Cooking aboard or outdoors

[jamesgyore]

Good afternoon everyone,

Thank you for your input, most informative.

To address the question of using seawater in cooking first.

Seawater contains approximately 35 grams or about two and a half tablespoons of salt per litre. Ratios are a bit hit and miss with salinity varying from about 3% and 4% per litre if high school science serves me well. If you were a communist in a past life or depressingly one of Gods chosen few the Red and Dead sea's have the highest concentrations of salt. Far too much for a sustained diet.

Given that pasta, rice, and potatoes are often cooked with salt added to water, I've elected to use a ratio of 50-50 seawater to fresh water. This will assist your kidneys with the burden of coping with salt in excess of what it can cope with.

I've ordered a lab test on all three starches cooked in sea water to determine absorbson levels of sodium which will be available on the 15th of January.

Little health lesson, if you don't mind... your body can only cope with about 2% salt per litre.

Sea water is rather an innocent word for all manner of desolved goodies and organic matter. Sea water contains quite a complex recipe of oxygen, hydrogen, chloride, sodium, magnesium, sulphur, calcium, potassium, bromine, and carbon to say nothing of micro-organisms and potentially toxic pollutants.

I suppose the take home message is, sea water is not so good for you. I propose the use of diluted seawater for cooking starches like rice, pasta and potatoes, and the use of fresh water for soups and stews.

James.

[jamesgyore]

Hmmm,

Hello again everyone,

Lentils and other legumes I've not given much thought to, simply because they take so long to hydrate and cook. I figured it would be in the too hard basket for a small boat with basic services like a single ethanol fired hob.

I'll have to reconsider this.

James.

[Yobarnacle]

lentils and legumes can be ground into powder and rehydrate much quicker. Good for dishes like refried beans, humus, bean dips. ect. I have a $3 dollar hand cranked spice mill that dissassembles for cleaning. Works great grinding all sorts of beans including coffee beans.

[troy2000]

Originally Posted by philSweet

James, a couple other items- refridgerationless menu options. Pressure cooker meals. I generally buy bulk and repackage to get portion control then store aboard in one week meal kits. For passages, an endless pot recipe that cycles for an entire day or longer is often handy if you just take on a couple extra bodies for the passage. It's somebody's job to add to the pot and heat it up every three or four hours. These can get pretty bizare tasting after four or five people have added their favorite item to bulk it up with. There's got to be a better way. Sardines and oatmeal cookies added to a rice and bean stew don't really do it for me.

It has to stick to the plate before it can stick to my ribs. I like products that can be plated nicely or mashed into a putty, depending on conditions.
Make a note of meals that can be prepared in or with seawater.

The summer between my junior and senior years in high school I started picking canteloupe in the Imperial Valley (at the Mexican border), and followed the harvest north to Firebaugh.

The cook at the first labor camp I stayed in started two big pots on Sunday mornings: one for beef stew, and one for beans. Every morning he topped them off, and kept them simmering 24/7. Whatever else was on the menu for dinner, the stew and beans were available as side dishes -- and they were usually better than the main course.

[Yobarnacle]

I'd appreciate having a simple, quick, cheap lasagna recipe. I have a portable rotisserie roaster/toaster oven I tote in my camper van and aboard my boat. Bakes bread just fine. Any hints for lasagna?
Or a lasagna flavor kische?

[michael pierzga]

Ive never, in a lifetime of sailing small craft, had " fresh food " on a sailing yacht. Space is to small. Freezer energy use is too intense.

Refers are full of cheese, butter, open can goods, cooked food and a weeks supply of fruit vegs

Recipes cooked with dry sauasge and dried meats like Jamon Serrano or Biltong are popuplar.

Fish can be caught but not kept. Two hungry boys cant eat 20 kg of tuna. Canning recipes for fish are popular. Flying fish recipes are popular.

Meals that can be cooked in an electric SLOW COOKER today and served for three meals are popular.


Dried fruit and dried vegitable recipes are popular.

Pasta...rice...beans

Recipes that use dried bread, crackers are popluar.

[Yobarnacle]

How does Biltong compare to american jerky? In flavor? Intensity of spices? Ease of rehydration? Is jerky an acceptable substitute in biltong recipes?

[michael pierzga]

I guess...dried meat. Biltong, like jerky, can be spicy. I dont know jerky well. Not many americans around , mostly unshaven South Africans clad in sea boats chomping biltong around here.

[Yobarnacle]

I read a few of the how to make biltong recipes. Seems coriander is included in spice mixture for biltong but not jerky. Jerky is more black peppery.
I think jerky could be used in biltong recipes if you sprinkled in some corriander. Gonna try it. Never ate jerky except gnawed on in dry state, and shredded and mixed in scrambled eggs. Anew adventure awaits!

[Yobarnacle]

mexican paella is mostly rice and tastes like mostly rice. In Spain is Paella more flavorfull?

[michael pierzga]

Gee...use Biltong as a flavour enhancer for pasta..rice...stews....soup.

Shred it fine. Works great. Jerky is probaly the same.

Same with dried sausages , dried fish or bottarga, dried fish eggs...flavour enhancer.

[Yobarnacle]

nearest thing to dried sausage in US is summer sausage. Will last unfridge for about 3 weeks, if the vacumn pack isn't opened. About the consistency and size of hard salami. Flavor a cross between cotto salami and smoked sausage.

[michael pierzga]

Yah, Paella is full of flavours. Had a seafood paella the other day. Cant cook one on a boat

[Yobarnacle]

mexican paella has green peas, carrots, corn, and a handfull of small shrimp mixed into a pan of white rice like that pictured. The dish is mostly white due to high rice content.
I'd like the paella you posted!

[michael pierzga]

Funny when people ask what you cook and eat on a boat. Cooking is physically exhausting on a sailing boat.

Fit your galley out with double dish dog bowls for eating. They work great...tall sides, isulated and cant tip over. Get the ones that are stackable