Archive for the ‘Appetizers’ Category
If you can get your hands on some steamer clams from Maine, and a gallon of sea water, and a package of instant polenta – the kind that cooks in 3 minutes because it is really “pre-cooked,” then you can make a really special treat.
Scrub the clams, discarding any that are dead. Pour the cold, fresh sea water in a large pot, sprinkle with about 1/4 pound of instant polenta and stir. Add the live clams. Let sit for about 8 hours. You will notice that as they are left undisturbed the clams will extend their neck-like parts and start spitting out sand and grit, replacing the sand and grit in their stomachs with instant polenta! That means that when you cook them they will have an automatic polenta stuffing.
Steam the clams using a very small amount of tap water in the bottom of a large covered pot. Heat them on high until they are fully cooked – 10 to 20 minutes. They should all be opened up. Serve with melted butter with a little fresh garlic grated in to it for flavor.
We acquired a new microwave oven and have been playing around with it – a new way to save energy resources while cooking.
For 1.5-2 pounds of chicken wings, mix the following sauce in a large bowl:
1/4 cup gluten free orange marmalade
1 tablespoon honey
1 clove of garlic, minced
1/4 cup gluten free soy sauce
1 1/2 tablespoons fresh lime juice (about 1/2 of a lime)
black pepper
Remove the wing tips from the wings, and cut each wing in to two pieces at the joint. Mix the sauce with the chicken wings. Place the wings and sauce in a glass pie plate (in a single layer) and cover loosely with plastic wrap. Microwave for 10 minutes. Remove plastic wrap and microwave for 5-10 more minutes, until cooked through. Preheat a broiler and broil the wings for 4-5 minutes to crisp up the skin.
If your microwave has an automatic sensor, follow the instructions for cooking chicken parts, remove the plastic wrap half way through the cooking time. When the wings are done, broil as above.
Use all gluten-free ingredients!
Empanadas are delicious! And, for Gf-zing! they are one of the holy grails of gluten free cooking – we seek to make a dough that will encase the meat filling and be dry but intriguing, and not quite like pie crust. We have found a way to do this by using the Breads from Anna mix (without the yeast), and the traditional white wine and olive oil that make the interesting and tasty-flavored crust. The recipe was developed by Gf-Zing! , which celebrates flavor in the gluten free world.
The many ingredients and spicy flavors of empanadas are delightful, and the empanadas can be carried like a sandwich, for lunch, backpacking or picnics. We find that our friends always want the recipe but are sometimes appalled by the list of ingredients – raisins, cheese, allspice, cayenne pepper, meat – it is a medieval list of ingredients, but SOOOOO good!
Dough:
3 1/2 cups Breads From Anna mix (Soy and Rice free kind), but don’t include the yeast packet
1/2 Tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup dry white wine
1/4 cup olive oil
1 egg
Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl. You will have a little bread mix left in the bag, which you should save for the filling and rolling. In a second bowl, mix the milk, white wine, oil and egg, then add to the dry ingredients. Knead (yes, knead) the dough until it is like pie crust in texture. Cover the bowl until you are ready to fill the empanadas, as this dough dries out quickly. As you work with the dough, you may need to add extra white wine, a teaspoon at a time, if the dough starts to dry out.
Filling:
Fry the following ingredients in a non-stick skillet, just until the meat is cooked:
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1/2 pound ground beef, chicken or gluten free turkey
1/2 of a green bell pepper, minced
2 Tablespoons garlic, minced
Then add and stir-fry briefly:
1/3 cup golden or brown raisins
1/4 cup chopped olives (green ones stuffed with pimientos, or black ones in brine but not oil-cured)
1 1/2 Tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 Tablespoon Breads from Anna mix (see dough, above)
1 3/4 teaspoons ground allspice
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
Take the pan off the heat, and add:
1 cup packed grated Jack or cheddar cheese
1/3 cup chopped fresh cilantro (we wash it and snip with scissors)
The mixture will be damp but not soupy. Set aside.
