• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

GF-Zing! logo

  • Home
  • Coupon Collection
  • GF Foods & Groups
  • Ask Gf-Zing!
    • About the Author
    • About Gf-Zing!
  • Nav Social Menu

    • Email
    • Facebook

Cookbooks

Baked Gluten Free Chicken Burgers

0 · Jan 11, 2012 · Leave a Comment

Chicken Burger from Gfzing dot com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Read a Southeast Asian cookbook and you will likely come across a recipe for meatballs including baking powder.  Baking powder is an oddball ingredient for those of familiar with western meatballs, so I thought I had better give it a try.

I made two attempts.  The first, using a recipe from A Vietnamese Kitchen by Ha Roda, and the second using a chicken burger recipe from one of my very favorite new cookbooks, Poulet – More Than 50 Remarkable Meals that Exalt the Honest Chicken, by Cree LeFavour.  The recipes in this book are easily adaptable for the gluten free community.

Based on experimenting with a modified version of Cree LeFavour’s Phuket Beach Cart Sandwiches, I am recommending the baking powder addition to meatballs and burgers for those of us who use low fat meats and poultry to make burgers.  The result is juicy and interesting! (I always grind meat or poultry when making balls and burgers; using good quality meat to start out with yields a tastier ground product, and you know for sure what went in to the bowl).

My instructions to grind your own spices may seem silly until you catch a scent of the amazing, lemony coriander blasting out of the mortar as you grind. It is worth the tiny moment of your time and the little bit of muscle that is required, just to have this aromatherapy experience.

Grind in a mortar and pestle:

  • 1 teaspoon whole coriander seeds – Pow!

Put the ground seeds in a food processor and add:

  • 2 pounds of boneless chicken thighs
  • 1/2 or 1 dry cayenne pepper (LeFavour uses 2 or 3 habanero chilies but even 1 was too spicy for us)
  • 1/3 cup gluten free fish sauce – check the label
  • 1 Tablespoon sugar
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon – (grind some cinnamon stick in a mortar and pestle – such a sweet smell!)

Zap all these ingredients together in the food processor until smooth.  Shape 4 patties using wet hands.

This amount of mixture will yield four absolutely enormous burgers, each one almost 2 inches thick after baking.  I found it practical to make the four giant patties, put them on a parchment lined baking sheet and bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees.  Check the interior temperature so it reaches 175 degrees in at least 2 places, then when the burgers are cooked through slice each one horizontally in half to yield 8 burgers.

LeFavour recommends serving the burgers on buns with fresh cilantro leaves (instead of lettuce) and a sambal mayonnaise, with a side of carrot and mung bean salad.

I used buns made from Pao de Quejo Brazilian Cheese bread dough (Chebe makes a gluten free mix that works well for these buns, each package yielding 4 buns that are 4-5 inches in diameter),  fresh cilantro, and a sauce made from equal parts of mayonnaise and gluten free Thai sweet chile sauce with a very small amount of gluten free chile paste with garlic.  Serve with a side of gluten free coleslaw.

LeFavour toasts the hamburger buns she uses, but instead we used the Pao de Quejo right out of the oven, split horizontally.

This is a delicious, juicy burger experience from a highly recommended cookbook – Poulet by Cree LeFavour!

Cookbooks, Fall, Lunch, Meat Dishes, Meat-eater, Product Reviews, Recipes, Spring, Summer, Winter baking powder, burger, chicken, gluten free, meatball

Gluten Free Cookbooks for gift givers

0 · Dec 6, 2010 · Leave a Comment

A reader says:
I love your recipes.  …  I am looking for a  GF cookbook for a relative who needs fairly easy recipes, doesn’t spend a lot of time in the kitchen and too much time in the restaurants. Do you have one?  Or can you recommend one?

Answer: Absolutely.  We can recommend cookbooks (and are hard at work on a Gf-zing! cookbook, seeking a publisher)!

