A Trip to Barcelona

Mariquita and crew arrived safe and well in Barcelona yesterday! (Thursday, sorry not great internet here)

Our arrival into any harbour after a delivery is normally followed with a

The boy's bunks

good boat clean, on deck and down below. This will take up most of our time, that potentially should be spent letting loved ones back home know that we’re all good and well. But honestly you wouldn’t believe how grotty the forepeak seems to get; all those boys sleeping in such close quarters in a dark hole.  It is essential work after a delivery to give everything a really good airing and thorough clean; the floors, the towels, the galley. So I hope that this will suffice for any of you Mum’s/girlfriends/wives out there who might still be waiting for that yet-to-come phone call.

The forepeak after a delivery. Nice.

And joy of all joys! We’re attached to land this time. So that means constant access to the shops, internet cafes and gelato. Hoorah!

The Porquerolles

Very little of any note happened on our little cruise to Espagne.  The first day we gunned it (7 knots) to the Iles de Porquerolles, part of the Hyeres Islands west of St Tropez. A beautiful island covered with green trees that verberate with the sound of billions of invisible cicadas, chirruping with the intensity of some huge power station. You can’t see them but by goodness you can hear them.

That evening, in Matty’s honour I made homemade 4^th July cheese burgers for dinner. God bless America.

We were lucky enough to have the next whole day at anchor so that we could explore the island and do a bit of free diving in the very clear, beautiful waters. Definitely a place to visit if you’ve never been before. So that was all very nice.

Exploring inland.

We left early the next morning, a glorious morning and ploughed into the biggest and most uncomfortable swell which stayed with us for most of the day. There was no breeze and blazing sunshine which meant that life in the galley was very hot, airless and incredibly unsteady as we pitched and rolled and stopped and started. It wasn’t a huge amount of fun. I ended up cling-filming everything down to the work top and was tempted to cling-film myself there after I unwittingly rugby tackled the fridge door. I wasn’t much in the mood for lunch after I had cooked it. I don’t often get sea-sick and have lots of little tricks to keep it at bay especially when I’m cooking inside what could quite feasibly be a bucking bronco.  A few moments up on deck later and I suddenly had my sea legs back. I can tell when they’ve arrived. I feel like I could stand on my head in the galley and be absolutely fine in a raging storm.

Stay!

Dinner then became the easiest slow cooked, one-pot, tarragon chicken casserole served with rice (though not standing on my head). Comfort food and settling, for more than a few un-settled stomachs on board. For those that needed to it was ladled into mugs and eaten up on deck with a spoon. Yum.

A very serious game of chess between Will and Billy.

But yet again, no fish on the end of the line. I just don’t understand it! We need to do some serious lure shopping I think. Disappointing.

Arriving In Barcelona!

So we arrived early evening last night. It was a very exciting arrival because it was pretty new to most of us on board. Only a few of the crew have been here before. I can say already that it is incredibly hot and we’re being warned constantly about pick-pocketing which is a little stressful. I think though that like any big city, you keep your wits about you and cash and cards stuffed down various items of underwear. I’m sure we’ll be fine.

So that brings you pretty much up to date with Mariquita. The regatta crew will be arriving soon and the regatta should be a whole lot of fun. Tomorrow I’ll be out exploring the city, trying to find the supermarkets, bread shops, maybe the odd shoe shop and restaurant and all whilst trying out my recently learned 3 words of Spanish.

And maybe out for a drink tonight…

Thanks for reading and check in soon for Spanish adventures.

Gracias!

Sian's little basic Spanish lesson on the crew board.

Mariquita's Mackerel Meal with a Message.

