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Sesame-Crusted Tofu with Quick Microwave Curried Carrot Soup

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Curried Carrot Soup with Sesame Crusted Tofu - Alice DeLuca 2012 digimarc
Curried Carrot Soup with Sesame Crusted Tofu in a blue Heathware bowl

The inspiration for this dish from www.gfzing.com was a trip to the Garden Grille in Providence, Rhode Island.  They make truly delish vegetarian food, much of which they will also prepare gluten free.  This is recipe is NOT one of theirs, it is just inspired by their cooking.  I did not have a chance to try their sesame-crusted tofu, unfortunately.

The soup here is done in the microwave oven, for quick, efficient dinner preparation.

It is easily adapted for vegetarians and vegans – just omit the fish sauce and adjust the salt.

For the Soup:

5 ounces peeled Spanish onion, diced

1/2 ounce (2 cloves) garlic, peeled and diced

1 TB olive oil

3 ounces red bell pepper, diced

3 carrots (about 6 ounces), peeled and chunked

3/4 cup rich coconut milk

1 cup water

2-3 teaspoons gluten free fish sauce (omit for vegetarians)

2 teaspoons gluten free Thai Red Curry paste

1 TB currant jelly

salt to taste (1/4-1/2 teaspoon)

To Fry the Tofu:

1 package of extra-firm tofu, drained and slice the short way in to four slices, then cut the other way to make 8 squares about 3/4 inch thick.

1 teaspoon homemade curry powder (see recipe on this site)

2 TB black sesame seeds

2 TB peanut oil

1 teaspoon sesame oil

To make the soup:

In a 1 1/2-2 quart microwavable casserole dish (such as Corningware), place the chopped onions, chopped garlic and 1 TB of oil. Cover and microwave on high for 5 minutes.  Allow to cool for a few minutes before removing the cover (to avoid steam burns).

To the cooked onions and garlic in the casserole dish add the rest of the soup ingredients from the red bell pepper through the currant jelly.  Cover and microwave until the carrots are tender, about 10 minutes.  Allow to rest a few minutes before you remove the cover, to avoid steam burns.

Use a stick or immersion blender to puree the soup. Season with just a little bit of salt to taste. Adjust the sweetness. Set aside.

For the Tofu:

Mix the curry powder and sesame seeds and pat the mixture on to one side of each of the squares of tofu.  Heat the oil and sesame oil in a large, heavy frying pan.  When hot, add the tofu squares, seed side up. Fry over medium heat, undisturbed for 4 minutes.  Salt the tofu squares.  Use a spatula to turn the tofu squares and fry the other side undisturbed for 3 minutes. Salt the other side.  The frying will crisp the tofu, rendering it golden brown.

Remove the fried tofu from the pan.

To Serve:

Reheat the soup briefly and serve 2 squares of fried tofu, seed side up, on each serving of the hot soup.

Curried Carrot Soup with Sesame Crusted Tofu in a Heathware bowl - Alice DeLuca 2012 digimarc
Curried Carrot Soup with Sesame Crusted Tofu in a white Heathware bowl

Serve with lime wedges, and a salad made from chopped arugula, fresh mint, orange juice, olive oil, gluten-free mustard, salt and pepper.

 

 

A Sausage Walks in to a Bar…

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By Alice DeLuca

A story for carnivores

Assador - Alice DeLuca 2012 digimarc
Assador - for roasting sausages

This whole adventure started with a search for the perfect sausage to use in a recipe for pork with clams, which led to a little ceramic pig, and ended up with a truly excellent party. This cute little piece of specialty cookware, which looks like footwear for some impossible outer-space monster, is in fact designed for brazing sausages over flaming, hi-octane Portuguese liquor.  As we learned the purpose and the method for using this device, we became completely distracted from our original mission and found ourselves planning a sausage-roast.