GF friendly cookbooksMaking the switch to gluten free cooking is initially annoying and feels like deprivation, but your relative will eventually find that journeying to the parallel universe of gluten-free cooking presents an opportunity in disguise.  She will find that the complex flavors and textures of gluten free cooking are often superior to “wheatavore” cooking.  She will also see that the produce and meat sections of the grocery store are her favorite areas, and that there is very little reason to travel in to the cereal or bread aisles.

For simple GF baking, we like: Great Gluten-Free Baking by Louise Baker.  This British book relies on simple brown rice flour for many of the recipes. The superfine brown rice flour from Authentic Foods is the one we like best.  To use this book, your relative will need a kitchen scale – another excellent Christmas present for the home cook.  She should try baking the Victoria Sandwich Cake on p 124; the Lemon Drizzle Loaf on p. 54 , and the Cherry Crumble Muffins on p. 27.

For a general cookbook, Gluten Free and Easy by Robyn Russell is a good choice. Your relative could try the Quinoa Tabouleh on p. 30;  the Quinoa, Eggplant and Chickpea Salad on p. 32; the Pesto, Lamb and Sweet Potato Salad on p. 98; the San Choy Bau on p. 106; the Pistachio and Apple Cake on p. 150 (add some vanilla and salt); the Lemon Tea Cake with Lemon Butter on  p. 153.

Another fine general cookbook: Healthy Gluten-Free Cooking by Darina Allen and Rosemary Kearney. Your relative might like the Buttermilk Pancakes on p. 41 (make sure she gets flavorless tapioca flour – we like the one from Authentic Foods); the Fish Cakes with Parsley or Garlic Butter on p. 95; The Fruit Scones on p. 123 (grate cold butter in to the dry ingredients and mix by hand); the Pizza Base on p. 149 is excellent for deep dish pizzas.  Use it in a cast iron skillet.

And a third general book that uses no grains at all: Healing Foods: Cooking for Celiacs, Colitis, Crohn’s and IBS by Sandra Ramacher might also fit the bill. Your relative could try the Mini Chicken Satays with Peanut Sauce on p. 43; and the Apple and Blueberry Crumble on p. 165 (it uses almond flour for the crumble). No grains, no gluten, no refined sugar and no lactose in this book.

Also, although The Sultan’s Kitchen by Ozcan Ozan does contain recipes with gluten, most of the recipes are gluten-free. A few favorites include: Rice Pilaf with Chickpeas, Green Lentils and Caramelized Onions, (we used lentil orzo), Sea Bass Poached with Herbs and Raki in Parchment, (we used ouzo instead of raki, and your relative would need to make sure whatever licorice liqueur she used was gluten free), Stewed Lamb Kebab with Creamy Garlic Mashed Potatoes.

And finally, although Eating Stella Style by George Stella is pitched to low-carb dieters trying to lose weight, it has many, many excellent recipes that are gluten-free.  Your relative will need to be sure that the spices and meat products she uses are gluten-free, and she doesn’t have to substitute Splenda for sugar.  This cookbook is a find for the gluten-free community.  (The picture on the front of the book is a little goofy, and it is geared to weight loss.)

Thanks for inquiring, and there will be a Gf-Zing! cookbook coming, but not in time for Christmas 2010.

Ask Gf-Zing! - Responses, Cookbooks cookbook, GF, gluten free

Homemade Garam Masala

0 · Oct 19, 2010 · Leave a Comment

Garam masala is an Indian spice mixture used in many dishes and often added at the very end of the cooking of a dish. It can be 100% gluten free if made correctly.  Like curry powder, garam masala usually seems to be made from a standard list of spices, the amounts of each spice customized according to taste.

Interestingly, if you do a Google search for “homemade garam masala” there are only a million hits – that’s twice as many hits as for “homemade ketchup” or “homemade mayonnaise” but not as many hits as for “homemade mustard”.  What is going on with that mustard?  Are beer drinkers interested in mustard at the season of the Oktoberfest?

