Boaty cookbook thread

lustyd

lustyd

Well-Known Member
Joined
27 Jul 2010
Messages
14,230
Visit site
Hi all, I'd like to get some new recipes for the boat. Since I just typed one to show Mr Winter that pies are not the only food group I thought I should start a thread. Please don't reply unless you have a good recipe that can be cooked on a boat with limited cooking facilities (i.e. no oven, grill or fancy multi burner nonsense! :p) Hopefully we can then all use this as a cookbook!
 
Toulouse sausage and butterbean casserole

  • 1/2 glass white wine (rest for the chef)
  • 3 slices streaky bacon
  • pinch of chilli flakes (or a bit of fresh chilli)
  • 1 leek, sliced to 1cm ish
  • 100ml chicken stock
  • 1 garlic clove (sliced, smashed, smallish)
  • 3 sausages (toulouse best but "normal" ones plus more garlic and
  • some white pepper work well)
  • a tin of butter beans

  1. Brown the sausages and cut into chunks then set aside.
  2. Brown the bacon, add leaks and garlic and cook until leeks soften.
  3. Add back sausages and everything else and cook for 15 mins.
 
Thing is I've got no fridge or oven so use a mini wok thing quite a lot on the Origo.
Onions are always good value - sweating them on the lowest heat improves flavour no end. Any other roots added - carrots etc. The next thing is to stir fry any chicken bits before it goes off. Ginger or cardamon pods (but not both) boost the flavour. Add some stock from powder or cube, or coconut milk. Add greens. Finally bung in one of those packets of straight to wok noodles (I fed them to my boys when kids and told them they were worms).
So the challenge is to use this technique over the month or more I may be away. Changes could be a tin of smoked mussels, or some fresh salmon, those cheap salamis from Lidl/Morrisons, packet of instant rice, splodge of sweet chilli sauce, strips of rump steak.
 
One of my favourites, have made it several times for guests on my boat, Seafood Rissotto
Pack of mixed sea food,
Some prawns and mussels
1/2 to 1 onion or shallots, clove of garlic
Warm jug of Fish or vegetable stock, Been known to put a stock cube in then just add water from the kettle
Rissotto Rice
large glass White wine
sprinkling of parmisan cheese
Large knob of Butter

Brown the chopped onion in butter in a large lidded pan, add the chopped garlic and enough rice for the people, saute till golden then add the wine, simmer gently, adding stiock bit by bit as it is absorbed into the rice. when the rice is nicely swollen about 40 minutes on a very low heat, add the sea- food and cook for a further 2 minutes. sprinkle in parmesan to taste, throw some prawns and mussels on top, serve straight from the pan with big chunks of bread and or salad.
A special treat and really easy.
 
Tasty meal for two can be made from
  • a tin of M&S Sweet and sour chicken,
  • a tin of oriental stir fry vegetables
  • some egg noodles
  • and ideally some extra S&S sauce
 
Last edited:
Shepherds pie.

  • A tin of good quality minced beef.
  • a small tin of baked beans
  • some Smash
  • some grated cheese

  • Heat the meat, but drain off and discard excess gravy.
  • Add the baked beans ( or other veg if preferred) and return to heat.
  • Reconstitute the Smash.
  • Put meat and veg into a shallow dish ( Al foil)
  • Cover with Smash
  • sprinkle on grated cheese. Melt and heat until browned under the grill.
 
  • Tin of ratatouille
  • Tin of mixed beans in mild chilli sauce
  • Pack of six decent sausages, preferably strongly flavoured ones eg "Toulouse style"
  • Ginger
  • Garlic
  • Nutmeg
  • Paprika
  • Chilli
  • Pepper

Cut the sausages into quarters, throw everything into a pan, and heat on a high simmer until the sausages are cooked.

Put some couscous in a bowl or jug, pour boiling water over it until slightly more than covered, leave for ten minutes to cook.

I do this from time to time at home; realised it would be good at sea and did it for the first time on the way back from Cherbourg last night (though I used meatballs rather than the usual sausages). Seemed popular.

Pete
 
I love threads like this!

