Here is a link to gluten-free flours at the Celiac Sprue Associaton: http://www.csaceliacs.org/recipes/FlourFormulas.php
The one with the chickpea flour sounds interesting. Perhaps I'll use it to make another go at the chocolate chip cookies.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
To Die-For Grilled Beef Salad
This recipe is much like the fiery grilled beef salad, but a whole lot better! The first time I made it I used Thai Kitchen fish sauce and let the sauce marry for a couple of hours at room temperature. The second time I used a different, saltier fish sauce (I will post the brand tomorrow) and didn't let the liquid ingredients marry. The first dish was savory--really beyond delicious. The second was pretty good, but saltier and a bit sharper.
2# flank steak marinated in a good soy marinade for about 4 hours at room temp
Sauce is 1/2 c. fish sauce, 1/2 c. fresh lime juice, 2 tbs kecap manis (recipe below), 6 tbs minced garlic, 6 tbs minced ginger, 6 tbs chopped cilantro, and 2 tbs sesame oil. Give it a taste and adjust seasoning.
Grill beef until med-rare, let cool a little bit. Mix in 1/2 c. chopped shallots and 1/2 c. chopped green onions to the sauce.
Slice beef into bite-sized pieces, toss it in a bowl, and add 4 med tomatos (cut into wedges), 1/2 c. thinly sliced purple onion, and 1/2 c. sliced cucumber, and 1/2 c. sliced jalapeno pepper. Mix all this well. Pour in the sauce and toss to coat. Serve over torn iceberg lettuce.
Kecap manis (Thai ketchup)
1 c. brown sugar
1 c. gluten-free soy sauce
1/2 c. H2O
2 slices galangal (blue ginger) or regular ginger (about the size of a thick quarter)
2 pieces of star anise
Put sugar in sauce pan and heat on med., stirring until it clumps together and then melts. Stir until it's completely melted. Be careful, it will cause a bad burn if you get any on your hand. Remove from heat and let it cool slightly, and then stir in the rest of the ingredients. The sugar will harden up. Be careful as there might be some splattering--suggest stirring in the water last. Return to heat and bring to boil and stir to dissolve sugar and reduce the whole shebang to a syrupy consitency. I cooked it down to the consistency of demi-glace and that will work, too. Strain, cool, and refrigerate.
2# flank steak marinated in a good soy marinade for about 4 hours at room temp
Sauce is 1/2 c. fish sauce, 1/2 c. fresh lime juice, 2 tbs kecap manis (recipe below), 6 tbs minced garlic, 6 tbs minced ginger, 6 tbs chopped cilantro, and 2 tbs sesame oil. Give it a taste and adjust seasoning.
Grill beef until med-rare, let cool a little bit. Mix in 1/2 c. chopped shallots and 1/2 c. chopped green onions to the sauce.
Slice beef into bite-sized pieces, toss it in a bowl, and add 4 med tomatos (cut into wedges), 1/2 c. thinly sliced purple onion, and 1/2 c. sliced cucumber, and 1/2 c. sliced jalapeno pepper. Mix all this well. Pour in the sauce and toss to coat. Serve over torn iceberg lettuce.
Kecap manis (Thai ketchup)
1 c. brown sugar
1 c. gluten-free soy sauce
1/2 c. H2O
2 slices galangal (blue ginger) or regular ginger (about the size of a thick quarter)
2 pieces of star anise
Put sugar in sauce pan and heat on med., stirring until it clumps together and then melts. Stir until it's completely melted. Be careful, it will cause a bad burn if you get any on your hand. Remove from heat and let it cool slightly, and then stir in the rest of the ingredients. The sugar will harden up. Be careful as there might be some splattering--suggest stirring in the water last. Return to heat and bring to boil and stir to dissolve sugar and reduce the whole shebang to a syrupy consitency. I cooked it down to the consistency of demi-glace and that will work, too. Strain, cool, and refrigerate.
Gluten-free cookies
My lovely wife asked me to try my hand at some gluten-free chocolate chip cookies, so she bought the Betty Crocker mix and also found a recipe in a gluten-free baking book. Suffice to say that the Betty Crocker recipe was pretty bad. It uses only rice flour, which made the cookies gritty, not to mention the fact that they had zero body, plus the taste was ho-hum. Mixing them up was like trying to make a sand castle without enough water. About half of the batch went into the trash.
The second recipe was from the CIA's Gluten-Free Baking by Richard Coppedge, Jr. It used flour mixture #4 that combines white rice flour, tapioca flour, and soy flour. The recipe was pretty close to the one I use with all-purpose wheat flour, except it called for twice the eggs, some water, and used only butter whereas I use half butter, half Crisco. I mixed it up in the cuisinart (possibly a big mistake). After blending in the dry ingredients, it was obvious that it was wayyyy too wet, but I blundered on. The first batch of cookies ran together, plus they stuck to the non-stick pan, and they cooked way faster than indicated in the recipe. I cooked the rest of the mixture in a brownie pan.
Results? Well, they tasted better than the Betty Crocker cookies, but they just didn't have the body of a chocolate chip cookie. Perhaps mixing them in the cuisinart added air that when combined with the water did something adverse to the mix. Who knows? So what now? I'm going to try it again w/o the water, mix them up by hand in a bowl, and cook them at a lower temp. I usually cook them at 325 F.
