What Do Boaters Eat?

I’m quite fascinated by how different the lives of the working boaters once were, on the British canals and rivers, compared to the leisure boaters on the canals today.

The wife of a boatman on the English canals would have been in charge of a butty from the moment they cast off in the morning until they tied up the boats late at night. She then had to fit in her cabin chores, childcare and cooking in between those times. So making the family meal might be done in snatched moments while a lock emptied, or whilst cruising in a stretch of canal without any locks. One of the children might run up the towpath to deliver a plate of food to their father on the motor boat ahead; because the boats never stopped when they were working.

Boaters were known to be poachers when possible so they sometimes even had a pheasant for the pot, but more commonly their food would have been cheap and simple. I read in the historically researched novel ‘Ramlin Rose’ that they would eat a certain kind of bread, that unlike ours was firmer, and would keep for some days without going stale. In her book Favourite Boating Recipes, Cas Best has compiled a romantic collection of cosy stews and soups, inspired by the boating life. The recipes include fried eels, trout, salmon, rabbit and wood pigeon. Boaters may well have made something like her ‘Windfall Apple Pudding’ when finding fallen apples on the towpath.

Instead of a coal fired stove in a boatman’s cabin, boats today are usually equipped with a full size cooker that uses calor gas. Corinne has been known to cook Lemon and Lime Chicken, Moussaka, Rasberry and Almond Cake and Melanzane alla Parmigana!

Try browsing through her recipes, the pictures are sure to make you hungry!

If you’d like to join Neil and Corrine for dinner and cruising on hotel boats in 2012 there are only a few cabins left! Check availability of the hotel boats here.

All evening meals are served with a complimentary glass of wine, a luxury that must have been alien to the working boater: So that’s progress!

What do you like to eat or drink when you’re boating? Let us know by commenting below, or tweet to us on Twitter.

A Wonderful Italian dinner.

I promised the other night (tuesday perhaps) that I would blog a recipe for Melanzane alla Parmigana, a dish I was first introduced to last year by our lovely Italian crew girl Sara, and now one of my favourites & a definite hit amongst our guests. Every Italian family has their own version, and now so do Snipe and Taurus. I normally serve this with a green salad; a tomato, red onion and basil salad and freshly baked focaccia.

Ingredients:

Beat your egg together with you milk, then sift in 2 tbsps plain flour and whisk into a light batter. Add 1/2 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp pepper to the batter mix and set aside.

Prepare your cheese, grate your parmesan into a bowl & slice your mozzarella and set to one side also.

Slice the  aubergine (you can peel it first if you want to) into rounds apron 5mm (1/4 inch) thick and place them into a food-bag with 1-2 tablespoons of plain flour; seal the bag & shake vigorously until the flour has coated the aubergine, this helps the batter stick.

Empty your passata/tinned tomatoes into a small pan, add a pinch of salt & pepper, 2 whole peeled garlic cloves  and a good handful of torn basil leaves.  If you like you can add a dash of worcester sauce or a glug of red wine, to the tomatoes. put the pan on a low heat & leave to simmer and reduce.

Now the messy part. Pour your olive oil into a large shallow pan (a deep frying pan is perfect) to about a 5mm depth and turn the heat on under it.

Whilst your oil heats up, you can start dipping your aubergine slices in the batter , try to coat it evenly on both sides. as soon as you oil is good and hot, place the battered aubergine in the pan, and cook for about 30-45seconds on each side. put in as many slices as will comfortably fit in your pan, you don’t need to do them one at a time.

Line a roasting tin/large plate with kitchen paper, and when your aubergine is lightly browned on both sides, take it out of the hot oil, let it drain for a minute and lay it on the kitchen paper, which will absorb any excess oil. Continue battering and frying your aubergine, until you run out; layering it onto your tin/plate with a layer of kitchen paper between each layer. It doesn’t matter if the aubergine cools, but if you want to keep it crispy, then you can layer it on a wire rack over a roasting tin, without the kitchen towel, and keep it in the oven, at about gas mark 5, 200C.

The final stage is easy, you just build up the layers in yours serving dish/dishes, until they are good and full. The last layer should be mozzarella, topped with the parmesan, so make sure you save enough of each to create the topping.
I like to layer the tomatoes/passata in the bottom of the dish first, then aubergine, then mozzarella, and so on. Individual ones are great if you’re having a dinner-party, I always think everyone having their own makes it a little bit special, but Italian food is made for sharing, so I go for the big one, especially if its for family.

