Fast Boat Food: Kebab Cheat

This is one of those ideas that  comes to mind when sailing out there and you start feeling hungry. Once you have consumed your two or three sarmies (South African for sandwiches), you tend to start dreaming about something more substantial.

"The heat of the day when the fish won't bite," as the famous song goes. Listen to the ocean, it soothes you and helps you to dream up some more recipes!

Enter the very South African tradition of a braai on board. Most small yachts I have sailed on either have a braai, a grill, an oven or combination of the above. And mostly, when an impromptu braai is on hand, out comes the boerewors. A kind of rustic thick beef and pork sausage, flavoured with salt, pepper and coriander, perhaps some other spices. A delicious meat product which is easy to barbecue. Add to this some veggies and you have a substantial meal.

However, my friend Zirkie Schroeder, blogging as Pink Polkadot Food has a card up her sleeve. She made a kebab (sosatie) using boerewors and some vegetables on hand.

The result is history. Check it out here. A delicious meal in handheld form. Not messy and easy to prepare.

Bon appetit!




Authored by Johan Zietsman.

Thanks to Zirkie Schroeder at Pink Polkadot Food

Compiled for the GBYC newsletter.

Last updated on 2013-08-13

  

The GBYC Paella Cook-Off

My, what tangled webs we weave!

I am not really one for serious competitions. Rather too laid back, I think. Or probably too lazy.

The real reason for a wannabe sea gypsy? Most decidedly. My doctor says my cholesterol levels are where they are because of good eating. I used to think it was due to too much starch and sugar.

However it may be, last Saturday found me competing against the local sailing club Commodore for the best paella. The non-competitor versus the club Commodore. A tangled web indeed!

He decided on a sea food version, complete with all and sundry exotic ingredients. It looked and tasted delicious. The dish was cooked slowly and the fish and calamari parts were done to a T.

My version was definitely more traditional having no sea food whatsoever. Just chicken and a small amount of spicy sausage meat for flavour. Only a little bit of stock, just enough to help the flavours. The cooking process and sequence generates a natural stock.

This one is real cheap to make. And the flavours of this winning dish (wink wink) come from paying attention to the sequence of cooking and what is done or not done.

The paella is very traditional Spanish fare, originating from the Valencia region if I understand correctly. And there is no sea food or fish in the dish. Which is why I chose this route. Tried and tested by time.

Cooking paella over open coals is quite easy. You need a hot pan in the beginning, when you grill the meaty parts.. Later, one needs a cool pan to allow the dish to simmer. Remember, it is a dry-ish dish and will burn easily. After which, of course, you start over.

The rice and tomato added. Lower the heat, now wait.

The rice will absorb fluid ever so slowly in the beginning, then at a rate of knots towards the end, so be wakeful!


And add the ingredients in a sensible sequence, that you do not kill your favourite ingredient by adding it too early.


We used Montsia brand rice from Spain, but any short grain starchy rice will do. Even parboiled long grain rice will work, but may take longer too cook. If you have to use long grain rice or are pressed for time, soak the rice in hot water at the start. then add it later. The rice will swell out and absorb some water, reducing cooking time. A good idea aboard a small boat!

Chourizo is the favourite, but any spicy sausage or meat will do. I have forever steered away from salami, thank you very much. But the German style spicy sausages seem to work. However, this meat is optional in the tradition of Valencia.

Chopped garlic and chillie is OK, but fresh garlic and chillie mashed in salt on your spice chopping board will get the essential oils into the salt and add to the flavour of the dish. And you will not get pieces of garlic stuck in your teeth, like me...

I have written before on the issue of stirring or not and the difference between paella and risotto.

While the ingredients overlap seriously, and the process too, a paella is drier than a risotto and should be stirred less. This one was only stirred a little at the end to prevent burning. The sauce and rice fuse into a sticky mess and then fries a little, which is good. It tastes like heaven and your guests will fight over this. But you need to scrape it off the bottom every now and then, else the dish is ruined.

We used wood from alien trees growing in our region for the fire. They make hot coals for a short period, then the coals die and you have a cool fire. I adjusted the height by putting a brick under the paella pan handles to allow a little air to flow between the pan and the coals. Else the fire dies completely.