One of my favorite meals is this: Put pasta (your favorite type) on to cook, while the pasta is cooking, chop up a load of tomatoes (I don't bother skinning or deseeding them) into a bowl, add grated garlic (I use loads coz I love garlic), add a good glug of olive oil, if you have fresh basil tear it up and add it to the bowl or use dried, when pasta is cooked, drain and add it to the bowl, give everything a good mix, add whatever cheese you have on board (parmesan or peccorino for preference) and dish up.
 
A Little more in Dylan school of cooking...

Tin Potatoes, Cornbeef = Cornbeef hash. You can add fried egg as well..

Dryed Noodles (cheap 15p to expensive :confused:) Cheese and egg. Boil Noodles drain add cheese and egg heat to melt /cook. Add bacon to make it poor mans carbinara. Blue cheese if feeling posh (*or moldy old cheese works well :eek:)...

Pasta (cooked) tin of tuna and some hot chopped/ ground/ powder pepper again add cheese....

Leeks Cooked mixed with pasta (cooked together) drained add mascaponi (or other cheese) add bacon also

Cauliflower & Cheese sauce.

Rice onion egg if available - special fried rice.
Add yellow fish to make kedjery

Pressure cooker can be used like slow cooker just quicker great things...

If you have pressure cooker you can do ham, then pea and ham soup (dutch style a meal or 3 in itself), With more ham left for sandwiches or ham and Smash and baked beans. Ask if you want details..

To me cooking on boats should be quick and easy with minimal fuss...
 
Carp a la plank (planked carp)

1 carp, cleaned
750ml white wine
Ketchup
Mustard
Cayenne pepper
3 bay leaves
Tabasco sauce
Black pepper
150 gms brown flour
1 fresh, unseasoned pine plank, 35cm x 10cm.
6 ungalvanised nails

Method:
Clean and rinse carp. Make a thick paste of all ingredients (except wine) in the flour. Add the spices to taste. Rub salt in the body cavity. Place the bay leaves in the cavity.
Nail the carp, cavity side down to the plank.
Cover the carp with the paste.
Place plank in flat, shallow dish with 1 cup water.
Place in 200F oven for 6 – 10 hours.
Drink wine.
Just before serving remove the nails, discard carp.
Eat the plank.
Delicious!
 
i have a whole folder of recipes of simple things to cook. Some do require refrigerated ingredients.

The unrefrigerated ingredients are:-

- Garlic, ginger and chilli flakes - essentials to add flavour.
- Potatoes, onion, carrots, cabbage and lemons do not need refrigeration.
- Cous-cous, pasta and rice.
- Tinned stuff - tomatoes, tomatoe paste, tuna, chickpeas, beans and anchovies.
- Other stuff - olives, mayonnaise (keep the spoon you ladle it out with clean and you can keep it out of the fridge), soy sauce, a chunk of Parmesan cheese, eggs, long-life milk, flour, stock cubes, olive oil, dried herbs, salt and pepper.
- Bacon and chirizo last well in a cool place.

If you haven't got bread, make some tortillas.

TORTILLAS

2 Cups General purpose wheat flour
¼ cup Oil
Water
Salt

Take 2 cups (480ml) of flour, and cut in 1/4 cup (120ml) of oil. Light salad oils will impart little flavor, and olive oil will impart more. Add a dash of salt, mix this all together until it is evenly crumbly. Sprinkle with water, and mix until you have a gummy dough.

Toss some flour on the board and plop your dough in the middle of the flour. Put some flour on your hands, and flatten the dough. Then fold the dough in half, and flatten it again. Repeat, adding enough flour so that the dough doesn't stick to your hands or the board. As soon as the dough starts to feel a little springy, you're done.

Put a dry frying pan on the stove to heat up. You want it to be hot!

Pull off a piece of dough the size of a golf ball. Flour your surface and your rolling pin (or wine bottle) and roll it out as round and as thin as you can.

The key to making great flour tortillas is high heat and thin dough. As you have the tortilla as thin as you can reasonably get it, toss it immediately in the hot pan - before it has a chance to spring back to it's smaller, thicker old self. As soon as the tortilla hits the pan, it will begin cooking. Some people keep flipping the tortilla, and some people flip it only once, but either way, the goal is to heat the tortilla until steam pockets develop inside and it "pillows" up, but you don't want it to burn.

If you like your tortillas crispy, you're done. If you like them soft (for rolling into burritos) toss them into a bag as you go, and the steam will soften them. The next tortilla is ready to toss in the pan as soon as the last one is done.