Lemon & Lime Chicken (or quorn if you like)

I have made this recipe twice in the in the last 3 days, though for different people. It’s easy and so tasty, and amazingly also very low fat – can also easily be vegetarian if you substitute the chicken for quorn, or possibly tofu (never used that myself though).

Feeds 2-3 hungry people!

Ingredients:
A splash of olive oil (no more than a table spoon)
2 onions
3 chicken breasts or one bag of chicken style quorn peices
2 cloves of garlic
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 lime
2 lemons
1 can of chick peas, drained and rinsed
Large handful of sultanas
2 tbsp honey
2 chicken (or vegetable) stock cubes
250g plain dried couscous
1 small bunch of fresh coriander

Method:
Finely chop both onions, and put them and the olive oil in a large pan, cover the pan & sweat a minute or two until they soften. Turn up the heat and caramelise the onions for a further 2 minutes, stirring regularly. When they are a nice golden colour (not black), separate about half into another medium pan, these will go in the couscous later.

To the large pan, add your garlic, crushed or finely chopped, and stir, then add the chicken or quorn, you may need an extra splash of oil, so it doesn’t stick. To the chicken, add your cinnamon and cumin & cook for 2 minutes, stirring constantly until the chicken is coated. Turn the heat down a little and add the zest of the lime & both the lemons, then empty your chickpeas in followed by the honey and stir until well combined. Turn the heat low, and using one chicken stock cube, make up 500ml or 16floz of chicken stock with boiling water, then add this to the pan. Stir well, making sure that nothing is sticking to the bottom or sides of the pan, you don’t want anything to burn, chuck the sultanas in, cover and allow to simmer whilst you prepare the couscous.

In the medium pan with the onions in that you set aside earlier, add 300ml boiling water and the other stock cube,stir until the stock is dissolved, then add the juice of the lime and one of the lemons to the stock and onions & bring to the boil then add the dried couscous, stir well, cover and turn off the heat.

Give the fresh coriander a wash and chop the leaves roughly.  You don’t need the stalks for this recipe, but they are packed with flavour, so you could save them and maybe add them to a curry or something later in the week. Stir half the coriander leaves into the chicken, and the other half into the couscous.  Add a teaspoon of olive oil to the couscous so it doesn’t all stick together, fluff it up with a fork.  Turn the heat off under the chicken, and you’re ready to serve.

Not another recipe blog!

Nope, it’s not.  I have noticed that although Neil has been writing lots of interesting things about our upcoming boating season, I haven’t written about anything but food for ages, you can tell what’s on my mind – maybe because I have started thinking about what to cook for our guests this season.  Well this isn’t supposed to be a blog about food and canals (though they are both fine subjects), but about all the many things Neil and I think are interesting, and also about all the things we get up to when we aren’t boating.

On Monday 21st February, Neil and I celebrated our second wedding anniversary, and Bertie, our lovely little woof, celebrated a whole year of being a boat dog, so we decided a family day out was in order. Getting up early(ish) we packed the car and headed to Fritham in the New Forrest – no canals there, but there is a lovely little pub called The Royal Oak, who were happy to accommodate us for lunch in muddy wellies, and had no objections to Bertie coming in and joining us, in fact they are well known as the perfect hostelry for walkers and riders, there is even somewhere to tie your horse up out the back.

It was a bit of a drizzly morning, but that ment we pretty well had the walk to ourselves, though with Bertie crashing through the trees chasing interesting scents, we still didn’t see much wildlife, but we did see cows, with young calves, and forest ponies

Mini-cow!

Neil assured me on the drive down that it is largely a flat area, so would be a nice easy stroll, which it was, except for all the steep, but mercifully short hills we went up and down. Still, with the thought of a pub lunch at the end of the walk, and the gorgeous scenery to distract us, as well as the hunt for deer, reputedly found in that area of the Forest we didn’t mind putting in a little extra effort.

At the end of our walk we washed Bertie down at the car – knowing he likes to romp through all the mud he can find, we had the foresight to bring a bucket, sponge & a couple of flasks of warm water to clean him up before heading into the pub for lunch – well it seemed only polite.  The Royal Oak smokes their own duck on the premises, and serve it cold with salad, crusty bread and a home-made plum chutney they also have a lovely selection of real ales, perfect for us hungry walkers and though Bertie only got a bag of crisps, he was happy none the less, and even slept on the way home.

A Family Favourite – Yummy Moussaka

I made this on Monday night, its a perfect family meal, and my friend asked me for the recipe, so I thought perhaps you would like it too.