As boat food or just something for a camp lunch or, like us, an impromptu al fresco lunch, you will have to go far to beat value for money and the associated companionship of cooking this dish. A small pan of 30 cm (12 inches) will fit on a normal stove in the house, boat galley, or on a camp stove top, or, of course, on any fire. And this 30 cm pan will make food for four to five people, depending on how hungry they are, or the side dishes. You can stretch this to seven people if you add a side dish or two.

And a 30 cm pan is really a give-away at the price. Perfect Paella in Cape Town sells some, but you should easily find them elsewhere in the world. I used a 42 cm pan because I was cooking for a hungry horde of sailors and hangers-on...

So here goes.

Ingredients:

2 kg chicken breasts with skin
1½ cup frozen garden peas
200 grams spicy sausage
4 tomatoes, peeled and chopped. Or one can of peeled and chopped tomatoes.
1 red sweet pepper for garnish, sliced into rings, the ends chopped
2 onions, diced
1 kg paella rice
2 dried hot chillies. I used Thai chillies from the garden
4 cloves fresh garlic, chopped and mashed in salt.
2 teaspoons hot smoked paprika
1 small pinch of saffron in a tea (½ cup) of boiling water
2 teaspoons chicken stock in 1 litre boiling water
500ml dry white wine
2 litre hot water  as required
½ cup chopped fresh cilantro (coriander). Keep a sprig or two  for garnish as well.
Salt as required
Some olive oil for cooking

Halfway there. Note low, cool coals

Process

Chop the chicken into two bite size pieces. Keep the skin if you can, you need the fat in the dish.
Start with an almost dry pan, quite hot. Add the chourizo and fry it until it sears a little. Add a little olive oil as required. Remove, then add the chicken to the same pan and sauces. Grill and sear the chicken until it goes brown outside. Remove an keep covered with the spicy sausage to cook in its own juices.

Now add the onions and sweet chilli and fry them till the onions are brown. Remove the chilli rings when they are still al dente. When the onions are almost done, add the mashed garlic and chilli and fry for 15 seconds before adding the white wine.

The seared brown stuff from the bottom of the pan will now become the stock. Simmer the white wine to reduce it somewhat, perhaps five minutes. Now add the tomatoes and simmer the dish until the tomatoes are just cooked through, then add all the rice. Mix this lot thoroughly, then add the chicken stock and paprika mix. Stir this until everything has been properly mixed, then add the saffron tea.
Add water as required to ensure the dish does not burn. Reduce heat until the fire is quite low and the dish is only just simmering. When the rice is about halfway done, add back all the meat and mix. Make sure you scrape the seared stuff off the bottom of the pan. Add water as required to keep this lot more or less fluid.

The runner up. Looking good too.

When almost done, add the chopped coriander leaves and the peas. Check for enough salt. Let the dish simmer for another five to ten minutes, then turn the heat off. Garnish with the sweet pepper rings and cover. Allow the dish to rest for a full ten minutes. Then take the lid off, add the sprig of coriander leaves and dish up. Add some sliced lemon for garnish if you really have time...

Bon appetit!






Authored by Johan Zietsman

Last updated on 2013-05-21

Compiled specifically for GBYC newsletter.

Very Fast Pizza? Try the Zoobiscuit Version

Anél's picture of what this looks like. Yummy!

This week's recipe is not from me, I am going in for a knee replacement. Fair wear and tear, says the doctor. Which leaves me unserviceable for any cooking, baking or other activities in the kitchen.

Well, all is not lost. A fellow food blogger has a brilliant idea which works for one or many mouths to feed. Anél Potgieter does not need an introduction in South African cooking circles, having won the Dinner Diva cooking competition recently. This competition was to find the best food blogger-cook in the country.

Which Anél won with aplomb. As well as the 2013 Eat Out DSTV Food Network Best Local Food Blog Award.

So we are especially honoured to have her recipe for a fast pizza as the boat food recipe for this week. This one is quite delicious. And also a no brainer. Well, almost. You do need to think up your own variations. But the recipe is quite simple.

