Category Archives: Cooking onboard

Despite the ‘effort’ involved, preparing an exciting meal onboard, full of mouthwatering flavours, can be such fun and so rewarding

Cooking onboard

Crouton Soldiers

24 June 2013 Piers du Pré 2 Comments

These are so much more fun than the usual square croutons, and so simple to make.

Crouton soldiers, golden brown
*click to enlarge*

For the Crouton Soldiers

1 slice of bread/person
1 tbsp olive oil and 1 tbsp sesame oil (enough for 18 crouton soldiers)
Kitchen paper

Making the Crouton Soldiers

Carefully cut the sliced bread into 8cm x 2cm strips.

Mix the oils, and sprinkle onto both sides of the crouton soldiers.

Tip – we mix the oils since sesame oil on its own can easily burn at a low temperature.

Warm a frying pan over a medium heat and add the crouton soldiers. After a minute, turn them over. You are looking for a lovely golden brown on both sides.

When they’re done, lift them out and place them on kitchen paper to absorb any surplus oil.

Crunchy and gorgeous.

Ensure no one is about when you make them – they’ll disappear without trace if you aren’t watching like a hawk!

Piers and Lin
From the Galley of
Play d’eau
Fleming 55

You can get in touch with us any time by using our Contact Form.

Cooking onboard

‘Best of Breed’ Cooking Ingredients

24 June 2013 Piers du Pré 2 Comments

This post is to list the ingredients we’ve found to be best of breed. As time allows, we’ll be adding more.

Salt

From Table to Maldon to Pink Himalayan – which salt for you?

Our first ‘salt revelation’ came when we were shown that weight for weight, you have considerably more salt by quantity if you use an unprocessed sea salt rather than a free running, chemically enhanced table salt.

Our second ‘salt revelation’ was realising there were many different real salts: Maldon, Pink Himalayan, Cornish, Welsh coastal, and the list goes on and on.

So, we lined up over a dozen salts and tried them, judging each for its salty taste and saltiness strength factor.

Burford Brown eggs with their dark orange, luscious tasting yolks — Burford Brown eggs
with their dark orange, luscious tasting yolks
*click to enlarge*

Cutting to the chase, Cornish Sea Salt harvested straight from the Atlantic at the Lizard peninsula won by miles. A beautifully pure salt taste with a high salt factor meaning you use less to achieve the same saltiness.

Sadly, there’s no salt from Guernsey – maybe there’s a business to be had?

Cornish Sea Salt is available from some of the major supermarkets such as Tesco and Waitrose.

Eggs

Now this is something we just stumbled on without thinking. A ‘Doh!’ moment.

If we needed eggs, it was simply a question of size – small, medium or large.

One day, the only eggs left on supermarket’s shelf were from Cotswold Old Leg Bar hens. Opening the box to check them, the eggs were smaller than usual, but more surprisingly the shells were blue – not the normal brown or white!

Maille raspberry flavoured vinegar
*click to enlarge*

Later, when we came to use them, the yolks were such a deep orange colour, and even better, when we came to eat them, the depth of flavour was so much more intense.

This led us to try other types, and the only other that’s a challenger is a Burford Brown. Taste-wise the same, size-wise it’s larger and with a dark brown shell.

So our recommendation is Burford Brown, followed by Cotswold Old Leg Bar.

Available from some supermarkets such as Sainsburys, Morrisons and Waitrose.

Vinegar

Having been served a mayonnaise that was so, so delicate and luscious, we were told it had been made with a Raspberry Vinegar. What a difference it made.

Since then, we have used Raspberry Vinegar for our own mayonnaise and vinaigrette dressings.

We’ve also tested various makes but there’s no doubt in our mind that Raspberry Vinegar from Maille takes the crown.

It can be difficult to find in the UK, but it’s everywhere in France, of course.

Olive oil

Now here’s an interesting one. From the many olive oils that range across the shelves, we’ve found a firm favourite which Lin uses in so many dishes.

Colonna Granverde.

This is a Sicilian extra virgin olive oil taken from the first cold pressing but with a difference.

