Wednesday and then racing till Saturday. A short but sweet regatta.  The bit I worry about is the heat. It’s as hot as the sun here. Really that’s no exaggeration. And if there is no breeze out there when we’re ‘trying’ to sail, we’ll be doomed. There’s no shade or escape from the heat on a sailing yacht during a race. Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate!

Wish us luck. Thanks for reading and Adios Amigos!!

Salute!

Ready-to-go Sangria