You do need a rolling pin. Else use a bottle. I am sure you will find one somewhere on the boat. Other than that just the normal kitchen tools that you will find in the boat's galley.

Read all about the recipe here.

And thanks for stopping by, I shall be back...

Authored by Johan Zietsman, with gratitude to my fellow food blogger Anél Potgieter.

Last updated on 2013-03-26

Compiled for the GBYC newsletter

Eat a Piece of History: Jaffles

History for me and my age group in South Africa at any rate.

Jaffles.

A very South African variation of a sealed toasted sandwich from the days before snackwich toasters. These are made using a jaffle iron over a camp fire, over the coals or over a gas hob. Take your pick. They used to be very popular at church and school fund raising events. Then fashion changed, the snackwich toaster came to be and that was the end of the jaffle.

 Well, that is until recently, when I found a jaffle iron at my local sports equipment chain in the camping goods department. I believe our local builder's supplies chain also keep them in stock. There is a round one and a square one available. Buy the round one, it always seals the sandwich all around the edges.

The jaffle, like the snackwich toast, has one up over a normal toasted sandwich.

It is sealed. No mess. You can use a saucy ground beef filling and it still doesn't spill when you eat it. And the jaffle has more capacity than a snackwich toast. Which means more meat, almost like your standard meat pie.

Or other filling.

We all tend to forget that there is no law that requires a meat filling only. This is the beauty of the jaffle. Standard shape, standard capacity and sealed all around the edge. And fillings to you heart's content.

Which translates to interesting fillings, like tuna or chicken mayonnaise. Or cheese and mushroom. Or combinations of cheese, tomato, onion, jalapeno, gherkins, mixed diced veggies and what not.

Meaty fillings include ham, salami, ground beef, biltong, sliced leg of lamb or pastrami, bacon, chourizo, smoked salmon.

For a sweet one, use banana and golden syrup or honey. Or try sliced apples, cinnamon, nutmeg and honey or golden syrup. I have made these and they are all wonderful fast desserts in the camp. Or when you have lots of children around wanting to keep busy.

I still have to try one adding nuts of some sort. Could be decadent. I have had sweet pizzas of this nature at a gourmet pizza parlour in Pretoria by the name of Toni's Fully Furnished Pizza. Exquisite!

The filling list is endless. Use a filling or combination that is not too dry, else you may have to take water to swallow the jaffle.

Another useful aspect of the jaffle is that you can eat it cold. It is good picnic food that can be prepared the previous day. Quite useful for a day sail or an overnight trip where you may feel like focusing on the sailing experience rather than spend time cooking.

Boat food par excellence.

I decided to test my new jaffle iron by following the recipe on the label. Biltong, cheese and tomato. I used brown bread and butter as per normal sandwich. Extremely simple. It took me longer to take the pix than to prepare the food!

Close the jaffle iron around the sandwich, cut off the excess, it will burn. Then heat over a small flame on the small burner. My jaffle iron is made of cast iron, so it takes a while to heat. Once hot, it toasts the bread very nice and evenly. And I get the heat back at the end, when I can turn off the hob and leave the last jaffle to “bake” to perfection.

How cool is that!

And then there is the ultimate dessert, courtesy of one of the participating teams in the Ultimate Braai Master competition: Bread and butter pudding jaffles.

Start with the standard two slices of bread. I used brown bread. Spread some butter. And some apricot jam. Actually a lot. As in copious amounts. Soak some warmed raisins in brandy. Make a runny batter with an egg and some milk. Add a dollop of ground cinnamon. Soak each slice of bread briefly in this, then stack in the jaffle iron. Soak briefly, else you will have a runny mess. Remember to add the boozy raisins in between the slices.


You will be surprised at just how much brandy it takes to make these!

The batter will boil out if you have too much. Don't fret, the stove is easily cleaned afterwards. Fry until the bread is nice and crispy outside. Mix a little icing or castor sugar in fresh cream, beat until stiff and mixed properly, then add a dollop  of this with each serving.

You may have to make two per person...

