October 26, 2026 — aboard the Aqua Service, off Vancouver Island
Two steaks. Three hungry crew members. A pan of garlic-ginger udon and a pot of gyoza soup. Fifteen minutes after dinner was served, it was all gone.
I’ve spent years living and working in Japan, and Japanese flavours have stayed with me. On a working boat, I don’t need a restaurant kitchen to bring them back.
Steak, udon and gyoza soup
For this dinner I cooked two AAA steaks—probably striploins—and served them sliced with teriyaki glaze. For this meal, my approach was straightforward: get a suitable pan hot, give the meat a good sear, turn it once, then let it rest. For these steaks I used roughly two to three minutes per side, but thickness and doneness change the timing. I glazed the beef before slicing and again afterward.
The udon began with onion, garlic and ginger. Three 200-gram packages of noodles went into the pan, where I separated them with chopsticks, tossed them with sauce and finished them with green onions.
Alongside that was pork-and-beef gyoza in Mizkan sesame soy-milk hot-pot broth, with ginger and green onion. Rich, warming and exactly right for a working galley.
Fifteen minutes later
I cooked for three. My verdict was simple: “Wicked.” The crew ate everything in fifteen minutes flat.
That’s what this collection is about: real food cooked in a real working galley, using what we have, and making it count.
More Better Good.
Field note: This is a firsthand meal story, not a measured recipe. Exact sauce amounts, soup dilution and cooking temperatures were not recorded. Cook beef to a safe temperature appropriate to the diner, and follow package directions for the gyoza and soup concentrate.