Linguica roasting - Alice DeLuca 2012 digimarc
Linguiça roasting over flaming aguardente

First, we had to obtain the little pig dishes from Portugal – that was easy and took only a few weeks. As soon as the dishes arrived we set about making home-smoked sausages and invited some guests to come over and roast them with us – RSVPs were instantaneous and none declined the invitation.

The sausages that are required – linguiça or chourico – are not easily found freshly made in the grocery store; the smoked sausages you do find are often laminated in plastic, oozing a creepy slime when opened, delivering a texture of rubber bands with what seem like bits of potato thrown in – the bits are the fat but for some reason completely unlike the fat in a homemade sausage.  If these laminated sausages are the only smoked sausage you have ever known, then you must find some real, home-smoked sausages, or make your own.  With pork shoulder and a few other ingredients, a good old-fashioned meat grinder, and some type of smoker, you can have a plate of these sausages to set fire to with your friends.

Linguica on Heathware plate - Alice DeLuca 2012 digimarc
Vermillion Linguica looks stunning on blue Heathware plates!

People have been making sausages and brazing them since the dawn of time.  You can follow the accurate but brief instructions provided in the Ancient Roman De Re Coquinaria of Apicius (published by Walter M. Hill, 1936). Here, the proper color of smoked sausages is described perfectly – vermillion – a nearly forgotten word and color that deserves to make a comeback.  Vermillion is the color of notoriously poisonous cinnabar, which is a substance with an interesting history of its own.  Take a look at cinnabar on dolomite and you will see that the Romans have described the color of smoked sausage precisely in the recipe for Cirellos isiciatos, Round Sausage.

“Fill the casings with the best material [forcemeat]. Shape the sausage in to small circles, smoke. When they have taken on vermillion color, fry them lightly.”

The Recipe

To make linguiça, we chose “the best material” – a simple formulation with garlic, paprika and sweet rosé wine because pork is so often excellent with sweet, fruity flavors.  Sausages of this type sometimes include oregano and vinegar, but this recipe “LINGUICA PORTUGUESA A’LA ANA“ is more delicious than those, perhaps because of the sweet rosé.  The sausage ingredients are posted here with permission from AnaCatarina Louro Ferreira Alves, who generously provides the recipe to the world on her blog: http://anydaysoiree.com/

5 lbs. ground pork butt
3 Tb. paprika (not smoked)
2 Tb. fine minced garlic
3 Tb. salt
1 cup sweet rosé wine
1 tsp. sugar
1 Tb. black pepper

A sliced lemon for soaking the hog casings

Apple wood for smoking

Hog Casings – for stuffing – about 2 or 3 feet of casing per pound of meat

 

Concerning the Meat and its Preparation

Start out a day or two before you want to eat the sausage, to complete the marinating phase.

In an agrarian economy, the seasonal time for making sausage was in the fall when a hog was slaughtered; everyone hurrying to preserve the large quantities of meat for the long winter. Smoked sausage was a hedge against starvation.  In the modern, refrigerated world, sausage can be made year-round and is a reason for a party! When making sausage at home, be careful to use safe food-handling techniques, clean equipment and clean hands at all times.  Note that the Latin root of the word “botulism” is the word for sausage – botulus.  That is not a coincidence. Study the conditions under which food pathogens can replicate and then avoid those conditions.

To obtain several pounds of ground pork for sausage, purchase a “pork shoulder” weighing over 9 pounds. Very carefully remove the skin from the pork shoulder (not used in the sausage), slice the meat from the bone with a boning knife, and cut the meat in to large chunks. The foundation of the pork shoulder is a complex articulated joint, so extreme care must be exercised when wielding the boning knife.  How do orthopedic surgeons ever actually manage a functioning joint replacement?

Save the bone to cook with dried beans.

After cutting the meat from the bone, modern cooks might be tempted to eliminate and discard all the fat, but the fat and connective tissue are the keys to great flavor.  Remove the fat and you surely will create disappointing, dry sausage like the last bit of an overcooked turkey breast that’s been loitering on the platter way too long after the Thanksgiving dinner. To make a good sausage, fat is required.