Authored by Johan Zietsman

Last updated on 2013-04-03

Compiled for the GBYC newsletter

When you would kill for something to eat other than beer snacks: Wrap lunch

Sailing will make you very thirsty, mostly because of the weather that you are enduring. Windy conditions will dry you out faster. And of course, the effect of the sun. Sitting on a boat makes it worse, as you cannot escape the elements. Not really. So you eat snacks and drink beer and water. But you stay hungry.

Combine this with the efforts and work required to keep the boat sailing and you end up being relatively tired and really hungry. Nobody really wants to cook, but everybody agrees there need to be something more than the snacks.

This is fast food, but not in a derogatory sense. A variation on the pasta lunch. No cooking or boiling of water required, which makes it a cinch. Only some rudimentary preparation required.

If you are industrious, you can make the filling at home and stash it in a seal-able plastic container. This will keep for the day and the flavours will develop.

Take some rosa-, cherry- or chopped normal tomatoes. The smaller ones I just cut in half. Squash them with your fingers if you want to. A cupful of this. Add a cupful of chopped cabbage and a small chilli, pips removed and chopped. Add half a carrot, sliced thinly, julienne'd if you will, and an onion, chopped. The filling needs something crunchy as well as something a bit piquant. Sweet bell peppers will also help. Half a cup of bean sprouts or other sprouts. Mix thoroughly and add a blob of mayonnaise.

Get some spicy sausages, three or four will do the trick. Five if you are hungry. Slice them up into thin wheels. Add to the mix.

Done with the filling before the next tack!

For the wrap I used store bought rotis, a flat bread made with yeast. My readers in parts of the world other than Cape Town may find a normal pancake size tortilla wrap more readily available. It does not really matter. For a day sail, the easiest wraps are those that you get from your nearest food shop or supermarket.

Ladle a liberal dessert spoonful of the filling into the wrap, then fold the wrap around the filling leaving one side open. Wrap this lot in a paper napkin and you have your very fast lunch.

This lot will make about five portions, so you will need at least five wraps. Scale to your heart's content. And experiment with the ingredients, the variations are endless.

Voila! Lunch! And hardly any dishwashing required.

Bon appetit.

Lunch guest

Authored by Johan Zietsman

Last updated on 2013-02-26

This blog post compiled for the GBYC newsletter.

Spicy Sausage & Seafood Salad

It is that time of year again where the up-country visitors have gone back home, the schools have started and weekends belong to the locals again. And the best part is that the crayfish season (Cape lobster for those not from around here) is still open for us over weekends, along with the most exquisite weather for sailing. At this time of year the infamous Cape Doctor, the prevailing southeaster, abates to under thirty knots, which makes for exhilarating sailing.

I was blessed on the last two occasions to have gone sailing in winds of around fifteen knots in champagne weather, enjoying the most beautiful sun, excellent companionship and some good food to boot.

This dish was again prepared on board the yacht Rhapsody of my friend Les. Perhaps this dish will go some way in thanking him for letting me cook aboard.

On this occasion I made a salad with some fresh tomatoes, a small onion, half of a fresh Thai chilli, spicy sausages and a crayfish tail or two.  This salad can pass muster as a light meal or a starter, whatever turns your fancy. It is exceedingly easy to make and other seafoods may be substituted for the lobster. I have used frozen de-shelled prawns as well, for those up-country friends with only the local supermarket for a source of seafood. And I think that de-shelled mussels, chopped calamari steaks and heads would work as well. 

The original idea for this dish came from a BBC good food recipe for a tomato and chorizo salad.  It is open season still on weekends, so we had some lobster. So I adapted the recipe. The seafood and spicy sausage go well together, enhanced with a dressing of olive oil and balsamic vinegar and tarted up by the glow of the chilli.

Take care with the chilli. Rather use less, else the chilli will overpower the other tastes. You need the barest of glows, so use half of the chilli and remove the pips.

The original recipe calls for sherry vinegar, which is something exotic in this neck of the woods. Use regular vinegar and add some flavour by adding a dash of white wine. Or use apple cider vinegar. You may add a dash of lemon juice too. You are making a salad dressing, so use your imagination and make a plan.  

This dish goes well with a dry or off-dry white wine. The dish is simple, so you don't need a fancy wine, any quaffing wine will do. But it will work well for a special occasion as starter, in which case an off-dry Methode Cap Classique bubbly will work wonders...