The second recipe was from the CIA's Gluten-Free Baking by Richard Coppedge, Jr. It used flour mixture #4 that combines white rice flour, tapioca flour, and soy flour. The recipe was pretty close to the one I use with all-purpose wheat flour, except it called for twice the eggs, some water, and used only butter whereas I use half butter, half Crisco. I mixed it up in the cuisinart (possibly a big mistake). After blending in the dry ingredients, it was obvious that it was wayyyy too wet, but I blundered on. The first batch of cookies ran together, plus they stuck to the non-stick pan, and they cooked way faster than indicated in the recipe. I cooked the rest of the mixture in a brownie pan.
Results? Well, they tasted better than the Betty Crocker cookies, but they just didn't have the body of a chocolate chip cookie. Perhaps mixing them in the cuisinart added air that when combined with the water did something adverse to the mix. Who knows? So what now? I'm going to try it again w/o the water, mix them up by hand in a bowl, and cook them at a lower temp. I usually cook them at 325 F.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Gluten-Free Products
Saw a post in yesterday's Dallas Morning News saying that Natural Grocers at Preston and Forest in North Dallas have a boatload of gluten-free products. Sounds like date night for the wifey and me!
Fiery Grilled Beef Salad Recipe
Here's the recipe for the grilled beef salad. It's from Victor Sodsook's True Thai, w/ my touches. Make the dressing first (let it set aside for an hour or so), prep the veggies, grill the meat, then put it all together. Slice the meat on the bias into bite-size pieces, toss w/ veggies, then toss w/ dressing. Serve over pieces of iceberg lettuce.
Dressing
1/2 c fresh lemon juice
2 tbs fish sauce
2 tbs brown sugar
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 serrano chili, fine dice
1/2 tsp white pepper
1/4 c cilantro stems, fine chop
Veggies
2 stalks lemon grass, bottom four inches, tough outer layes removed, fine chop
1 small red onion, halved, fine slice
1/2 cucumber, peeled, fine slice
2 tomatoes, sliced into thin (~10) wedges
1/2 c chopped mint
Beef--marinate 11/2# sirloin in soy marinade for 2-3 hr, then grill to med rare, sliced on the bias.
Dressing
1/2 c fresh lemon juice
2 tbs fish sauce
2 tbs brown sugar
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 serrano chili, fine dice
1/2 tsp white pepper
1/4 c cilantro stems, fine chop
Veggies
2 stalks lemon grass, bottom four inches, tough outer layes removed, fine chop
1 small red onion, halved, fine slice
1/2 cucumber, peeled, fine slice
2 tomatoes, sliced into thin (~10) wedges
1/2 c chopped mint
Beef--marinate 11/2# sirloin in soy marinade for 2-3 hr, then grill to med rare, sliced on the bias.
Monday, August 30, 2010
Welcome to my gluten-free wife blog!
Over lunch yesterday at our favorite greasy-spoon, my lovely wife and kids encouraged my to start a blog about gluten-free cooking for my wife, who was diagnosed with celiac disease a few months ago, so here it is! I have always enjoyed cooking, and doing it without wheat has been an interesting and fun challenge. And they say that I'm a good writer, so what the heck!! I will post musings, recipes, the inevitable searches for gluten-free food, and any other whimsy related to my gluten-free adventures. Please contribute your stories and recipes and any other fun stuff related to your gluten-free trevails.
Anyway, about myself. I'm a middle-aged fellow of Irish-German-Bohunk extraction, and work as a scientist in the environmental consulting field. I have a Ph.D. in Environmental Sciences, and fortunately I'm still learning new stuff so the regular J.O.B. is going well. When I'm not working or cooking, I'm hanging out with my gluten-free wife and kids, golfing, gardening, and, I have to admit, watching sports on TV (spell that as sports junkie).
Let's start with last night's dinner: Fiery Grilled Beef Salad. Officially, this was the third new Thai recipe I've worked on since taking the Thai plunge a couple of weeks ago. Besides the gluten-free aspect and the wonderful kalidoscope of flavors, it's a great way to get the dreaded vegetables into our younger daughter's life.
The sauce was made of lemon juice, gluten-free fish sauce, chopped cilantro stems, minced garlic, minced shallot, diced chili peppers, and a dash of white pepper. I marinated a sirloin steak in a gluten-free soy for about three hours, and then grilled it. After letting it cool, I sliced it thinly, and then tossed the beef slices with tomato wedges (thin), purple onion (thin), chopped mint, and sliced lemon grass. Then the sauce went on and everything is tossed together. Served it over pieces of lettuce. Yum city + happy wife + happy kids = Fun. I'll post the recipe later.
Anyway, about myself. I'm a middle-aged fellow of Irish-German-Bohunk extraction, and work as a scientist in the environmental consulting field. I have a Ph.D. in Environmental Sciences, and fortunately I'm still learning new stuff so the regular J.O.B. is going well. When I'm not working or cooking, I'm hanging out with my gluten-free wife and kids, golfing, gardening, and, I have to admit, watching sports on TV (spell that as sports junkie).
Let's start with last night's dinner: Fiery Grilled Beef Salad. Officially, this was the third new Thai recipe I've worked on since taking the Thai plunge a couple of weeks ago. Besides the gluten-free aspect and the wonderful kalidoscope of flavors, it's a great way to get the dreaded vegetables into our younger daughter's life.
The sauce was made of lemon juice, gluten-free fish sauce, chopped cilantro stems, minced garlic, minced shallot, diced chili peppers, and a dash of white pepper. I marinated a sirloin steak in a gluten-free soy for about three hours, and then grilled it. After letting it cool, I sliced it thinly, and then tossed the beef slices with tomato wedges (thin), purple onion (thin), chopped mint, and sliced lemon grass. Then the sauce went on and everything is tossed together. Served it over pieces of lettuce. Yum city + happy wife + happy kids = Fun. I'll post the recipe later.
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