Marinating

Weigh the boned meat and season it with proportional amounts of the paprika, fresh garlic, salt, Portuguese rosé wine, sugar and pepper called for in the recipe.  We had 6 pounds of meat, so we increased the seasonings proportionally.

Stir together the spices and wine, then mix in the chunks of meat – and commune with the ancestors who were marinating meat for millennia. Judging from 18th century engravings, the ancestors seemed to have had cats, chickens and dogs running around under the table during the sausage-making process, not the ideal situation for food preparation.  Perhaps it is wise to banish the cats, dogs and chickens to the yard, before proceeding.

Unlike ancient peoples, we refrigerate the marinating meat and keep it cold during the remainder of the 1-2 day process.

Grinding

After marinating the meat under refrigeration, grind or chop it in to small pieces.  There are many different types of grinding devices available.  Whichever method you use, your goal is to produce small bits but not a paste – one of the principle differences between a sausage and a lowly hot dog is the consistency.

The mechanism of the old-fashioned meat grinder is an Archimedes screw.  Archimedes of Syracuse, c. 287 BC – c. 212 BC, is credited with the invention of the screw conveyor which has been used since antiquity to move water uphill from one place to another. In a meat grinder, the screw is carrying the meat from one place to another (from the hopper to the blade.)

We use a Magimix food processor for chopping meat, working with a small amount of the meat at a time (maybe a half pound) and using the “pulse” feature – intermittent chopping – as noted in the directions that came with the machine.  This works very well. Many older-model food processors would grind the meat too finely.

If you have an old fashioned meat grinder, use the blade and the coarsest disk.  Again, a great opportunity for living the life of the ancestors presents itself.  The sinews can clog up the disk, requiring frequent cleaning, We use our old-fashioned grinder mostly for stuffing the sausage casings. The grinder clamps to the table and can be easily removed, cleaned and stored.

Another style of meat grinder is screwed permanently to the table.  We can’t see how this would be practical unless you grind things every day or perhaps enjoy the aesthetic and conversation-piece value of the thing – “Let us show you our newly renovated kitchen with built-in meat grinder….”

The other meat grinder that makes no sense is the kind that suctions to a smooth surface. This seems impractical because of the amount of force required to grind meat, and because suction devices usually cease to function correctly despite being adhered to a glass-smooth surface.  How many times has the suctioned soap dish fallen in the shower, or the GPS device toppled in to the automobile?

One way or another, chop the marinated meat in to small bits, then chill it while you prepare the casings.

Linguica chopped and seasoned -Alice DeLuca 2012 digimarc
Marinated meat, chopped and ready for stuffing

Preparing the Casings

The next step will be preparation of the hog casings.  For unknown reasons, hog casings, if you are lucky enough to find any, are usually on the top right hand corner of the supermarket shelf that houses ham and pork products.  In a plastic tub or sometimes a plastic bag, the “casings,” which are really cleaned intestines, are packed in salt.  Years ago, hog casings had a distinctive funky odor but recently purchased hog casings have had no odor whatsoever.  We were surprised to find that packages of hog casings come from all over the world – it is interesting to read the label on the package.

Soak the hog casings (3 feet for every pound of meat) in warm water with a sliced lemon for 30 minutes to soften and desalinate the casings, then run water through them to ensure they are clean (discard the lemon slices).

Soaking Hog Casings - Alice DeLuca 2012 digimarc
Sausage casings soaking with aromatic lemon slices

As the water runs through, marvel at the structure and strength of this wonderful material.