You will need:

a large oven proof dish

15ml olive Oil

2 Red onions chopped (as finely as you feel like)

1-2 cloves of garlic, pealed and chopped or crushed.

350g minced lamb (fresh or frozen)

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon or 1 cinnamon stick

1 tin of chopped tomatoes

1 bayleaf

100ml full bodied red wine

1 stock cube (lamb or beef)

2 teaspoons of chopped fresh mint leaves (or 1 teaspoon of concentrated mint sauce)

For the topping

25g butter

25g plain flour

200ml Milk

1 250g tub ricotta Cheese

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg or 1/2 grated fresh nutmeg

1 egg

Salt and black pepper

75g greyure cheese, grated

50g fresh parmasan, grated

• Preheat your oven to gas mark 6, 240C , 475F. Put the chopped onions in a heavy based saucepan with the olive oil, and sweat over a low heat for about 5 minutes, then add your garlic, cook for a further minute then add your lamb mince.
• turn up the heat a bit, and cook your mince with the onion and garlic until the lamb is well browned, then add the cinnamon and continue to cook for 5 minutes.  If a lot of fat has come out of the lamb, you might want to take the opportunity not to drain this off – but don’t pour it down the sink, not all the liquid you remove will be fat, some will be good stock – put it in a fat separating jug, then when the fat has risen to the top, you can return the stock to the pan & dispose of the fat.
• Next add the tin of tomatoes, your bay leaf, the red wine and the stock cube, cover and leave to cook for about 15 minutes, uncover turn up the heat to full and continue cooking for a further 30 minutes, stirring occasionally, so it doesn’t burn.

In the meantime

• Melt the butter for your topping in a large pan, over a low heat, then add the flour and stir vigorously, until they are combined.
• Add the milk to the flour & butter a little at a time, string continuously until you have a thick smooth sauce.
• Take the sauce off the heat & whisk in the ricotta and nutmeg and a generous pinch of saly and freshly ground black pepper
• Allow the sauce to cool then whisk in the egg (you have to allow the sauce to cool, so the egg doesn’t scramble)
• Finally stir in the grated gruyere cheese.

Fill your oven dish with the lamb base until about 2/3 full – if you still have some lamb left over, put it in a pot in the fridge – makes a yummy jacket potato topping! Pour the sauce over the top of the meat, and sprinkle the grated parmasan over the top, and cook for about 30 – 45 minutes, until the top is golden.

Serve with salad and some warm crusty bread.

Something sweet, yes I mean CAKE

Some people will be persevering with New Year diets, and others, well we’ll start next week, right?  Well whatever you’re feasting on right now, this is a recipe what we LOVE on Snipe and Taurus, and whilst I won’t go as far as to say it’s good for you, but it isn’t as bad as you might expect.

Raspberry & Almond Cake (with or without a food processor)

You will Need

100g apple (pref. cooking), chopped (or grated if you aren’t using a food processor)

35g low-fat margerine

3 eggs

3 level table spoons of granulated sweetener

3 level tablespoons of golden caster sugar (you could use all sweetener, but I find the taste and texture is much nicer if you use these quantities)

150g self raising flour (can be wholemeal if you like)

75g ground almonds

1 tsp almond extract (or essance if you can’t get extract)

175g frozen raspberries

Preheat your oven to gas mark 4 or 180C.  Grease and line a loaf tin (I used a 2lb one, but you can use a 1lb one, though you cooking time may alter)

Using a food processor combine all the ingredients thoroughly except the raspberries, once you have what looks like a good cake mixture, you can add the raspberries, and pulse the processor a couple of times, until they are combined, but not until they are chopped so small you have pink cake mixture.

If you don’t have a food processor: Cream the margarine, sugar and sweetener together, add the eggs one at a time, then sift in the flour and ground almonds. Add the grated apple and the almond extract, then beat until thoroughly combined, tip in your frozen raspberries and stir in.

Finally, pour your cake mix into your prepared tin & pop it in the middle of the oven for 1 hour – check after 45 minutes.  If you are using a smaller tin, you will probably need to add about 20 minutes to the cooking time, and you may need to cover the tin with kitchen foil – don’t forget to make holes in the foil to let steam escape.

You can decorate this cake by reserving some of your raspberries and pushing them gently into the top of the cake, in a pretty pattern.  then once the cake has cooled, glaze the cake with a drizzle icing, using 3tbsp water & 85 grams of icing sugar – it should be very runny, if it looks a little bit gloopy, add a bit more water, a teaspoon at a time.