Some people like thicker tortillas, some thinner. Some like them almost raw and gummy, and some like them nearly burnt to a crisp.
Tortillas can conceivably last a few days.


Spicy Tuna and Lemon Pasta

200g pasta (penne or like)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/3 cup lemon zest
2 cloves garlic, sliced
2 x 185g cans tuna in olive oil, sliced
¼ teaspoon dried chili flakes
¼ cup basil leaves if fresh, less if dried
Sea salt and FGBP (black pepper)
Shaved Parmesan to serve

Cook pasta in a large pot until al dente. Drain and return to pot.
Heat a medium non-stick pan over medium heat. Add oil, lemon zest and garlic and cook for 1 minute or until garlic cooked and zest crispy.
Combine the pasta with tuna, chili, basil and salt and pepper and toss to mix.
Top with Parmesan and serve with lemon dressing on the side.


Chorizo and Chick Pea soup

400g can chopped tomatoes
110g pack of chorizo sausage (unsliced)
140g wedge Savoy cabbages
sprinkling dried chilli flakes
410g can chickpeas , drained and rinsed
1 chicken or vegetable stock cube
crusty bread or garlic bread, to serve

Put a medium pan on the heat and tip in the tomatoes, followed by a can of water. While the tomatoes are heating, quickly chop the chorizo into chunky pieces (removing any skin) and shred the cabbage.
Pile the chorizo and cabbage into the pan with the chilli flakes and chickpeas, then crumble in the stock cube. Stir well, cover and leave to bubble over a high heat for 6 mins or until the cabbage is just tender. Ladle into bowls and eat bread.

Spaghetti puttanesca (4 portions)

1 large tin diced or crushed tomatoes
1 large yellow onion, diced
4 cloves of garlic, halved
5 anchovy filets, chopped
4 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Chopped black olives
3 Tablespoons capers, drained
2 Tablespoons dried parsley, chopped
1/2 to 1 small red chili pepper, chopped
Salt, to taste
1 lb spaghetti or any pasta.


Set the pasta water to boil.
In a deep saucepan lightly cook the garlic until brown, in hot oil.
Add the onion and cook for 2 minutes
Add all the anchovies, crush well with a fork.
Mix in the tomatoes, olives, capers and the chili, cook over medium high heat for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Add the parsley and cook the sauce a little more.
Put the ready and drained pasta in the pan, top with the sauce and toss pasta to coat.
Now, sprinkle some fresh chopped parsley.

It is against tradition to add cheese to this dish (but hey, its your life!)

Serve using leftover olives and capers to garnish each plate.



Quick Cooked Cabbage

2 slices bacon, cut into 1-inch pieces
1/4 cup chopped onion
1 1/4 lbs. cabbage, sliced
1 tsp. dried parsley flakes
3/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. dried basil
1/4 tsp. each of dried oregano, dried marjoram and black pepper
Dash of red pepper

Cook bacon in large skillet over medium heat until crisp; remove bacon and reserve drippings in skillet. Crumble bacon and set it aside.

Cook chopped onion in drippings over medium heat for 2 minutes, stirring often.

Add cabbage and next seven ingredients; cook, stirring for 1 minute.
Cover and cook until tender.
Transfer to a serving dish and sprinkle bacon on top.
 
although having been in Australia since 1978, my roots commit me to suggesting scouse...that great liverpudlian delight...google it there are photos.

whatever size saucepan you have first 500 g brown cubed beef with 2 onions. then add 500 ml beef stock, simmer 20 minutes. add 1/3 pan volume of roughly chopped potato, 3 diced carrots, 1 tin tomatoes, salt and pepper. bring to boil and simmer 40 minutes.

always best when reheated as the potatoes thicken the scouse up.

uses a single saucepan. :D
 
I'm surprised no-one has yet mentioned plastic cheese slices between two crackers, or Pot Noodle.

I can vouch for prv's spicy ratatouille, meatball, couscous dish, although I did leave a smear of it on his dodger a couple of hours later.

Even in a small boat there is room for a sealed tupperware type box of dried herbs, spices and curry powders. Anyone can chop an onion and clove of garlic, add lean mince meat, chopped spud / sweet potato / carrot / etc and stir it now and again. Tortillas or pitta bread doesn't make much mess as an accompaniment.
 