 

Cleaning Sausage Casings - Alice DeLuca 2012 digimarc
Rinsing the sausage casings

One of the many remarkable things about sausage casings, or intestines in general, is how terrifically strong they are.  They have been used for millennia as string and thread, and as strings for musical instruments.  The 120 foot intestine of a cow is formed in to harp strings and then, under enormous tension the strings are plucked to produce musical notes; Gut is used by surgeons to sew up wounds, and by tennis players to string their rackets so they can slam balls in to the ground at upwards of 70 mph.

 

Stuffing

 

Archimedes Screw - sausage grinder - Alice DeLuca 2012 digimarc
An Archimedes screw moves meat through a grinder

It is much easier and more fun to stuff sausage with two people working than all by yourself.

Use a meat grinder to stuff the sausages.  You need 3 feet of hog casing per pound of sausage, allowing for a little extra at each end of the sausage.  Remove the blade and grinder disk and attach a sausage stuffing funnel. Slide a length of hog casing on to the funnel.  Now put the seasoned sausage meat through the grinder, turning the handle slowly and steadily with one hand and easing the meat in to the casings with your other hand. The meat goes in to the hopper and comes out in to the casing.  When the casing is nearly full (with 6 inches of empty casing remaining) remove the sausage from the funnel and start on the next sausage. Don’t complicate your life by trying to tie knots in this sausage.  Just set the filled sausages aside to chill in the refrigerator until it is time to smoke them.

 

Linguica stuffing - Alice DeLuca 2012 digimarc
The sausage stuffing funnel is efficient!

Smoking

Part of the reward for making your own smoked sausage is aromatic.  The scent of smoked sausage would tame the wild wolf and bring him to your doorstep; it would make the wolf volunteer to be the captive family dog if only he could have some of this delicious meat.[i]  (As expected, both our tame dog and cat became increasingly animated while the sausage was smoking, and eventually they were invited to retire indoors.)

Follow the instructions on a smoker, and use apple wood for the smoke.  Check the internal temperature of the smoker to insure that it is hot enough to do the job safely.  We used a Primo ceramic grill to smoke the sausage, paying careful and regular attention to adjusting the vents, and maintaining a higher temperature than recommended in the original recipe – just below 200° F.  We chose to smoke the sausage until the internal temperature of the sausage was 170° F, which took approximately 3 hours.  We recommend that any home cook do their own research to determine a safe process.  The FDA provides some guidance on this.  When completely smoked, the color of the sausages will be a deep red vermillion. The sausages are not preserved by this smoking – they are merely cooked through.  From this point on, they should be preserved like any other meat – in cold storage for a few days or in the freezer for a longer period of time.

Do the homemade sausages look dry to you?  That is the miraculous thing about real smoked sausage – although the exterior of the sausage is dry, the interior is just right – juicy and delicious.  As a reward for your labor, taste a few slices before you put them away to chill.

 

Setting Things on Fire

Roasting sausages over flaming cheap brandy is a social form of cooking, an adventure to be shared with brave and hearty friends who enjoy hazardous adventure and are willing to take responsibility for their own actions. Perhaps you could have your guests agree to a “Safe Sausage Disclaimer”:

“I recognize that consuming homemade sausage is fraught with danger and I am willing to fully assume all the risk and untold horrors so I may experience real food.”

We used a little parade of two “assadors” to roast our sausages.  For fuel, we used inexpensive aguardente, lighting the flame under the sausages with foot-long matches and keeping a fire extinguisher available nearby. (Incidentally, we are intrigued to learn more about the high-walled linguiceira shown at the Borderless Cooking blog. It appears immune to the windy conditions that prevailed during our party.)