Ingredients

2 medium tomatoes, sliced in thin slices over the poles, then the slices halved.
1 medium onion, sliced over the poles Chinese style.
½ Thai chilli, pips removed and finely chopped
250 g spicy sausages. Chorizo if you have some. And salami may be too dry and spicy. Cut diagonally into slices of not more than 10mm thick.
250 g seafood, Any seafood. We used lobster. Cut into 12mm / 1/2 inch slices. Prawns may be used whole.
Butter for frying

For the dressing

¼ cup olive oil
¼ cup balsamic vinegar

Process

Heat up a dollop of butter in a frying pan, then add a dessert spoon of the sliced onions and the chopped chilli. Fry until the onions are translucent, then add the sausages. Fry the sausages until they go brown. Remove from the pan and add them to the tomatoes and onions. Your dish is almost done.

Now add the raw seafood to the pan and fry it in the pan juices until done. This takes about five minutes because you sliced the seafood rather thin. This is good, because by now everybody is suddenly hungry from smelling the frying onions. Get someone else to open the wine. This will keep them busy. Good crew management, I should think.

Add the fried seafood to the rest of the salad, along with all the pan juices. Mix thoroughly, then sprinkle some of your olive oil and balsamic vinegar salad dressing over this lot.

Bon appetit!


This post compiled for the GBYC newsletter

Authored by Johan Zietsman
Last updated on 2013-01-20

Pasta Lunch Aboard

 Ever had to eat two-minute noodles every day for a week in a row? They soon start to taste like packaging material. Some Facebook posts even claim that they contain some preservative or oily ingredient that is really bad for you. However, beggars can't be choosers and for ease of preparation aboard, very few other starch staples beat them.

We recently had this dish on board the yacht Rhapsody of my friend Les, who graciously allowed me to use the galley.

This recipe will appeal to everybody who have been compelled to eat two-minute noodles for extended periods. The dish is exceedingly easy to make, even on a bouncing boat in the middle of the ocean. And the only cooking is for the water. It makes a welcome change from sandwiches and we had it many times on our last transatlantic delivery.

This dish can alternatively be made using leftover rice or noodles.  In the event of using these, no cooking is required.

The ingredients may vary and one may prepare it as a pure vegan dish, vegetarian, or with some meat or fish ingredient.

Ingredients for three to four portions

Starch

3 blocks two-minute noodles

3 cups boiling water

OR

Three cups of boiled rice

OR

3 cups of cooked pasta

Meat/Fish

1 can tuna in brine

OR

4 vienna sausages, cut into wheels

OR

1 cup leftover meat from the braai, shredded or cut into fine strips

OR

1 cup smoked snoek, shredded

Vegetables

1½ cup shredded cabbage

1 medium onion, chopped

½ green bell pepper, chopped

1 carrot, julienned or grated or cut into thin wheels

½ cup fresh sprouts. I have used mung beans, alfalfa, fenugreek and lentil sprouts, sometimes in combination.

½ cup cucumber, finely chopped or grated

1/2 cup raisins

1-2 fresh Thai chillis, chopped finely. This makes the salad tangy. One chili in this dish is not enough to burn you, two will add a little bit of glow.

For the vegetarians

½ cup chopped dried fruit

½ cup chopped nuts

3-4 tablespoons mayonnaise

3 tablespoons chutney. For the non-South Africans, this is a spicy minced fruit preserve looking like chunky dark apricot jam. Normally used as a saucy condiment with curry dishes. You may use apricot or peach jam and more chilies in lieu of chutney.

Process

Soak the two-minute noodles in the boiling water. In the mean time prepare the rest of the ingredients. The list is not extensive and mostly you will not have all the ingredients above. The onion and cabbage are not really negotiable, the rest is up to the chef. Use your imagination.

The rest is simple: Mix all the ingredients thoroughly, dish up and enjoy!

This post compiled for the GBYC newsletter.

Authored by Johan Zietsman

Last updated on 2013-01-05

Naan at Sea

Tired of the store-bought light snacks on board on a day-sail? Getting home hungry because the store-bought snacks are just wind, no solid sustenance? Not going for long sails because you get very hungry in spite of the snacks you took on board?
Why not bake fresh bread on board? Your own product has much more sustenance than the commercial bread, perchance a lower GI.