To make the empanadas:
Preheat the oven to 350-375 degrees
Take a walnut sized piece of dough and squish it in your hands to compact it. Put a piece of waxed paper on the table, sprinkle with leftover Breads from Anna mix, and put the walnut-sized ball of dough there. Top with another sheet of waxed paper, then use a rolling pin to roll the ball of dough into a circle of 4″ diameter. Take off the top sheet of paper. (This method of rolling the dough yields very little mess to clean up!)
Place 1 Tablespoon of filling on the bottom half of the circle of dough, then fold the top half down to cover the filling, and squish the edges together to form a half-moon shaped turnover, completely encasing the filling. Place the filled empanada on a Silpat lined baking sheet. Repeat this process 23 more times or so – the recipe will make approximately 24 empanadas. Leave an inch between the empanadas, as they expand some while baking.
Once you have a sheet full of empanadas, bake them for 12-20 minutes. Take a look at them after 12 minutes, and let bake for additional time if needed. We prefer them slightly browned.
Serve warm, or put them in the refrigerator and use them for packing a lunch box or going backpacking.
Make sure all your ingredients, including the spices, are gluten free!
Mix up a batch of gluten free sushi rice, and you are ready to make a Hawai’ian specialty called “musubi.” In Hawai’i Musubi is often topped with Spam, but no matter, it is a great method of making a sandwich-like concoction that is perfectly sized for lunch. This recipe is presented here by Gf-Zing!, celebrating flavor and excitement in the gluten free world.
You will need a plastic musubi mold or a Spam can to make this recipe. You are going to make a sort of brick of seasoned rice wrapped in seaweed, with fillings in the middle. Spam musubi would have the Spam on the top, rather than in the middle, but that is no matter.
You can cook sushi rice on top of the stove or in your rice cooker. Use about 2 to 1 ratio of water to dry, medium grain Japanese or sushi rice (Kokuho Rose or Nishiki are two common brands.)
Rinse 2 units of rice well. Cook it in 4 units of water, or use the sushi rice line on your rice cooker insert to measure the water. Turn on the cooker and wait until it is done.
When it is just finished cooking, place the rice in a large bowl. Have ready some gluten free seasoned rice vinegar, a rice paddle, and a piece of paper or a small hand-held fan.
While fanning the rice with one hand, stir the rice (using the rice paddle) with the other hand. Sprinkle a bit of seasoned rice vinegar on the rice and continue stirring and fanning. Continue to do this, adding more seasoned rice vinegar, until the rice has a pleasant sweet-sour-salty taste and has gotten cool. The rice is ready. For two cups of dry rice (5-6 cups cooked), you would use about 7 tablespoons or so of the vinegar.
Cut a piece of sushi nori (that is a dark sheet of edible seaweed that looks like shiny green-black paper) to fit the bottom and up the sides of the musubi mold. It should extend out the top of the mold on both long edges by an inch and a half. Typically, this requires half a sheet of sushi nori. Keeping the edges of sushi nori going up the sides of the mold, put some of the prepared rice in the bottom, on top of the nori. On top of this, you can add small amounts of any of the following fillings, as you like:
Cooked fish or shellfish
avocado slices coated in lemon juice (so they don’t get brown)
slivered cooked carrots
gluten free smoked fish
cucumber slivers
Japanese seasoning peppers (gluten free)
gluten free ham, sliced very thin
Fill the rest of the mold up to the top with seasoned rice. Press down on the rice with your rice paddle firmly. Fold the ends of the nori down over the top, then use the presser that comes with the mold to tightly compress the entire thing by pressing down on the top of the folded nori. You will have a dense brick of rice and pretty colored foods all contained in a portable form. Wrap this brick in tin foil (aluminum foil) and you have a nice complete lunch. Depending on the ingredients you used for filling, you may not need to refrigerate this musubi, making it very convenient for camping or work places without refrigeration.
Important Notes: Unfortunately, currently the gluten free community must avoid wasabi paste, which often contains wheat. Soy sauce also often contains wheat, so read labels before trying to dip your musubi in soy sauce. Be careful also to make sure that the seasoned rice vinegar is gluten free. Some are not. Also, imitation seafood products are often made with wheat and should be avoided.
