Anchor Biryani

Mariquita is at anchor. For the next few weeks. Now this has its pros and its cons. And anyone who is reading this who works and lives on a boat full time will tell you that I just fibbed. There are no pros.

I suppose, swimming freely off the boat at any time after work or before breakfast could sound like it’s a pro. It would be the only one. Oh and I guess because of an offshore steady breeze, we have a lack of mosquitoes. So, not all is lost.

What we don’t have is easy access to land. A tender ride ashore and back can be a wet and salty affair as well as infrequent. We have to combine trips to save fuel and no one wants to be the taxi driver either. We don’t have internet and making a quick, simple daily trip to the shops is as you can guess, awkward. I can deal with awkward for a few days but for a few weeks I have to say, I’m really not looking forward to it. You could compare it to being a teenager living at home in the country side before you learnt to drive, relying on your parents to drive you to accepted events so that you can maintain some sort of a social life. On the bright side I don’t have acne.

So as you can probably glean from my (I like to think) un-usually negative tone of typing, being at anchor for any significant length of time is not my most favourite of maritime past-times.

I’m sure it will be fine. I’m sure I will discover that there is much to rejoice in when you are temporarily situated at a distance from crowds, traffic and pollution and all that other land-stuff that can be sometimes…annoying at best but hey! I bet this is good for me in many ways. I’ve just got to keep an open mind. Like at lunch yesterday when I had to cook for everyone. First day back from my holiday and there were no onions or actually much of anything fresh and definitely no time to get in the tender to then get in the car to go find a shop somewhere for fresh food, the sort you can cook nice healthy meals with, for a crew of 12.

Indian. When there is a lack of fresh food, I turn to my spice cupboard and dry stores. I did have a bag of brown basmati rice and I did also have a bag of green lentils. I had 8 potatoes, garlic, root ginger, a gazillion different herbs and spices and frozen peas. Who doesn’t have frozen peas in their freezer? I love frozen peas. So you see, once you have got going with an idea, it is amazing what you can come up with.

I made a sort of Biryani which was, if I do say so myself, pretty good. A great vegetarian meal full of protein. A combination of pulses, beans and rice will always give you a complete protein (all the amino acids of a meat product), full of protein and great for the veges and vegans out there. And it’s healthy of course having none of the saturated fats of meat and a whole lot of fibre. Most certainly a hearty meal.

I did a green salad with lots of fresh mint and sesame seeds with a lime and chilli dressing to excite the taste buds and give texture to the meal. So despite the lack of grub and no access to shops I think I did alright.  I’ll give you the recipe so that if you are ever stuck on a boat far from land with nothing in the fridge, you’ll know that not all is lost. Even if you have no onions.

You will need;

300g basmati brown rice

200g Green lentils

4-5 cloves of garlic

Good fat inch piece of fresh root ginger

1 green pepper, chopped

8 potatoes cut into bite sized pieces

2 onions finely chopped (assuming you have some)

1 fresh chilli finely chopped or 4 small dried chillies or chilli powder to your taste.

1 pint of vegetable stock (roughly)

1 cup of frozen peas

Bunch of fresh mint

Bunch of fresh coriander

10 dried apricots

Desiccated coconut

Ground almonds

2 cinnamon sticks or ½ tsp ground cinnamon    

1 tbsp Garam Massala (a spice cupboard must have)

1 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp ground coriander

1 tsp turmeric

Or if you have a good tandoori paste then that would work very well too.

Method;

• Heat a large non-stick pan with some sunflower oil. If you’re lucky enough to have onions then start by gently sautéing those with some salt and a tsp sugar. After 5 minutes add the potatoes, garlic, and ginger and continue to sauté fairly gently for another 5 minutes making sure the garlic doesn’t catch and burn.

• Add the green pepper and your spices and chilli. My spice list above is merely a guide and what I had in the cupboard. If you have other Indian spices or just one curry spice then great, use a good tbsp of that and you’ll be sweet. But if you are unsure about spices then I suggest that the ones I have suggested are definitely ones to get as permanent fixtures in your spice collection.

• It is always great to fry the spices a bit before adding any liquid when making a curry or similar dish. The burst of heat really brings the flavours out of the spices. So give everything in the pan a really great sizzle and stir. Then add the rice and lentils. Stir to mix still on a high heat and then add the hot vegetable stock. I poured mine into the rice and lentils so that every thing was almost covered in liquid but not quite. Probably about 600 ml.