                                                                                                          

Mackerel is probably one of the crew’s most favourite fish. Which is great for many reasons; firstly it is incredibly healthy, full of great oils (Omega 3’s no less) and essential proteins and minerals. Secondly it is a sustainable fish and there are huge quantities of them in our seas. Mackerel are caught in a very controlled and sustainable way so you can buy, catch and eat with no fear of depleting the sea further of its precious and rare supplies. It’s a pretty sad and frightening story that fills us all on board Mariquita with huge dread. The threat of fish-less seas and oceans is a very real and fast approaching issue. We should all be very aware and doing our best to get involved, either on a political level or simply on a consumer level, buying only well labelled and known sustainable species. You can look up and join Hugh Fernley Whittingstall’s famous ‘fish fight’, an on-going and fantastic effort to ban ‘discard’. Over one Million tons of dead fish are dumped into European waters every year. A law that bans fishermen to land any by-catch means they have to dump any accidently caught, dead fish back into the sea. This is waste on a massive and horrendous scale. Get involved if you aren’t already. Those of us who make a living from and on the sea should be right in there like swimwear with our anti over-fishing and anti-discard efforts.

So if you really fancy some fish but are unsure as to what fish you can buy conscience free then ‘Go the Mackerel’. Like I said, it is delicious, meaty, full of great flavour and incredibly good for you. Its meatiness means that it can cope with more robust flavours or, simply grill, serve with some new potatoes (or some cheeky homemade, fat chips) and a great crunchy salad, lemon wedges to squeeze and you are away.

In Antibes I bought some fresh whole mackerel from a fish shop by the covered market. They were very nice fishmongers and after I explained that although I may have been dressed in boat uniform, my budget wasn’t in the super-yacht league, they directed me to the freshly caught mackerel they had in and I was hooked (fish joke). You can very easily tell fresh fish from not-so-fresh fish. There will be signs such as clear shining eyes and a salty-sea smell, not a fishy smell. Good firm flesh and bright clear scales. And talking of scales, they weigh in very lightly on the price front too.

I was very much in the mood for a Japanese spin on my Mackerel meal. Perhaps It was the influence of the availability of some lovely Asian ingredients in Antibes that led me to a simple but tasty little teriyaki mackerel with a coconut and cardamom infused rice idea.

I bought my mackerel whole so that I could fillet them myself but you can also ask the fishmonger to do this for you. Actually it was hard to get my fish away from the shop without being filleted. I had to convince him I was fine to do it myself. But I do enjoy doing it.

This is a very simple meal and took no effort at all to do but tasted so good, was filling but healthy and not too hard to eat with chop-sticks (Its okay Ma, you can use a fork if you like).

You will need;

2 mackerel fillets per person

3 small red chillis (or none, if you don’t like spicy. Or more if you do)

1 inch, fat knob of fresh ginger. (I buy a huge piece and freeze it. Its not hard to break off bits when you need it.)

1 fat clove of garlic

Zest and juice of 2 limes plus extra limes for serving

1 tbsp sesame oil

1 tbsp furikake seasoning or sesame seeds

4 tbsp dark soy sauce

2 tbsp mirin (like a sweet rice vinegar) Or 1 tbsp honey of you don’t have Mirin

1 bunch of fresh coriander leaves and stalks

Method;

• First wash and pat dry the mackerel fillets. Lie in a ceramic dish and start to prepare the marinade.

• In a bowl, mix the crushed garlic with the peeled and grated ginger. Finely chop and deseed the red chillis and add to the bowl.

• Finely chop the coriander stalks (the soft ones, nothing tough or woody) and add to the ginger and garlic mix, saving the leaves for the garnish. Add all the other marinade ingredients except the lime juice. Just the zest for now.

• Season with some salt and pepper and pour over the mackerel in the ceramic dish. Mix and mingle using your fingers, making sure it is all nicely covered. That’s the best bit, it feels lovely. (weird? maybe) If you have to use a spoon, be nice and gentle.

• Leave the fish to marinade for 20 minutes to an hour.

 

• When your rice is cooked ( I cooked mine in coconut milk with some toasted and lightly bashed cardamom pods and a few Kaffir lime leaves), put a non-stick frying pan or griddle on to heat.