Here is a recipe for making those delicious Indian flat breads. Some call it naan, the Indian word for bread. It is also known as puri and there are many recipes for this.

You would traditionally have these as a side dish with spicy dishes. Sometimes as a wrapper. There is, however, nothing that stops you from enjoying these with any stewed dish. Just think of it: warm, freshly baked bread that you tear little pieces from to use as a wrap for the food, then for mopping up the last of the sauce in your plate.

Delicious, I tell you.

This one is a leavened bread, baked in a dry pan, therefore easy and quick to make on board. And it goes well with any stewed dish with a reasonably thick sauce. There are unleavened versions that are as easy to make, but we shall discuss those in another post.

The preparation time is short and baking time is as for pancakes. Add to this some waiting time for the yeast to activate (more or less twenty minutes, zero if you use instant yeast) and for the dough to rise, some 1½ hours.
The very short cut on this is to buy ready-mix dough from your local supermarket. Just the baking remains. A very good idea for short passages.
It is advisable to use a large plastic salad bowl for mixing the dough, as things may get messy and your shipmates may complain about the mess. Less mess, less cleaning afterwards. You need a cutting board for chopping the garlic if you haven't got chopped garlic on hand. You will also use the board as a kneading board for rolling bout the dough balls.

It is money well spent to invest in a proper cutting board, even if it is only slightly larger than an A4 sheet of paper. Get the largest one that is useful on your boat.

In the sequence of food preparation on board, this bread is baked while the main dish rests. The dough is prepared prior to meal preparation.

Ingredients:
1 teaspoon dry yeast or instant yeast.
1 teaspoon sugar
2 teaspoons plain yoghurt, if available.
2 cups white bread flour. Cake flour will also work, but bread flour gives a better texture.
1 teaspoon salt
¼ cup molten butter or margarine. Ghee is the best, but perhaps not readily available on board.
3/4 cup warm water
3 cloves fresh garlic, or 3 teaspoons whole cumin seed. I prefer fresh garlic.

Method:

Mix the dry yeast and sugar in the warm water. If you cannot hold your finger in the water, it is too hot. In the even of the water being too cold, you will be waiting a long time for the yeast to activate. It should bubble and foam after fifteen minutes.

Skip this step for instant yeast, it works differently.

Mix the flour and salt. I use a whisk to mix the dry ingredients. It is small and a useful implement on a boat and works better than a fork.

Add half the butter and all the yoghurt. When the yeast is nicely foaming, add some a little at a time to your dry mixture. Keep adding yeast until you have a slightly runny bread dough.

If you are using instant yeast, mix it in along with all the other dry ingredients, then add the warm water a little at a time to get the same consistency in the dough. The dough needs to be reasonably elastic.

Wet your hand and knead carefully until the dough gets a ssatiny texture and is nice and elastic. This takes ten odd minutes. Add a little flour if the dough stays runny.

Don't mix self-raising flour and yeast, the two clash and you may end up with interesting results.

Now leave the dough to rise. Smear a bowl with oil or butter to prevent sticking. I usually pat some oil on the outside of the dough ball to prevent the sticking and drying out. Otherwise just cover the dough with a wet cloth and keep it warm. The dough must rise and double in volume before the next step, else you have very flat bread. Rise time should be about 90 minutes.

After the dough has risen to the required volume it gets kneaded back to the original volume for about five minutes or so. Roll this into a cylinder of about 50mm thickness and divide this into six pieces. Roll each piece into a ball, then roll the ball in the crushed garlic or cumin. Then roll each ball out flat into a 100-120mm disk, about 4mm thick, perhaps a small pancake size.

Smear butter or ghee on one side of the naan, then bake one at a time in a dry pan at medium heat. Butter the top before turning the naan over. You do one at a time, which gives you time to prepare the next one in line. In this way you use less space in the galley and you get maximum use of your time.

Bon appetit!

This is a rehash of recipes from Allrecipes.com, where there is a large number of similar recipes.

Authored by Johan Zietsman

Last updated on 2012-12-18