A picture of spam musubi (with the spam on top) is available at the following page:
Wikipedia article
Always use gluten free ingredients.
When this recipe first came to our attention, in the 1970s, the instructions called for cooking the mixture for two hours in a covered pan over very low heat. Over the course of time, the hybridization of eggplants and the introduction of hotter stove burners have necessitated some changes. The recipe is presented here in its original form, with recommendations for modern cooking methods. The recipe has been tested for the gluten free community by Gf-Zing!
1 medium eggplant, peeled and chopped in 1/4″ cubes
1/4 cup olive oil
1 large onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 can gluten free stewed tomatoes (14 ounce size)
2 Tablespoons gluten free tomato paste (optional)
1 Tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
freshly ground black pepper
the juice of a half or a whole lemon
Fry the eggplant in the olive oil in a heavy-bottomed non-stick frying pan (12″) until soft, about ten minutes. Mash with a potato masher, then add the rest of the ingredients except for the lemon juice. Do not add the lemon juice yet.
Add the rest of the ingredients and cover the pan. Reduce the heat to the lowest possible setting and cook for 2 hours, watching carefully so it doesn’t burn. A heavy pan is necessary. When it is just starting to stick to the bottom of the pan, it is done cooking. Add the juice of 1/2-1 lemon, to taste. It should be somewhat tart.
This mixture is typically spread on “black bread” or Westphalian pumpernickel. For the gluten free community, try to find “Genuine Bavarian Gluten-Free Toast Bread” which is distributed by R & R Export-Import Specialties, PO Box 7667, Nashua NH 03060. (800)-818-7729.
Notes for modern cooks: If you have a stove that has hot burners, you can stir-fry the mixture for about 20 minutes, stirring constantly, until it starts to stick to the pan. The flavor will not be quite as intense as the old-fashioned low-heat method achieves, but it will be perfectly acceptable. If the eggplant seems to become soft and mushy quickly during the initial frying, this should be a clue that you need to cook the mixture for less time than two hours. Thirty years ago, the eggplant cubes could stand up to quite a bit of cooking and maintain their structural integrity but somehow the modern hybrids seem to disintegrate quickly.
These appetizer sized crab cakes are delicious and rich! People consume quite a lot of them. That’s why the recipe uses 2 pounds of crab meat. This recipe has been adapted for the gluten free community by Gf-Zing!
2 pounds fresh or canned gluten free crab meat (drained in a strainer) – about 1 quart
1 pound frozen grated fresh coconut (Asian grocery stores carry this product) – one package
7-8 cloves garlic, finely grated
3 Tablespoons gluten free Fish Sauce (check the label for wheat)
3 Tablespoons gluten free Oyster Sauce (choy sum)
4 eggs
freshly ground black pepper
cornstarch if necessary
Glutino brand corn and rice bread, made in to crumbs (for rolling the cakes in before frying)
Mix the crab meat, coconut meat, garlic, sauces and pepper, and eggs together. Do not break up the crab too much – leave some whole chunks in there. Make a mixture that can be formed in to small cakes. If the mixture is too wet, add up to 2 Tablespoons of cornstarch and some of the bread crumbs, until the mixture will form cakes.
Make bite-sized cakes from the mixture, – about 1 – 1 1/2 inches across, and roll them in the breadcrumbs and place them on waxed paper, ready for frying.
Heat some frying oil in a large pan until quite hot – 400 degrees, or prepare a deep-fryer. Be careful not to burn yourself! If you are making this dish for gluten-free guests, and you have used your deep-fryer oil for frying something else, change the oil before preparing this dish for your gluten-free guests. Don’t be shy about telling them that you used new oil – they will appreciate your care and concern!
Fry the cakes a few at a time until they are golden. Drain the cakes on paper towels to absorb excess frying oil.
Notes: Be careful to read the label on Thai or Vienamese Fish Sauce – some brands contain wheat. For oyster sauce, check the internet lists or your local store for the brands that assert that they are gluten-free.
Serve these cakes with Thai Sweet Chili Sauce (gluten free).
Make sure that all your ingredients are gluten-free!