Back to the topic at hand.  We compared recipes for Garam Masala from two authors: Julie Sahni and Madhur Jaffrey.  Both have written wonderful cookbooks which are excellent and frequently consulted resources – these authors were instrumental in bringing the world of interesting, largely gluten free, Indian cooking to the North American audience.

For a generic Garam Masala (there are other more specialized types of garam masala as well) these authors offer varying formulas, using the following spices.  The weights in parentheses are just there to give you an idea of the ratio of amounts that could be used – we have measured here the weights for one of the Jaffrey recipes:

Cardamom Seed (25 pods – see the picture below for a couple of pods next to the seeds from 25 pods)

Black Peppercorn (2  1/8 ounces or 62 grams)

Whole Cumin Seed (1 1/4 ounces or 36 grams)

Whole Coriander Seed (1/2 ounce or 15 grams)

Cinnamon Stick (3, 3 inch sticks)

Whole Cloves (4 to 6 cloves)

To give you an idea of what this amount of spice looks like, here is the full amount:

Gfzing.com Garam Masala spice picture 3
Garam Masala spices before grinding. Clockwise from top left: Cinnamon and Cloves, Cardamom, Cumin (in cener), Black Pepper, Coriander.

Sahni generally recommends toasting the spices in a dry skillet for 10 minutes, stirring all the while, then cooling and grinding to a powder.  Jaffrey’s instructions generally omit the toasting process and go right to the grinding. Jaffrey sometimes omits the coriander and adds nutmeg.

By volume, Jaffrey’s recipe from Indian Cooking uses 3 times as much black peppercorn as Sahni’s recipe from Classic Indian Cooking.  Other proportions are very similar in both recipes.

Why buy stale old spice mixtures ready-made when you can easily make your own pungent gluten free garam masala using whole spices, toasted (or not) and ground up?

Condiments and Sauces, Cookbooks, Recipes, Vegetarian garam masala, gluten free, homemade, Indian, recipe, vegetarian

Homemade Thai Red Curry Paste

0 · Oct 17, 2010 · Leave a Comment

One reader asked if we had looked at recipes for making homemade Thai curry paste.  Well, we have.  We used the following useful sources :

Seductions of Rice by Jeffrey Alford & Naomi Duguid 1998

Saveur Magazine

Thai in Minutes by Vatcharin Bhumichitr 2004

Thai Cuisine with Jasmine Rice from Eastland Food Corporation

Thai Culinary Art by Srisomboon Bhandhukravi 1993

Terrific Pacific Cookbook by Anya von Bremzen & John Welchman 1995

Thai Red Curry Paste recipes use a basic list of ingredients, and all the recipes seem to include chilies, coriander, cumin, peppercorn, garlic, lemongrass, galangal, a fishy element like shrimp paste or fish sauce, and salt.  Most also include shallots, kaffir lime leaf or zest, and either cilantro leaf or root. A few add nutmeg, paprika, or cardamom.

Dry chilies are usually seeded and soaked. Dry spices are generally toasted in a skillet before grinding. Garlic and shallot are peeled and chopped before making in to a paste. The bottom 3 inches of lemon grass stalk is cut off, the toughest leaves removed, and the whole piece is then smashed with the flat side of a cleaver before the lemon grass is minced.

Shrimp paste or fish sauce must be investigated for gluten free status before using. Shrimp paste is a dry product that is dry roasted before use.

Ultimately, all the ingredients are ground to a homogeneous paste.

Based on the following table, you can see that Thai Red Curry paste is made using a fairly standardized set of ingredients, easily customized by the home cook to make a “signature” gluten free blend.

Thai Red Curry Paste Comparisons from gfzing.com
Thai Red Curry Paste Comparisons from gfzing.com

Make sure that all of your ingredients are gluten free!

Condiments and Sauces, Cookbooks, Product Reviews, Recipes cooking, gluten free, homemade, recipes, thai red curry

Making Your Own Homemade Curry Powder

3 · Oct 15, 2010 · 7 Comments

Homemade Curry Powder
Homemade Curry Powder

It is as easy to make homemade gluten free curry powder as it is to grind coffee!

