Hidden away in the Hollow Volcano, my entertainment options can be somewhat limited - there's only so many sun-kissed, idyllic, beaches you can sit on, after all. As you know, I love cooking for friends, but, well, ingredients (and motivation) have been in short supply up until recently, mainly because I didn't even have a matching set of cutlery (quelle horreur! I would never live down the social shame!).
My Island Muse appeared in the form of
SugarAppleBlog , whose
lobster salad (using fresh lobsters bought from a Rasta man at the side of the road ) inspired me to get back into it. So, here it is: "what it's all about"- my first "proper" meal for friends since being imprisoned here. (note: I had to swim out to the wreck and salvage some plates, napkins and a salt and pepper set, just so Friday could make the beach hut look civilised).
L & S get fed. These two have been lovely since they got washed up on the beach here. They fed me when Friday was away, and they took care of my pet monkey so Friday and I could meet with the Henchmen on the other side of the Hollow Volcano. The least I could do was feed them back. My nationality DEMANDS that I serve a snifter of G&T at the start of any formal meal, but I gave it an island twist with some Boozy Watermelon Stars.
These are simplicity itself but, I'm sure you'll agree, they look impressive; just a star-shaped cookie cutter into about 5mm slices of fresh water melon. The stick is held in by a 'lock' of a blueberry pushed into the centre (I used an AA battery to make the hole) and then liberally drizzled in
Finlandia Mango Fusion Vodka . Frozen for an hour, they start the old tastebuds going, and they're really refreshing; L liked them so much, she had three (but don't tell anyone!).
I ran the old "crostini starter" trick: there's plenty of goats on the hollow volcano, so a nice goats cheese on a slice of baguette banged in the oven until the bread crisps and the cheese melts, accompanied by a Rocket and Pomegranate Salad and drizzled with some Balsamic Vinegar:
...mmm great finger food, if you're short of cutlery! The pomegranate arils (the red bits) are just sweet enough to offset the sharpness of the cheese - for some reason they all go really well together. If I had grill, I'd actually get them a bit browner on the top, but the campfire doesn't stretch to grilling...
As a main course, I had marinaded some very fine fillet steak (many thanks to Neils The Butcher at the
Quartermaster's Cave lower down the beach) . For the (4-hours-in-the-fridge) marinade, finely chopped fresh island chilli (
hot hot HOT), garlic, fresh ginger, lime zest, lime juice and about half a bottle of Soy Sauce. As
St Jamie would say, "boshed" onto the hot griddle to sear and served on a bed of pak choy (bok choy here) with some Thai Fragrant white rice jazzed up with some lemon zest. Clean plates all round.... For S, who eschews meat, I did the same thing with fresh tuna, BUT, don't marinade the Tuna in the same way, because the citrus will 'cook' the fish like a
Ceviche and make it tougher than you want ... I merely cooked the tuna IN the marinade in a separate pan.
Finally, dessert: the
Blueberry Cheesecake pots I get so much feedback on - in fact, recently, one of the Hollow Volcano Henchmen was adamant that I had bought the last lot in, which simply isn't the case (and which I took as a compliment). I served them in some Martini glasses that had washed up from the wreck, so they looked terribly sophisticated...
Afterwards, we sat out watching the stars, with some fairy lights illuminating our considerable stash of vinho plonko ..... not bad for a palm-roofed beach hut inside a Hollow Volcano on the edges of the known world ....
(Jalapenos, in a jar, waiting to be chopped finely)