• Plonk in the cinnamon sticks, a handful of ground almonds and a handful of desiccated coconut. Stir well, season with salt and lots of black pepper and then pop on a well fitted lid. Turn the heat to low and leave for a good ten minutes to do its thing.

• In the meantime you can be getting on with making a big bowl of natural yogurt with mint, lemon juice and finely chopped cucumber, scattering whole cumin seeds over a load of flat breads (Fajitas, chapattis, whatever you can find) and putting those into a warm oven wrapped in damp baking paper or foil. Find your mango chutney and lime pickle and make a salad. Easy.

Top Tip. The best yogurt with mint is made with either dried mint or mint sauce. Fresh mint can go funny when mixed with lemon juice.

• After the ten minutes is up, have a little sneaky peak at your biriyani. If most of the liquid has been absorbed and it looks like it’s gasping for breath then add some more hot water to it; about a cupful. Replace the lid and give it another 10 minutes before repeating the process. The rice, lentils and potatoes will be absorbing all that liquid as it cooks so you will need to add more as it dries up.

• When you think that the potatoes and rice have almost finished cooking about after 30-40 minutes then add the chopped apricots, frozen peas and any other green vegetable you can add (I found some broccoli) and half the mint and coriander to the pan. Stir to mix well, replace the lid and give it another 5 minutes to finish cooking. Don’t let it go for too long or the finished dish might be a bit stodgy. You can always add more hot stock to loosen if this happens though so don’t panic too much.

•  When it is cooked the most important thing to do is to taste it! Potatoes and rice need good seasoning so you may want to add more salt if it tastes bland and maybe a bit of sugar, lemon juice or more chilli if it is not spicy enough for you.

• Remove the cinnamon sticks (which you can wash and dry and use again), garnish with the remaining mint and coriander and serve with lots of side dishes and warm flat breads.

Just before I send this off to you I would like to say that despite my initial feelings of anchor dread, I had a great day today. My fridge was loaded with fresh food. I defrosted the ice maker and cleaned and sorted cupboards and there was a lovely breeze, good music on deck and, well, it was just a good day. I made a very refreshing salad for lunch and which I will write up and send to you very soon and an experimental moussaka for dinner which is still in the oven.

Best of all, I have found a nice little bar to send blogs from. They have very comfortable, big wicker chairs and very nice house red wine served from proper red wine glasses whilst you sit and ‘wifi’. (Pronounced ‘whiffy’ in France)

So I think I’ll survive. Don’t go worrying about me now. Thanks for reading and tune in again very soon for a very fresh and delicious salad recipe.

Cheers!

The Zest For A Long Walk

Ah, the joy of choosing the seats on an aeroplane in front of 2 energetic, restless-legged little girls. I’ll try to imagine I’m sitting in one of those massage chairs you get at selected hairdressers these days; it might be malfunctioning slightly but there’s something in it for me at least. Besides it’s only a 2 hour flight back to Nice from Standstead. I will live in hope that little ‘Polly’s’ technique improves or that she falls asleep very soon. George is fast asleep already. Even before the plane left the runway he was deep in the land of nod. Good for him though, he’s bouncing back and forth in tune to Polly’s little sister’s equally consistent leg-robatics and he’s blissfully unaware. Bless ‘im (said through slightly gritted teeth).

I love going home to the U.K. And I am little bit sad to be heading back to France. The reprieve from the heat was pretty good and all the usual things that come with staying in a real house like a whole big bathroom, a double bed, not having to share anything and everything with 7 other people. Pimms! And best of all, a real English country garden; chickens, geese and all.  On a walk this Saturday, I took pictures of sheep, cows, pigs, samphire, fields of corn, barley, cabbages and potatoes, butterflies, a bulging swarm of bees, oyster fishermen in old fishing boats and obviously the huge incentive; the pub we finally managed to drag our weary limbs into after we had trekked for 8 miles to get there. Good English pub following long muddy walk = low blood sugar, sore feet and guilt-free fish and chips all round please! Any sauces? All of them!

So back to France we go. My soul is soothed. (Though still taking a small beating from Miss little-pink-shoes behind me).