Organic Sicilian lemons are added to the olives so both are pressed together producing an oil infused with a citrus zest and aroma. Perfect.

Available from Waitrose.

Guernsey Butter

Now here’s a delight you really must try.

Guernsey butter tastes of butter. Sounds crazy but just compare Guernsey butter with the butter you usually have and you’ll have one of those ‘Damascus Road’ experiences (well, almost) and you’ll realise what you’ve been missing!

Once you’ve opened a pack, there’s no need to keep it in the fridge. Just leave it out at room temperature. It keeps for weeks like that and is always at the right consistency to spread.

You can store Guernsey butter in the freezer for months if not years, and if you have the room I’d certainly recommend buying the June and July made butter since the cows will have been grazing on the fresh spring and summer grass.

The butter of all butters. A rich, deep yellow butter, that restores faith in how butter should taste
*click to enlarge*

Both salted and unsalted versions are made.

Do let us know how you get on with using Guernsey butter – hopefully you’ll never look back, and no, we don’t have shares in the Guernsey Dairy.

Waitrose usually stocks Guernsey butter.

Piers and Lin
from the Galley of
Play d’eau
Fleming 55

You can get in touch with us any time by using our Contact Form.

Cooking onboard

Vegetable Stock

7 June 2013 Piers du Pré 3 Comments

All ingredients trimmed, peeled and chopped and in the pot — All ingredients trimmed, peeled and chopped
and in the pot
*click to enlarge*

Stock forms the basis of so many good onboard recipes, and the good news is you only really need vegetable stock. No chicken or meat stock, just vegetable.

Our recipe has been refined over the years and never lets us down and produces a gorgeous concentrated stock which works brilliantly with many of the recipes we’ll be adding as time goes by.

It’s packed with flavour and keeps really well in the fridge for a good three weeks and almost for ever in a freezer. It also scales well if you want to make less or more at a time.

So please don’t use stock cubes or any other form of instant stock which all pale into insignificance in comparison.

Vegetable Stock

Ingredients

6 Carrots
3 Large leeks with as much white as possible
2 Small fennels
3 Small onions
2 Parsnips
8 Button mushrooms
3 Celery stalks plus the very small leaves close to the stalks
Small bunch of Parsley stalks (no leaves)
Rosemary (some)
Pepper corns (say 30)
Bay Leaves (a few)
Thyme (some)

Simmering gorgeousness<br>leave for 2 hours or more — Simmering gorgeousness.
Leave for 2 hours or more
with the lid on but just cracked open
*click to enlarge*

Technique

The ‘Dos’ and ‘Don’ts’ of brilliant stock making.

Do peel and trim the vegetables as if you were going to eat them
Don’t let the stock boil, just simmer
Don’t use the dark green parts of the leek
Don’t squeeze or mash the vegetables to extract extra liquor
Don’t add salt. Instead, add salt when creating the final dish

You’ll need

A large saucepan with a lid (in which to make the stock), a smaller saucepan into which to strain the stock, kitchen knife, wooden spoon, sieve, clean muslin or dish cloth, storage containers (half litre recommended) for the finished stock.

Making perfect veg stock

Clean, peel and trim the vegetables. Cut them into half inch squares or smaller and put them in the pot. Clean and slice the mushrooms and add them to the pot with the herbs and pepper. Add water to half an inch below the top of the vegetables.

Bring to the simmer, making sure the herbs are underneath the surface (use the wooden spoon). Keep it simmering for two or more hours.

Keep the lid on the pot, but just cracked open to allow some of the steam to escape.

You’ll find the vegetables start to shrink allowing the water to cover them. If you need to add a bit more water, only add enough to keep the vegetables just covered.

When cool, strain the liquor through the sieve and muslin (or tea cloth) into another pan. Let it drain – don’t squeeze the remaining vegetables.

Finally, pour your stock into containers and use as and when needed. You’ll have about 1.5 ltrs of strong concentrated stock which can be diluted as required.

Perfect!

Piers and Lin
from the Galley of
Play d’eau
Fleming 55

You can get in touch with us any time by using our Contact Form.

Cooking onboard