Ignoring the heathen masses (how ON EARTH do they survive on the sort of tinned meals they suggest; sorry Dylan!)

Green Thai Fish Curry

Two saucepans.

A little oil in one pan and soften some onions - don't chop too fine - leave as big chunks. Add a teaspoon (or more to taste) of green thai curry paste and fry for a minute ot two. Add garlic and extra chilli if you like it hot. (Lazy garlic and lazy chilli if you are lazy.) Then add a tin of coconut milk (low fat if you are feeling good) and squeeze the juice of a lime into it. Add some chopped coriander. Simmer for fifteen minutes, then add fish (preferably chunky fish, but anything will do at a pinch - I've used Cod cheeks when I bough a load realy cheaply) Simmer for a few minutes to cook the fish through and serve over the basmati rice with some fresh coriander chopped on the top.

Cheating ways to chop coriandar: take the bunch and roll it together tightly and trimn the end off with scissors.

Basmati rice: place in a saucepan with cold water covering plus 1/2 inch over the top of the rice. Bring to boil and then trun down to LOWEST setting. Put foil/tightly sealed lid on and check after 12 minutes. The rice should have absorbed all the water and be cooked through perfectly.

If you want exact measurments, then ask, but perhaps one medium onion and enough fish for two people (you don't need much) with 1/2 a big mug of dried basmati rice cooked as above will feed two?

If you've only got one burner cook the fish first, it will then keep warm while you cook the rice. Give the fish curry a quick blast on the heat again before serving.

This is a boat version of a regular dish which we cook but which needs a food processor to blend the spices.
 
Many of us do have an oven, so here goes

First catch and clean some mackerel.

Place the fish in a baking dish lines with enough tin foil to allow you to close the top. Poor in some cider, preferably the real stuff but even magners would do. Seal the tin foil to keep the steam in and pop in a moderately hot oven. Whilst your fish is cookinh boil some potatoes and when they are ready serve, and enjoy.

You van ad herbs and spices according to taste and have other vegetables too.
 
Tricia said:
I love threads like this!

One of my favorite meals is this: Put pasta (your favorite type) on to cook, while the pasta is cooking, chop up a load of tomatoes (I don't bother skinning or deseeding them) into a bowl, add grated garlic (I use loads coz I love garlic), add a good glug of olive oil, if you have fresh basil tear it up and add it to the bowl or use dried, when pasta is cooked, drain and add it to the bowl, give everything a good mix, add whatever cheese you have on board (parmesan or peccorino for preference) and dish up.
Click to expand...


A slight variation: you can prepare the tomato earlier in the same way, though after you have chopped them add salt over them (+ garlic + oil etc etc).
Let it rest in the fridge (outside ok as well) for at least half an hour, better one hour: the salt will take out all the tomato juice.
Then prepare the pasta. Short pastasciutta (fusilli, penne, maccheroni) preferable as it will pick up more sauce than long pasta like say spaghetti or fettuccine.

Once pasta is cooked (better slightly al dente), drain and rinse with cold water. When pasta is cold mix with the tomato sauce. Might want to add a little more oil so pasta does not stick.

It can be eaten straight away, or kept up to one day. One of those meals you can prepare in advance and eat whenever you want without having to use the cooker.
Excellent during summer.
 
john_morris_uk said:
Ignoring the heathen masses (how ON EARTH do they survive on the sort of tinned meals they suggest; sorry Dylan!)

Green Thai Fish Curry
Click to expand...


We love it (even the kids)! Though usually prepare it with chicken.
One may add to the initial frying oil some cinnamon stick, star "anis" (badiane), grated galanga root (dried is ok as well, gives a taste of pepper without being hot), cloves, and powdered citronnella. May also use kaffir lime leaves (dried are ok), let soak in water a couple of hours before and add while cooking 5 minute before serving.

We brought with us all dried ingredients/spices, fresh ones are way better but dried are ok as well in times of need :D


Also, kids are fond of this curry with sticky rice (and us parents too!).
Wash the sticky rice thoroughly with cold water until water is clear, then let soak for at least 12 hours, the more the better.
Put the rice on a grid, we have the bamboo baskets but a colander can do, a couple of cm of water in a pan and steam cook the rice for 15-20 minutes (the boiling water must not touch the rice).


Is it dinner time yet ?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top