Place the assador on a heat-proof surface, preferably in a location that is not windy. Pour a pool of aguardente in to the assador.  Using a long match, set the aguardente ablaze without setting anything else on fire. Cut off pieces of sausage to fit the assador and place them on the racks over the flames. As the sausage cooks, some of the fat melts in to the cooking device and fuels the alcohol-based fire, and as this happens the flame goes from blue to yellow and the sound of sizzling fills the air.  The blue flame from burning alcohol is cooler than the ensuing yellow flame from the burning fat. The cooking process speeds up as the flame turns yellow and gets hotter. Turn the sausages carefully with tongs, and make sure to cook them until they are blackened.  Remove them from the flames too soon and the interior will be dry and hard.  Keep cooking the smoked sausages until they are crisped up on the outside, and the fat is melting on the inside.  One of our assadors acquired a small crack during the roasting party, so again, take precautions and take good care.

Video:

Linguica roasting over aguardente

We poured a rosé with the linguiça, to match the flavoring component of the sausage.  A dry, hard cider and beer were also fine accompaniments, along with a Colombian bean dish, a selection of cheeses including the outstanding Winnimere cheese from Jasper Hill Farm in Vermont, and a fine green salad supplied by some excellent cooks among the company at the table.  We ate, as the Hawaiians say, until we were tired.

Notes for further study: There are other versions of this type of sausage brazing grill – This one uses skewers, for example.  This one shows a much deeper, sturdier cooker  which we are interested in acquiring, in case anyone knows where to get one. Here is a video recipe that shows grilled linguiça as a garnish for a small soup.

 

 


[i] Read: The Cat That Walked by Himself, by Rudyard Kipling: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2781/2781-h/2781-h.htm#2H_4_0011

Alice’s Excellent Gluten Free Pancakes or Waffles with Wild Blueberries

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Alice's Excellent Pancakes and Waffles gfzing dot com 2012
Pancakes and Waffles - gluten free from gfzing dot com

In October of 2005 I shared excellent pancake and waffle recipe with you all. Buy some frozen blueberries and real dark maple syrup before you read any further.  In 2012 it is updated to include information about our favorite waffle iron – we have no commercial affiliation with Nordic Ware by the way, we just like their stove-top waffle iron better than any of the electric models we have tried over the years..

This recipe works with buttermilk as well – for the pancakes.  It makes the best waffles if you stick with almond milk as the liquid.

Mix in bowl:
1 cup brown rice flour
1/2 cup potato starch flour
1/4 cup tapioca flour
1/4 cup cornstarch
1 Tablespoon GF baking powder
1 Tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt

In another bowl:
1 1/2 cups almond milk
3 eggs
4 Tablespoons vegetable oil

Stir the two mixtures together. Heat a non-stick pan on medium, add
butter or margarine. When pan is hot, pour batter to form pancakes (1/2
cup makes a beautiful big pancake), sprinkle with frozen blueberries.
Wait until the bubbles that form in the pancake start turning into holes
(if you don’t wait long enough the pancake will be hard to turn) but not
so long that the pancake burns, then flip. When other side is cooked,
transfer to plate and serve with real maple syrup – use the Grade B syrup which has the most flavor…

To use this recipe for waffles, use only 2 eggs and add another
tablespoon of oil. Omit the blueberries. Waffles take 4-6 minutes to cook.

Update in 2012 For best waffle results, try a Nordic Ware stovetop waffle iron – the belgian waffle type – and brush it lightly with vegetable oil before heating.  You have to practice with these waffle irons a few times to get it right. On our stove you heat it on medium high for three minutes, then flip it and heat the other side for 3 minutes. Then, you open it, pour in one and a half cups of batter, close it and cook for 1 minute, then flip and cook for 2 minutes.  That makes the perfect waffle in the photograph.

If you are serving food to gluten-free friends, check carefully with the manufacturers, or on the reputable internet-based gluten free food lists, to make sure that all ingredients are gluten free. Or, ask your friends which brands are safe for them to eat.