• Put a very small amount of sunflower oil in the pan. There is oil on the fish but because there are some other ingredients in there too, there could be potential for sticking. When the oil is very hot, put the fish into the pan skin side down. Drizzle the fish with some of the lime juice, the pan will sizzle excitedly.

  

• After a few minutes turn the fish over and drizzle with some more of the lime juice. When the mackerel is cooked, it won’t take more than a few minutes on each side, serve with the coconut rice and some lightly steamed mange tout or other lovely sweet, crunchy green beans. Garnish with the coriander leaves and serve with lime wedges. Hey presto, a delicious, healthy and ultimately satisfying dinner that would be very Tres Bien with a cold glass of Prosecco don’t you think? Or some sake?

There are many ways to make such a great fish taste even greater. If you have a great mackerel recipe please share. My sister did a great smoked Mackerel paté at her wedding. Great memories usually involve great food don’t they?   Well, mine tend to.

Funny that.

Thanks for reading, I hope that, if you haven’t already, you too can get involved with Hugh’s campaign. It’s a good one. A worthy one. And eat Mackerel, Marvellous Mackerel!

Cheers!

My Other Life and Baked Bananas

Sometimes life can be a bit of a paradox. On the face of it, the everyday living stuff, you can be having a great time, have the best job, the best friends, be making the best of your days. Of course you go with it. You can evolve happily with that nice, easy flow and have no reason to rock any boats.

Then you get gastric flu (or whatever that was) and you’re lying on a hard wooden floor in the airless heads of a boat at anchor in misery and pain, making those uncontrollable, animal-like noises with the entire crew just feet above your head, wishing more than anything that you were in your own house, on your own bathroom floor with your head down your own toilet within earshot of absolutely nobody (or at least just your mum).

And I hated it. I hated being on that boat, bobbing about in some bay, away from solid land and a proper toilet and the privacy and dignity of a lonely, cool, tiled bathroom floor. I might have cried pathetically on more than one occasion.

Just to eek the pitying bit out a fraction more I will let on that I mourned my double life. Yep, I have a double life I’ve not told anybody about. Maybe we all have one and I’m about to admit to something that potentially everybody does. Though just before I tell you about that I would like to quickly acknowledge that this is a food blog and I have just been talking about gastric flu which really isn’t what you were after, I’m sure. So I’m very sorry for any discomforting memories I may have stirred or unsuspecting images I may have conjured. That’s not cricket in a food blog is it; I apologise.

In the double life that I lead in my head, I have a very nice cottage in the countryside. I have a great little kitchen with lots of character and charm and everything I need to create little homemade masterpieces. I have an Inglenook fireplace in my living room and a dog. My garden is mostly laid to lawn (that’s what estate agents call gardens with lots of grass) and has vege patches, fruit trees and herbs dotted idly around. I ride my bike to the village shop most mornings to get the paper and chat to various neighbours about how the village play rehearsals are coming along and the possible explanation for last nights 5 minute power cut. I casually cycle home and make toast and marmalade (that I made) and a nice mug of tea (in a mug from an entire set that I already have actually in a bottom drawer somewhere). Obviously I’m incredibly thin and work out regularly and recycle and save water and go to yoga classes, but I think that’s where I start to tread on a lot of other peoples double-life territory.

So back to reality; and the wooden floor of the boat’s heads. No, let’s move on from there. I’ll spare you any more detail. My double life is now tucked away a little further back in my mind where it normally quietly lingers. It’s taken a few days but I’m back on my (slightly wobbly) feet. And the big relief, although it was never in doubt or not on the horizon, is that I’m interested in food again. And perhaps I’m starting to be glad for my other life once more; the real one where I work on a beautiful classic racing yacht and cook for 11 friends. I should be.

And now for the confession where you will no longer feel at all sorry for my recent bout of illness (if indeed you ever did) and double-life mourning. I had a day off the boat yesterday at a friend’s house to lay by their pool, relax and recoup and it was just what the doctor ordered. And believe it or not, I have a recipe for you. It’s a very small one and it is very simple but after everything it is always the simple little comforts that make us smile again and let us know that everything is going to be okay.