With a little trial and error you can create your own signature gluten free curry powder!  We use a 30 year old coffee grinder to make ours from whole spices.  Once you make your own, you won’t be able to go back to using store-bought curry powder. Also, your friends will want your recipe.

The Spices:

Make sure that whatever spices you add to your curry powder are gluten free. And, the fresher the spices, the better the flavor.

The Coffee Grinder:

Some recipes will advise you to buy a separate coffee grinder for making spice mixtures like curry powder, but we use one coffee grinder for everything – we have been doing it for decades. After using the coffee grinder for grinding spices, you can clean the coffee grinder using a toothbrush to loosen up ground spices and wipe the grinder clean.  If your coffee grinder is white plastic, the turmeric may turn the plastic yellow, but when you then revert to grinding coffee in the grinder the flavor of your coffee will not be altered.

What amounts to use?

At gfzing.com, we have analyzed a few recipes for homemade curry powder and provide the following table of formulas from some of our favorite cookbooks.  Note that the biggest variation occurs with the turmeric and the pepper.  Turmeric has a surprisingly strong taste, so experiment with it a little to decide how much to use.

Our favorite curry powder recipe comes from Robin Reilly’s excellent book Gluten-Free Baking. We add a whole dried cayenne pepper to her mixture because we like our curry powder spicy. Robin Reilly uses a combination of roasted coriander seed, fenugreek seed, cumin seed, black mustard seed, cardamom seed, cinnamon stick, with added ground turmeric, ground mace, nutmeg, and cloves.  We add a whole dried cayenne pepper to her recipe, then grind it in two batches in the 30 year old coffee grinder.  After grinding the two batches, we mix the stuff together thoroughly and store it in a half pint Mason jar.

Another similar curry powder formula is to be found in Better Than Store-Bought by Witty and Colchie, originally published in 1979.  This is a unique cookbook which shows how to make a large variety of items from scratch.

A third example of homemade curry powder lives in another excellent do-it-yourself cookbook called Gifts of Food, by Susan Costner, published by Consumer Reports in 1984. Again, the list of spices is pretty much the same – varying amounts are used.

In this table, we compare these 3 recipes, demonstrating that indeed, the list of spices is pretty much the same but the amounts differ.  Fiddle with these spices and develop your own signature gluten free curry powder! Package it up nicely, and give it as a gift!

Homemade Curry Powder comparisons
Homemade Curry Powder - comparisons from Gfzing.com

Try the curry powder in these recipes:

Chicken Sticky Rice

Curried Cream of Root Vegetable Soup

Curried Tofu Meatballs

Creamy Lentil Soup with Curry and Chipotles

Rich Lamb and Cornish Game Hen Curry

Pineapple Fried Rice

*Most Popular Recipes*, Condiments and Sauces, Cookbooks, Meat-eater, Recipes, Vegetarian curry powder, DIY, gluten free, homemade, recipes, vegetarian

Gluten Free Baking without Tapioca

6 · Nov 16, 2008 ·

A reader has asked for advice on gluten free baking without tapioca flour. She says:
I’m just learning to bake GF for my daughter.  She does not like the taste of tapioca flour.  After baking a rejected bread, we lined up all the flours & tasted them to see which one was objectionable.  What do you recommend to replace tapioca?  Would potato starch, corn starch or arrowroot be closest, or a mixture of one of them and sweet rice flour?

Gf-Zing has the following advice:

We think the best option would be to obtain a book of recipes for
gluten free baking without tapioca.  Our favorite is Great Gluten-Free
Baking
by Louise Blair, published by Hamlyn in Great Britain in 2007.
This lovely book has some excellent recipes (don’t miss the Victoria
Sandwich Cake on page 124.) This book relies on a simple combination
of rice flour and cornstarch.  The book is available in the U.S.
http://www.amazon.com/Great-Gluten-Free-Baking-Louise-Blair/dp/0600615839

Likewise, Healthy Gluten-Free Cooking by Darina Allen and Rosemary
Kenney, published by Stewart, Habori and Chang has a few excellent
baking recipes that do not include tapioca.  The book does not have as
many recipes that exclude tapioca, but it is a great cookbook.This
book is also available in the U.S.
http://www.amazon.com/Healthy-Gluten-free-Cooking-Recipes-Lovers/dp/1584794240

Best wishes for gluten-free holidays!