The boat is moving to Cogolin, near St Tropez and we’ll drive my little bashed up Reno Clio (the Rocket-Ship) to meet the boat and crew there. We’ll be at anchor for the next few weeks before heading to Barcelona for regatta number 3. I’m very excited about Barcelona. I’ve never been there but have heard so much about it. My Easy Jet ‘Traveller’ magazine is telling me to book tables at ‘Els Flogons de la Barceloneta’ for tapas, ‘Centonze’ for modern Catalan nosh and ‘Shunka’, for apparently the best of Barcelona’s Japanese food. No problems there, sounds good to me. I’m more than happy to try that lot out and if you have been and conquered Barcelona yourself, then any recommendations, food or otherwise will be gratefully received. Cheers!

Don’t worry folks, it’s not over yet.

I don’t have a recipe for you today I’m afraid. I almost made a stinging nettle risotto having trudged through a few miles of them, in a sort of ‘revenge’ meal with parmesan. But I was too tired and full from fish and chips. Terrific. What I will do though is tell you all about my favourite piece of kitchen equipment; my zester. Now do bear with me. You are about to be astonished at the way in which I will skilfully blend the topics ‘a trip to Suffolk’ and Barcelona in with ‘why you should buy a lemon zester’. Not everyone can find those sorts of hidden, literary connections you know. So moving smoothly on;

If you don’t have one, get one. The small grate on a box grater is rubbish, annoying, knuckle un-friendly and gives you silly little flecks of zest and the risk of too much pith which is bitter. A proper zester will fill you with joy at its perfect little curls of pure lemon zest. So pretty, so full of zing and…lemon. And why waste all the goodness in lemon zest? It’s full of incredibly healthy oils and vitamins. So if you are ever using the juice of a lemon, always zest it first. If you don’t want to use the zest for that exact dish then put it aside and use it for something else like in a salad or a salad dressing. Please never waste the perfectly good zest of any lemon or lime. Pop the zest in some olive oil, leave to infuse for a day or so and serve with pasta with lots of black pepper and bingo! An exceedingly light but tangy pasta to serve with a veal schnitzel or a lamb chop. I really won’t go on too much but need a garnish? Use your lemon zester! You can craft the most beautiful curls of pure lemon zest with a zester. You can’t with a box grater even if its one of those amazingly sharp, Japanese ones. A single curl of lemon zest perched on a small pillow of crème fraiche on a dainty smoked salmon canapé says so much don’t you think?

Lemon tart. The perfect example of why you should own a lemon zester. A lemon tart is only the best lemon tart when made with the finest and pithless-est zest. (Yes, that is a word). And you will achieve such culinary heights with your one and only - you’ve got it, Zester.

How would this dish have worked without perfect lemon zest?

I feel my work is done here. I’m sure you saw how that seamless bit of topic blending…blended.

I think we’re about to land so I will say goodbye for now and press the ‘save’ button. George has unfortunately been drawn reluctantly into an excitable game of peek-a-boo with Little Polly behind us which has brilliantly distracted her from kicking my chair. Thanks George. You’re forgiven from falling asleep earlier. And even though he is trying very hard to end the game with stern, manly face, he simply can’t ignore Polly and her little sisters’ enthusiasm for such a simple game.

 

Ah, to have such innocent zest for life.

(SEE! See what I did there?! Zest for life…Geddit?)

Save.

Samphire growing wild

Sweet, Sweet Cherry Clafoutis

It’s getting hot. It’s getting damn hot. The sort of hot that has you scratching the little tickle of sweat, trickling down between your shoulder blades and begging for the smallest of breezes. We don’t have air conditioning on our boat. My galley has a little fan in it placed above the cooker. It wasn’t the best place to put it. When I’m cooking the heat rises (science that) and the fan conveniently proceeds to blow hot air at me. I tend to melt unattractively in a slow but increasing fashion as lunch or dinner approach. When I give the Mariquita ‘Whoop-Whoop’, for meal times, the crew rush down below for food as quickly as I rush up on deck for some cool air. How glamorous I must look as I gasp for air, red faced and flapping my tee-shirt in the vain attempt to cool down; usually between two huge plastic motor yachts draped with beautifully reclining, bikinied, women glowing ever-so-delicately.

I suppose it would be sensible enough to insist upon a cold salad lunch regime but that would be dull and limiting and I can definitely cope with melting before I can cope with serving raw food, bread and cheese for every meal.

And besides, I promised them more baking. Well, actually I didn’t exactly promise. I simply hinted; and to you too. For it is cherry season in France; and I had the desire to make cherry clafoutis for desert (pronounced clafootee). I really can’t remember the last time I made a clafoutis and suspect it was probably when I was at cookery school. Cherry clafoutis is said to hail from the Limousine region in France and, as there is with most dishes of distinction, there’s a bit of foot stamping from other regions who also claim it as their own.