 

Eating for the End of the World

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This shows Jan 29 2012 in Mayan calendar notation. It was produced by this nifty Mayan calendar date generator: http://www.pauahtun.org/cgi-bin/gregmaya.py

*


 

 

 

I see it’s time to obtain my Mayan calendar refill.  Everyone seems to be preparing for the end of the world, so I searched for a Mayan calendar refill  for the pocket organizer that was going to make me in to a better, more organized and productive person in 1990. A new Mayan calendar, simply starting at December of 2012 instead of ending there, would solve the world-is-ending problem and I could get on to thinking about what to cook.  I did not locate a paper calendar refill but something even better! An enterprising soul has seen this business opportunity, and (incredibly) filed a patent application for a circular wooden version of the ancient Mayan system.  With a purchase of a minimum of 20 wooden calendars, my end-of-the-world problem is solved![i]

Now it’s time to move on to the food. Preparing for the end of the world, any meal might be our last meal, so we should make each one delicious.  Send me your Suggestion for Meals for the End of the World –

your “last meal idea” including a website for a recipe if there is one, and I will post the very best of them in a giant menu of wonderful options. Please  join me in making a time capsule of 2012 eating, (for anyone who still has internet access after the end of the world.)


[i] http://www.mayantimekeeper.com/

*http://www.pauahtun.org/cgi-bin/gregmaya.py

Note: Eating for the End of the World is a play on words using a song by Elvis Costello lyric “Waiting for the End of the World.”

Leek, Potato and Cauliflower Potage

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This is an easy, vegetarian gluten free soup from the website gfzing.com to serve as a first course or as a main course with an accompaniment of gluten free toast or scones.

It is delicious!

In a large pot, place 3 leeks, cleaned, trimmed and chopped, 5 Red Bliss potatoes, peeled and cut in half, and about a third of a head of cauliflower, cleaned and cut in to flowerets.

Pour in water to cover (6-8 cups), add 2 teaspoons of salt and bring to a boil, turn down to a simmer and cook until the potatoes and cauliflower are tender, about 20 minutes.  Add 2 tablespoons of ghee (clarified browned butter) and a 1/2 teaspoon of freshly ground pepper, then puree the soup carefully using an immersion blender stick until it is velvety.  If you do not have an immersion blender, use a regular blender or food processor, being careful not to burn yourself with the hot soup.

Note:  If you are a wheatavore serving a gluten-free diner, make sure to use plain fresh water to make this soup. Don’t use water that was just used for cooking pasta, for example.

Test the soup for salt and balanced flavors, then serve sprinkled with a little chopped parsley if you have some.

It would be fine to substitute other vegetables for the cauliflower – for example: carrot,s sweet potato, broccoli, peas, spinach etc.

Make sure all the ingredients are gluten free.

Baked Gluten Free Chicken Burgers

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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!

Sealed With A Quiche

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Including a food trend prediction for 2012…

 

By Alice DeLuca

 

When first married, I received lots of advice on how to stay married which is of course so much more complicated than “getting” married. For example, Sally told me that both a happy marriage and a career had been possible for her because she created and froze 4 quiches at a time.  I immediately pictured 4 quiches in the deepfreeze, carefully labeled for rotation of the stock so as to avoid freezer-burn and waste. The quiches would keep.

 

Sally said she could just run home, pop a frozen quiche in the oven, and make a salad and – presto – dinner was on the table.  That was the clue to a happy marriage for a woman who began her career in the late 1960s and lived through the advent of non-stick cookware and the 1970s food processor revolution.  She soldiered on with frozen pie shells to make all things possible.[i] Sally’s husband enjoyed both a fabulous career and his hot meals without ever giving a thought to the benefits of compulsive quiche stockpiling. Sally did remain married and retained her career right through to retirement, so perhaps the quiche did the trick and the best wedding present for the new couple today would be a sturdy porcelain pie plate.

 

American quiche from the 1980s bears little resemblance to the quiches that graced the window of every charcuterie in Paris in the 1970s.  The French Quiche Lorraine was a tart made with poitrine fumée, diced in to tiny delicious fatty cubes, just a hint of smoke barely held in suspension by a creamy egg custard.  The total thickness of the quiche was just a matter of a few centimeters.  The crust was buttery and flaky.