The house had a lovely garden (a bit like mine, laid to lawn) and it was buzzing with wildlife and midsummer vitality. The area of Provence and rosé wine vineyards is stunning this time of year as you can see. It was so, so nice to amongst the wildlife and away from the sea for a bit. Country air; a little breather. A little perspective.

A beautiful Carpenter Bee

 A few of us from the crew went up to enjoy the day, the pool and some Pimms (I’ll admit I had one, lots of lemonade though). And as the day progressed, the sun began to slowly set, the buzzing softened and the frogs began their chorus. This was when the bananas and dark chocolate materialised from Nikki’s bag of Barbeque goodies.

Joe hard at work at the Barbeque.

And I knew that I could smile again. Having been depressingly off my food, I was childishly excited and hugely revived by the most simple of deserts;  baked bananas spiked with hot melted chocolate. 

Yippee!

So just in case you wondered; for Nikki’s baked chocolate bananas you will need;

Bananas, 1 each

A couple of bars of dark or milk chocolate

1 smouldering barbeque

Method;

• First decide who is going to make them. This can be tough after a day in the sun, jumping around in a pool like kids, drinking Pimms to quench your thirst. Rock, Paper, Scissors is an acceptable method of getting someone to move in the right direction.

• Rock, Paper, Scissors loser then takes a knife and slits the bananas from stem to stalk and lays them on the barbeque as shown.

• Keep turning the bananas so that they bake through and when you think they are just about there, spike the bananas with the broken pieces of the chocolate and wait till the chocolate melts.

 

•  Remove from the barbeque and serve on plates with spoons and maybe a little French bread to clean the plate with.

• Enjoy quietly and count your blessings.

Mariquita leaves it’s anchorage at Cogolin and is heading to Barcelona tomorrow. It will be nice to have a break from France and experience Spain.

Once again I have my sushi ingredients on the ready for a bit of fish catching; the way it should be done; on a line, one at a time. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Thanks for reading. I’ll see you soon having had a few more adventures at sea no doubt and a few stories to share. I’ll put my ‘other’ life away in a little box and enjoy the pleasures of what I have right now .

Back on both feet; my real life at 33 degrees.

Cheers!

Meaty Moussaka.

I just made chocolate pecan pie. It’s in the oven as we speak. I had some chocolate berry sauce left over from the ‘Sweet Sushi Woo’ day, and one can not waste good chocolate can one? There must be some kind of law against that. So I gently melted it and when it was cool enough, mixed in 2 tubs of mascarpone, some cream, two eggs and an extra egg yolk, a knob of butter, a tbsp of flour and poured it into a blind-baked pastry case on top of a layer of pecans. Popped the little tin of naughty-ness in the oven on low for 30 minutes and hey presto! The crew can’t quite believe they’re getting spoons twice in one week.

We’ve been at anchor now for ages. It’s Okay really, you get used to it but I am certainly looking forward to when we leave for Barcelona and have a proper berth attached to the hard stuff, the land. I’ll be able to wander off the boat willy-nilly for little food shops, or for a nice little stroll whenever I please. Ah, the little things in life.

It’s the exercise I miss the most. My waste-line is talking to me and putting a chocolate pecan pie in the oven is really not going to help things is it?

I’ll never learn when it comes to food. I’m obsessed. I really need to tell you about my moussaka too. Delia Smith’s recipe from one of her ‘How to Cook’ series was the best and easiest I have ever made. Actually, it was the first moussaka I ever made, all those years ago, learning to cook. So I must pass it onto you. It’s a real crew pleaser and is a lovely summer night supper with a lovely salad and a glass of wine. I’ve made a few little alterations of my own. I struggle to get minced lamb in France when I don’t have access to a butchers, so last week I made it with cubed leg of lamb instead and it was seriously delicious. Also Delia’s recipe says it will feed 4-6 people; she can’t have ever cooked for a bunch of sailor boys because you need to at least double her recipe to feed 6. So my recipe is bigger and made with cubed lamb instead of minced but essentially this is Delia’s and it is great. Thanks Delia.