Whatever, it definitely hailed from my galley oven last night. My Force-Ten oven is surprisingly capable of turning out one mean cherry clafoutis. Who knew?

Consisting of cherries laid in a dish and covered in a simple, vanilla-spiked batter, it really is a must-go-for-it desert. There are some variations which involve kirsch, the cherry liquor but I decided to go for the simple recipe and experiment later on. You can pit the cherries if you can be bothered but conveniently enough, if you leave the pips in, the flavour of the cherries is much improved and exudes the hint of almond important to the dish. Just got to warn your guests about them. I read many times that clafoutis should be served straight from the oven with a small dollop of crème fraiche or yoghurt. So I unashamedly served my clafoutis with a delicious tub of vanilla ice cream. Well, why not, the evening was so hot by the time I pulled it out the oven and I think it was the perfect combo. A soft and fluffy batter surrounding the hot little, sweet, tangy bursts of cherry merging with a melting of cold vanilla ice cream… yeah, me too.

If you’re making this for guests then you could do them as individual puddings which would look lovely. Its signature garnish is a good dousing of icing sugar and I reckon the odd little refined curl of lemon zest and a wee sprig of fresh mint would help draw the attention. I made one big one for the crew and this is how I did it;

You will need;

About 300-350g cherries, stalks removed but left with the stones in

300 ml milk

60g castor sugar

3 eggs

60g plain flour

½ tsp baking powder

1 vanilla pod, split lengthways down the middle, the little black seeds removed

Or ½ tsp vanilla extract

A pinch of salt

Icing sugar to serve

and a really good vanilla ice cream or crème fraiche to play by the rules

Method;

• First heat your oven to about gas mark 4 or 180C (if your oven is like mine then turn it to full blast and hope for the best)

• Butter a nice serving dish or dishes if you’re doing the individual ones and lay the cherries in a single layer so that there is plenty in there but not too crammed.

• Beat the eggs and sugar in a bowl with an electric hand whisk until light in colour and smooth, about 3-4 minutes. Then pour in the milk and the vanilla seeds or extract and whizz again just to mix.

• Sieve into the mixing bowl the flour, baking powder and salt and beat until you have a nice smooth batter. Now pour this over your cherries but so you can still see the cheeky little things just about poking out and pop into the pre-heated oven. See, simple as.

 

• Bake for about 30-40 minutes till lightly golden, risen and set. You can leave it to rest a little as the cherries will be pretty hot! Then sprinkle with icing sugar and serve with your chosen dollop of naughty-ness.

I really hope you make this if you haven’t before. It was so quick and easy but very pretty and tastes so good. And I guess you could happily use other seasonal fruits all year round. Actually I’m wondering if a light almond ice cream would have been better…   Mmmm.

Vanilla, Almond, no matter! I’ll just keep thinking about ice cream if that’s Okay by you? I can’t possibly eat too much of it but I can definitely keep dreaming about it in this heat. But like I’ve said before, if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the galley. Does sticking you’re head in the freezer count as getting out of the galley?  Nah!

Salad for lunch tomorrow then…

Just kidding.

Thanks for reading and if I haven’t completely melted by then, see you soon.

Cheers!

'Glowing' in a hot galley

A Short Note On Antibes Regatta, Lots Of Photos and Some Starch.

A dramatic lightening storm in Antibes

Jim, George and Tim watching the show, ready for rain.

It’s me. I’m back. And just so you know, I’m back in Cannes and have constant internet and a good while before our next regatta. So the recipes will be flooding your way very soon!

Right now though, a darkened room, air conditioning and pizza are just about all I can cope with. Since my last blog, Mariquita has race trained for 2 days, raced 4 days and I am exhausted.

But it was good. Great racing and great friends and Antibes is lovely (although the walk to the shops was a bit lengthy with a wobbly old trolley in all that heat).

Wooling sails on deck

Lots of sail changes equals lots of clearing up.

We came second overall! Well done us. We even won the first race which was amazing because we sat in a little wind-less hole for what felt like ten years and watched with flogging sails and growing anxiety as boats merrily sailed past in a fantastic little breeze. Let me tell you, when sailing is as frustrating as that, you may as well be playing golf (sorry golf lovers, I’ve tried but by the 6^th hole, really I’m in such a bad mood, I may as well be sitting on a stationary boat in a race with no wind…).