 

American artisanal quiche of the 1970s and 80s was really more of a pie, and a close relative of the casserole.  Its deep-dish heart and soul was convenient sustenance with no hint of subtlety, yet it was delicious in its own right.  Almost anything that could be considered main-course fare was served up in a quiche. It seemed like every restaurant served quiche[ii] and salad, and there were whole restaurants in the West that were entirely devoted to pie of all types and served up quiche in quarters.  A quarter of a quiche was a serving.  Up until at least the 1990s, it was still possible to waltz in to a Frontier Pies in Wyoming and buy a hearty slab of quiche for a quick dinner.  Pioneer Pies was another such restaurant.  In the early 2000s these pie-themed restaurants fell on hard times, but now that we are hearing that “pie is the new cupcake” perhaps these wonderful pie restaurants will make a comeback?  They have a web presence again, although their menus show pie only as an afterthought, but we can perhaps hope and dream.

 

If you want to stock-pile frozen American downhome quiches as a hedge against late meetings and bad traffic, there is no better place to start looking for recipes than the cookbooks put out by local women’s groups during the height of the quiche rush[iii].  I use a deep dish 9-inch Pyrex pie plate, recalling however that as a marriage-saving device my friend used frozen pie shells.  (Why not compromise and stockpile your own frozen pie shells?)  The general rule that I follow is based on the Colorado Cache Cookbook:

 

For the custard that holds things together in the 9 inch Pyrex plate, beat together:

 

4 large chicken eggs

1 ½ cups of cream or other milk-based products

Seasoning such as salt and pepper, dried marjoram, fresh parsley, chives, a grating of nutmeg etc.

 

The flavoring and savory ingredients are up to the artisan.  As a thoroughly mundane but delicious example of the filling, you could prepare the following ingredients and sprinkle them evenly in to an unbaked gluten-free pastry shell.

 

Hickory-smoked bacon fried until crisp (omit for vegetarian)

Spanish onions fried in butter until golden

½ pound of Gruyere or other hard cheese loitering in the refrigerator, coarsely grated to yield 2 cups

 

Pour the beaten custard over all of these and bake at 400 degrees F for 40 minutes, more or less, until a knife inserted in the center comes out barely clean.  Serve warm.  Or, freeze for later to save your marriage.

 

Other savory filling choices might be spinach and feta, ratatouille, wild mushroom with thyme (vegetarian), duck and preserved lemon (for meat-eaters), boneless Buffalo wings and gluten free blue cheese (for meat-eaters), five onion varieties (onion, garlic, shallot, leek, and scallion).  The choices for savory fillings are certainly not limited to the tastes of the 1970s.  Latin American, Cambodian, Thai, what sorts of quiche innovations await us now?

 

An American quiche renaissance is predicted – you heard it here first – and this will come as a great relief to the increasing number of people keeping “home flocks” of hens and consequently holding a surplus of eggs.  The future of so many fledgling marriages and careers could depend upon a happy wedding of eggs and cheese.

 

[i] “Food Timeline: History Notes-pie & Pastry.” Food Timeline: Food History & Vintage Recipes. Web. 28 Dec. 2011. <http://www.foodtimeline.org/foodpies.html>.

David, Elizabeth, and Juliet Renny. French Provincial Cooking. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1984. Print.

[ii] Kalter, Suzy. “Jaye Tishman’s Business Is Serving Quiche to the Stars, and That’s Not Just Pie in the Sky: People.com.” People.com: The #1 Celebrity Site for Breaking News, Celebrity Pictures and Star Style. 30 Nov. 1981. Web. 28 Dec. 2011. http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20080809,00.html.

