Ode To Prickley Bay

A Cocktail and Pizza Recipe for Your Inner Sailor

by Stefen Janke & Julie Van Dam

We love traditions – especially ones that include food. This is one of our favorite ones.

In January of 2008, we were lucky enough to go sailing on my father’s boat in the Caribbean. We arrived in Trinidad and Tobago after a very long flight only to be met by a questionably licensed cab driver my father had set up for us. Dad was in Granada and we would fly there the next day – an even longer flight due to a newly introduced concept of “Island time”.

Once we finally arrived in Granada and made our way to the harbor and onto the boat – all was well.  With Deep Blue Ocean waters and stunning sunsets – picture postcards perfect all seemed well and the world fell into place. On the boat my Dad was the Captain, Stefen was Cook, Julie was scullery maid by default and Carson (8 years old at the time) was the cabin boy and swimmer extraordinaire. With all of the work stations filled we moved onto one of the most important traditions on the boat, named “Tao”, nightly cocktail hour. This begins precisely at 5:00 PM and includes rum and spicy peanuts.  A note on rum – when in the Caribbean, you drink rum. Period. Full stop. No complaining!

This being our first night, we hit the local harbor restaurant in Prickly Bay. A range of sailors from all around the world anchored and would gather here to drink and eat. Surprisingly, of all things offered, a thin crust wood fired oven cooked pizza. After the long journey, we were so famished that we could have eaten anything that was hot and not in an airport.  Luckily, we didn’t have to settle for second-rate pizza.  After the jump, learn how to make one of the best pizzas known to sailor and landlubber alike.

I have to stay that well over a year later we often think back to that night and the pizza that came to our table. It was a large round, thin crusted dough that had hints of smoke from the wood with a deep golden brown color, the dough was topped with a fresh and light tomato sauce with hints of garlic and basil topped mozzarella cheese. With a shake or two of chili flakes we completely destroyed it and promptly ordered another. It is at this point that I got out of my seat to take a look at what was happening in this kitchen in this tiny harbor. The cooks were hard at work kneading and  rolling dough and chopping fresh basil, this was the real deal in the middle of the Caribbean.

After we returned home from two weeks of sailing we found that we missed the Rum, Spicy Peanuts and that very special Pizza. So we started Caribbean pizza night. The pizza that we make is a little different as we have added a few things that we love like prosciutto and Olive oil.

Rum with Sour Lemon recipe:
Fill the glass with ice.
Add equal parts dark rum and sour lemon soda. Enjoy!

I could not find sour lemon soda in the U.S. but found a pretty good substitute with San Pellegrino Limonata.

The other memorable food event from our trip was Caribbean Spiced Peanuts. These are sold in used rum bottles and are very spicy and completely addicting. You can make your own (don’t get us started – that’s another blog entry) or World Market makes a good substitute.

Prickley Bay Pizza

Dough
3/4 Cup unbleached all purpose Flour
1/2 teaspoon Instant Yeast
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 Cup water, room temperature
4 teaspoons olive oil

Our Favorite Toppings
Tomato sauce
Fresh Mozzarella
Prosciutto
Fresh basil Chopped
Olive oil
Fresh Garlic
Cracked Black Pepper

In a bowl, whisk together the flour, instant yeast and sugar. Whisk in the salt. Make a well in the center and pour in water. Using a wooden spoon , gradually stir the flour into the water until all the flour is moistened and the dough just begins to form. It should come away from the bowl but still stick to it a bit. Do not over mix, as this will cause the dough to become sticky.
Pour oil into a larger bowl . Place the dough in the bowl and coat dough with the oil. Cover with plastic wrap tightly. Let sit at room temp until the dough has doubled in size or about an hour.

At this point we roll the dough into rectangles and place on a baking sheet with some olive oil on the bottom.  Spread a thin layer of tomato sauce, topped with thinly sliced fresh mozzarella, next comes the prosciutto. The key to this pizza is the generous drizzle of high quality olive oil all over the pizza and of course the chopped garlic. Bake at 450 degrees until the crust is golden brown on the bottom. Allow the pizza to rest for 5 minutes giving the cheese and the sauce time to set a little add the basil and cracked pepper and destroy that bad boy!