Ask Gf-Zing! - Responses, Cookbooks

Vegan Cupcakes

0 · Apr 22, 2007 · Leave a Comment

We tried a new cookbook, it’s not a gluten free cookbook, but it’s really fun, and the recipes are good and easy to convert to gf and there are two Gluten Free Cupcake recipes included in the book. The book is Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero. On the back of the cookbook is the header “Prepare for Total Cupcake Domination” which gives a hint that the author has a sense of humor.

For a test, we tried Toasted Coconut Cupcakes with Coffee Buttercream Frosting. For this recipe, we substituted 1/2 cup cornstarch and 1/2 cup gluten free cookie flour mix and added 1/2 teaspoon extra xantham gum to the batter. It took a little longer to bake these gluten free cupcakes than the instructions noted in the book – so test those cupcakes with a toothpick to make sure they are done.

We did not have “coffee extract” so we made our own using 1 1/2 teaspoons instant coffee and a small amount of hot water. The cupcakes were yummy, with an interesting mochi-like texture, for those of you who like mochi – it’s chewy. We can’t wait to try other recipes from the cute little book.

 

Cookbooks, Product Reviews baking, cake, coconut, cupcake, gluten free

An Excellent Turkish Cookbook

0 · Dec 31, 2005 ·

A Gf-Zing! book review.

Fresh vegetables, fish, lamb, chicken, soups, stews and rice dishes – these are the features of a cookbook that has immediate curb-appeal for the gluten free community. We are looking for recipes that don’t use flour, and don’t rely on processed foods. With the exception of a very few recipes (mostly in the bread and borek chapter and the desserts chapter), this cookbook will satisfy your gluten free needs.

The Sultan’s Kitchen, with its beautiful color photos and Turkish aesthetic, even down to the page numbering, is a pleasure to behold and to cook from. All of the recipes we have tried have been delicious, and we mean all!

A few favorites include: Rice Pilaf with Chickpeas, Green Lentils and Caramelized Onions, (we used lentil orzo), Sea Bass Poached with Herbs and Raki in Parchment, (we used ouzo instead of raki), Stewed Lamb Kebab with Creamy Garlic Mashed Potatoes.

A Gf-Zing! recommended product!

Cookbooks, Product Reviews

Primary Sidebar

Check out our Coupon Collection

Click Here to go directly to the Coupon page

Read more at The Rambling Epicure:

Click Here: The Rambling Epicure

QR code for your phone

qrcode for gfzing
NFCA logo

Blogroll

  • Aloha World Ono Recipes
  • Book of Yum
  • Dulce Cocina sin Gluten
  • Gluten Free Beer Association
  • Glutenfreie Rezepte | kaMehl
  • Hawai'ian Electric
  • Laylita's – Ecuador
  • Nombudsman
  • Papilles et Pupilles
  • Sea Salt with Food
  • The Rambling Epicure The Rambling Epicure is a daily international food chronicle, and the first online newspaper to follow global food trends and news.
  • Triumph Dining

Monthly Archive

Proud member of FoodBlogs
Proud member of FoodBlogs

Load up on new recipes, exclusive goodies, + more!

Get the exclusive content you crave straight to your inbox.

Things to Read

Find by keyword

bacon baked baking beans beef berries blueberry cake cheese chicken chocolate coconut cooking curry dessert DIY dried beans easy fish food fruit GF ghee gluten free gourmet homemade lamb maple syrup meat microwave New England Hard Cider pie pork pumpkin recipe recipes rice salad sauce soup stewed strawberries sweet potato thai red curry vegetarian

Copyright © 2023 GF-Zing! on the Cravings Pro Theme