You will need;

600-700g lamb, leg steaks or a good equivalent

2 medium onions finely chopped

1 tsp sugar

3 large aubergines

3 cloves of garlic, crushed

3 tbsp tomato puree

1 tbsp chopped fresh mint

1 tbsp finely chopped fresh parsley

½ tsp cinnamon

500 ml red wine

2 tbsp balsamic vinegar

1 quantity béchamel sauce (see blog, ‘A Glamorous Lunch In Cannes’ for recipe)

500g pot of ricotta cheese

1 egg, beaten

Parmesan cheese

Method;

• Heat your oven to about gas mark 6. Slice the aubergines into slices a few millimetres thick. Lay them on a baking tray and brush the sides facing up with olive oil. Give them all a little sprinkling of salt and pop into the oven for about 15 minutes. Keep an eye on them. They can burn in seconds when you’re not looking. When they are lightly browned and just about cooked, remove them from the oven and put aside for now.

• Turn the oven down to gas mark 4.

• Cut the lamb into smallish pieces, just smaller than bite sized. Sear in a hot pan with some sunflower oil and season. Fry till the lamb is browned all over. Set aside whilst you cook the onions.

• In the same pan with all the lovely lamby juices still in it, heat some more sunflower oil. Sautee the onions with the tsp of sugar and a sprinkling of salt till they are lightly browned. Add the garlic and the chopped fresh herbs and mix. Pour in the red wine, tomato puree, balsamic vinegar and cinnamon. Tip the lamb back into the pan with the onions and red wine and simmer gently for about 20 minutes. Taste the sauce and season accordingly. It might seem quite thick but this is good.

• Add the ricotta to the béchamel sauce and take it off the heat to cool before adding the beaten egg. Season and grate in some fresh nutmeg.

• Tip the aubergine slices into the bottom of your chosen baking dish. Cover with the lamb sauce then pour on the ricotta sauce. Grate some fresh parmesan cheese over the top and bake in the oven for 40 minutes. The ricotta topping will puff up slightly and go a lovely golden colour.

There we are. It is a very good meal with a lovely salad, some crusty warmed bread and a good red wine. I have been known to put slices of par-cooked potato in this before to bulk it out for large amounts of people. And although it may seem like a lot of aubergine to slice up and cook, believe me, it’s worth it. This is one of those meals where my ‘full-up’ message stops working and I could just keep going and going.

I really should start running again. And stop making pies. Speaking of which, I’d better take it out of the oven. I’ll let the boys have it and refrain myself…  oh bother, why is it so hard!? If you could smell it too, you’d understand.

Weak in the presence of good food. Hey-ho, we’ll be racing in a few weeks in Barcelona. Did I mention how excited about that I was?

Thanks for reading, see you before we depart for pastures new and Spanish.

Cheers!

Sweet Sushi Woo

Yesterday was Saturday and I was on watch. There is a watch rota when the boat is either in a non-secure marina or we’re at anchor. And yesterday it was my turn which was fine by me. I had plans. Sweet sushi plans. I’ve never made sweet sushi before and got the idea whilst looking at a French cooking magazine. What I thought was sushi filled with fruit turned out to be some kind of cream cheese filled with fruit but my imagination was already on fire. Why had I never thought of this before?! The possibilities for sweet sushi are endless. I had to limit my ideas down so that I wouldn’t explode with excitement and wreak absolute havoc in the galley all in one go. One step at a time, Suzy. Mind you, the crew thought it was great of course. They don’t always get spoons at dinner time (or in this case; chopsticks)

It was the Nori seaweed I was most unsure about but looking ‘sweet sushi’ up online showed me that you can still use the seaweed to roll. The flavour of the seaweed is fairly inconsequential once the sushi filling is involved and all the other bits and bobs that go with it.