The beautiful yacht, Cambria

Mariska won over-all and Cambria should probably have taken second place but she gives us so much time in the handicap system, she came third. Don’t worry, I won’t go into any detail to explain how this works (mostly because it doesn’t and it’s very, very dull) but put simply, we are all very different boats of different sizes, designs and weights, so to make the scoring a bit fairer, all the boats have a ‘rating’, which means that a bigger, faster boat gives a smaller, slower boat time. I don’t fully understand how they work it out and it certainly doesn’t always reflect a fair score but hey-ho, we know if we’ve had a good race and ‘won’ or not. We rate ourselves and don’t get too caught up in what the scoreboard says.

It was a week of not a lot of wind and big swelly seas. Mariska is lighter than Mariquita so she coped much better with the swell and light winds.  Cambria is a big, strong, Bermudan rigged 23 meter, so she careered through the course, miles ahead of everybody.

It is a beautiful sight to see so many classic yachts about to start their race, vying for the best position on the start line. And it’s an adrenaline fuelled moment when you’re a part of it. I really do have the best job in the world.

There was a bit of wind! But it was a squall that came through when we were out training.

I made the sandwiches myself for this regatta. No grated carrot and anchovy this time! My Chinese chicken wraps and smoked mackerel and prawn baguettes went down very well and in the absence of decent and sanely priced Cheddar in the South of France, French Cantal is a good substitute for the old favourite, cheese and pickle. And on the subject of food, and I guess due to this being a cooking blog, let me tell you about the celeriac, bacon and pine nut lasagne I made! 

Who’d have thought it? Well actually I did. But putting a starchy vegetable in amongst pasta can sometimes feel a bit wrong, like a chip butty or a potato pizza; both of which can be exceedingly good of course. I lived in Viareggio in Italy for a short while and occasionally I would visit a little pizza takeaway by the seafront and purchase a slice of their incredible potato and rosemary pizza to take home and eat with a nice cold glass of Pino Grig’. My mouth is watering at the memory.

Jim the captain leading the wooling of sails through the galley as I cook supper. I'm cool. I can cope with that.

But back to France, celeriac and pasta.  It works very well. Celeriac is quite a light starch with a great flavour not unlike celery, and goes very well with bacon. And that’s what was in the fridge. Whilst sitting on the side deck that day, trimming the reaching staysail I came up with the vague idea of putting it all in a lasagne with a balancing, creamy sauce and some fresh buffalo mozzarella. Again, mostly because that’s what I had in the fridge and there would be no time to shop that night after such a long race. (Quite frankly, couldn't be bothered).

The lasagne followed the same basic recipe as my kitchen-sink lasagne (from blog, A Glamerous Lunch In Cannes) with the grated courgette in there too, to bulk it out for 7 very hungry, tired chaps. I sautéed the sliced celeriac with the onions, in place of the potato from the kitchen sink lasagne, added some fennel seeds and instead of goats cheese, fresh buffalo mozzarella. I simply sprinkled sautéed bacon and pinenuts in amongst the layers with the white sauce, plenty of freshly grated nutmeg and a good topping of parmesan. I will definitely be making it again sometime. One to keep in the recipe memory banks.

One little note there for all you budding cooks. Never bother with buying pre-grated nutmeg. It smells alright but tastes of dust or absolutely nothing. It’s simple enough to buy the whole nutmegs and grate them in fresh. Really, it makes a huge difference.

So here we are, back in Cannes. It feels a bit like coming home, it’s got that sort of familiarity. I know where most things are now; the best shops, the best routes for a loaded trolley with rapidly deteriorating wheel bearings and most importantly, where to get great ice cream.

I hope I haven’t bored you with too much regatta-reminiscing again. Although they are very all-consuming and I do feel I should explain my absence. It does feel good for the soul to summarise it, so I thank you for reading if you made it to the end, skimming fully understood.

Getting the sails down quickly before the squall really hit.

I’ve got a great idea for my next recipe for you. Being surrounded here in France by cherry season is getting my desert juices flowing. I feel I need to do more baking, as I’m sure my crew do too. A little sweetness needed to sooth our aching muscles and tired bodies and plus I have a little time in which to bake the odd desert. The crew need a bit of spoiling I feel. I can be Mum. Bless ‘em.

So I’ll see you shortly. Stay tuned for the next, sweet addition of life at 33 Degrees.

Cheers!