So I boiled my uber list of flavour possibilities down to a manageable, one day experiment and ‘Woo-Hoo’, I was off! I know this looks like a lot of ingredients and work but it’s really all pretty straight forward to make and the pay off is in the eating I can assure you.

My flavour ideas;

Coconut and cardamom infused, sweet sushi rice

Mango and mint sushi

Fruits of the forest sushi

Gooseberry, lime and wasabi puree

Dark Chocolate and red berry dipping sauce

Green tea and ginger spiced poached pears with star anise

Oh yeah.

If you have never made sushi before then this would be a fun way to start I reckon. It isn’t at all tricky; the thing with sushi is that it’s not normally the quickest of meals to prepare. But because this one is a desert and not a main meal, I only needed a small amount. Two rolls of two different flavoured sushi was definitely good for 4-5 people. Sweet sushi could be made in advance and served either that night or at a push, the next day. The great thing about the fruit sushi is that you don’t have the freshness of the raw fish to worry about so you can make it ahead of time and serve when you’re ready. And your hands don’t smell all fishy after you’ve made it. Bonus.

So these were my chosen flavour combinations but you could really go wild with all the potential flavours you could use. Tell you what though; gooseberry, lime and wasabi make the most fantastic puree ever. I had some gooseberries in the freezer and have wanted to use them for something exciting for months now. Gooseberries are so tangy and tart and that lovely bright green that it seemed so obvious to try them with the wasabi, a bit of lime juice and sweetened of course with some vanilla sugar.

It was all pretty simple to make and although it wasn’t the quickest thing to make, now I’ve experimented once, I’ll be even quicker next time.

For Sweet Sushi you will need;

For the rice;

1 cup of sushi rice

1 ¼ cups of coconut milk

8 cardamom pods

4 tbsp of sugar

For the mint and mango sushi;

1 ripe mango

Fresh mint leaves

Cream cheese

100g pistachio nuts, shelled and finely chopped with 2 tbsp of chocolate vermicelli added. 

For the Fruits of the Forest sushi;

1 cup of frozen, mixed red berries. Or a mixture of fresh red currents, black currents, black berries, blueberries etc. Just give them a gentle simmer in a tbsp of juice or water.

Nori seaweed

For the Gooseberry, Lime and Wasabi puree;

1 tsp wasabi paste

1 cup gooseberries, topped and tailed

Juice and zest of ½ lime

3-4 tbsp of vanilla sugar (or use plain sugar and a few drops of vanilla extract)

For the chocolate sauce;

1 250g bar of dark chocolate

For the poached green tea and ginger spiced pears;

4 large pieces of crystallised ginger

2 small firm pears

1 green tea bag

2 cinnamon sticks

4 whole cloves

½ vanilla pod

2 star anise

Method;

• Definitely start by making the rice. First soak the rice in a plastic or ceramic (not metal) bowl of water for around 20 minutes. Once it has soaked, rinse it well in cold running water (again, using a plastic sieve, not a metal one) until the water runs pretty clear.

• Put the rice into a saucepan and add the coconut milk. Using a rolling pin or your fist onto the flat of a large blade, gently bash the green cardamom pods so that the seeds inside are exposed. Heat a small saucepan and dry fry the pods for about 40-60 seconds to get their aroma to waken up a bit. Pop those in the coconut milk with a star anise. Stir and cover the pan with a heavy tight fitting lid or some cling film as I do for rice. Don’t worry, it puffs up but it never goes pop, I promise.

• Bring the rice to the boil then turn the heat down to its lowest heat and leave to cook nice and slowly for 12 minutes. Turn the heat off and leave the rice for another 10 minutes to rest. Do not take the lid or cling film off at this stage. It’s very important to keep all the lovely steam in.

• When the ten minutes is up, tip the rice into a shallow plastic tray or onto a wooden chopping board and spread it out evenly so that it can cool quickly. Sprinkle liberally with sugar and using a chopping motion as if you’re mixing cement with a trowel, mix the sugar into the rice.

• Leave the rice to continue cooling and prepare the fruit for the sushi. Put the frozen berries to defrost in a sieve and place over a bowl to catch all the lovely juices. This will go into the chocolate sauce later. Prepare the mango so that you have some long wedges to go into the sushi.  There. That’s that.

• To make the gooseberry puree, pop the gooseberries into a pan with the zest and juice of ½ lime. Bring to the boil to cook the gooseberries and reduce the liquid. This should take no time at all, about 5 minutes. When they have cooled, add the tsp wasabi paste and the sugar, a pinch of salt and blend till smooth. You can do this in small stages if you’re unsure how strong your wasabi is! But do try to add the full tsp. The flavour is truly amazing. Taste and add more sugar and/or wasabi if you wish. Refrigerate. Deep breaths now if you’re getting too excited.

 

   

•  For the pears; make a nice cup of hot green tea. Pour into a saucepan and add 2 cinnamon sticks, 2 star anise, 4 cloves, 4 finely chopped large pieces of crystallised ginger and the juice of the remaining lime half. Add 2 tbsp of brown sugar and stir. Prepare the pears by peeling, chopping in half lengthways and coring with a tsp. Pop those into the poaching liquid and top up with water if needed so that they are just covered. Bring to the boil and then simmer gently for about 15-20 minutes so that they are soft but not too soft. Decant into a bowl with the liquor and spices, cover and chill.

• That’s almost all the prep done and now is the exciting moment where you get to roll some sushi!  Have your finely chopped pistachio nuts and vermicelli on a flat plate ready. We’ll do the mango and mint ones first. So, take your rolling mat and cling film it. Spread the rice in a good layer over the Nori as explained on the seaweed packet but making sure you cover the entire piece of Nori. Then flip the rice and Nori over so that the rice is on the cling-filmed rolling mat and the Nori is facing up. An inch up from the bottom edge of the Nori, smear across some cream cheese, some of the gooseberry and wasabi puree then the mint leaves then the mango. Roll the sushi according to the instructions on the Nori packet. I hope my photos help explain things!

• Gently lift the mango roll onto the pistachio plate and roll the sushi in the pistachio and vermicelli to cover the rice. There we go! One mango and mint sushi roll. Now repeat the process so that you have 2. Put on a plate, cover and chill.

• Almost done. The fruit of the forest one is easier I guess. Take the cling film off the rolling mat and follow the Nori packet instructions for putting the rice onto the seaweed leaving just under an inch gap at the top. Spoon the fruits onto the rice and roll the sushi. Make 2, put onto a plate and chill. Easy!

• Now all that’s left is the chocolate sauce. Put the choc into a saucepan or in a bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Add 3 tbsp hot water to the chocolate and let the chocolate gently melt. Try not to stir it too much at this point, just let it very gently melt (like how I do when I’m cooking in the galley).

• When the chocolate has melted stir and make sure that it isn’t too thick by adding a little more hot water if needed. Then pour in the red berry juices saved from earlier.

 

•  When you’re ready to serve, cut the sushi with a very sharp knife. Cut them in half and then cut the halves into three, six pieces per roll.

 

• I did two different styles of serving because even at this point I couldn’t make my mind up about what flavours should go where! A little surprise though was how good crystallised ginger dipped in chocolate and berry sauce is…

 Actually all of it was really good dipped in the chocolate sauce. And it all looked so pretty on lovely big white plates. I was so pleased and excited with it all and it tasted so refreshing and so good. And like I said there are so many possibilities for other flavours, you should really have a go at it. Let me know how you get on.

 We’re another week at anchor on Mariquita here in Cogolin. Then off to Barcelona. It will be so nice to be in Spain. A different culture, exciting new food, the nightlife. And being attached to land again will be very welcome.

Thanks for reading about my sweet sushi experiment. The crew were happy guinea pigs! Next time I’ll serve with chilled sweet sake I think…

Cheers! See you next time.