“When it comes to quiche, John Travolta prefers chicken-and-corn, Barbra Streisand orders broccoli-and-mushroom and Suzanne Pleshette likes Roquefort. So confides Jaye Tishman, 43, proprietor-chef of Ms. Tish’s Quiche Co. in Los Angeles, whose clientele reads like the Bel Air phone book. Her egg-and-cheese pies, which come in more than 100 varieties (from apple to zucchini), have themselves become celebrities of a sort. “Ms. Tish’s quiche boggles the senses,” raves food critic Merrill Shindler of the Los Angeles Herald Examiner. “It’s as close to perfect as I could want.”…”

[iii] Colorado Cache Cookbook. Denver, CO: Junior League of Denver, 1978. Print.

Gillies, Linda, Anita Muller, and Pamela Patterson. A Culinary Collection; Recipes from Members of the Board of Trustees and Staff of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1973. Print. (including a recipe for lettuce and bacon quiche)

Quiche – gluten free!

Gluten Free Cinnamon Rolls

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Originally published January 14, 2009 and updated on December 28, 2012.

In 2009 we hit upon a really good gluten free cinnamon roll and in 2012 we still think these are great.  Here is how you make these not-too-sweet cinnamon rolls.  Make the dough for dinner rolls described at the Book of Yum website ,  omitting all flavorings except the salt (don’t use rosemary, sun-dried tomatoes, or any of those sorts of things) to make a plain dinner roll dough:

http://www.bookofyum.com/blog/adeenas-gluten-free-rosemary-teff-dinner-roll-recipe-1478.html

Then proceed as follows:

Make a mixture of 1/2 cup brown sugar and 1 teaspoon cinnamon and set aside (you may need more of this mixture depending on how much you put in each roll.)  Get out some yellow raisins and set aside.

Put a paper muffin liner in to each part of a 12-cup muffin pan and 6 more cups from another pan (total of 18).

Put about 1/2 cup mochiko rice (sweet rice) flour on a large piece of wax or parchment paper.  Make 3 rolls at a time as follows, take about 1/2 to 3/4 cup of the mixed plain roll dough and plop it onto the rice flour.  The mochiko flour should be nice and thick on the paper to keep the dough from sticking.

Pat the dough into a rectangle about 7 inches wide by 4 inches tall, and a little less than a 1/2 inch thick.  These are rough measurements.  Dot the surface with butter (6 small bits of butter, totaling about 1 Tablespoon.)  Sprinkle the surface (the whole surface of the rectangle) with a few tablespoons of the brown sugar/cinnamon mixture, and sprinkle with 8-10 raisins, distributing evenly.  Very gently, roll the rectangle up like a jelly roll (from the 7 inch side), so that in the end you have a 7 inch long roll.  Slice the roll in to 3 equal length sections.  Put each section in to a paper-lined muffin cup so that the cut side is facing up.  The top of the roll should show some sugar filling. Proceed the same way until you have used up all the dough.  As you work, rearrange the remaining rice flour on the paper to provide a nice cushion for the dough.

Set the rolls aside to rise until doubled – this takes about 1/2 hour to 1 hour on a warm radiator.  Bake to rolls at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes or until a knife comes out clean.

Allow to cool briefly, then slather each one with some of the following mixture.

  • 2 Tablespoons softened butter
  • 2 cups confectioner’s sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
  • enough fresh orange juice to make a nice frosting

Another excellent recipe for Cinnamon Rolls – Gluten Free – is available here: http://www.food.com/recipe/cinnabon-ish-cinnamon-rolls-gluten-free-376575/review

Say Cheese! – making homemade cheese

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By Alice DeLuca

 

Many years ago, on a train traveling slowly through the French countryside – I don’t remember exactly where and I refuse to invent a location for the sake of a story – I met a man whose job it was to sell cheese mold.  This friendly man was sitting in the same compartment with me.  I was naturally apprehensive when he started to speak. Sometimes men traveling on trains want to share stories and sometimes they want to show young women other things whether the women are interested or not, but that is another story.

 

The suited gentleman had a tidy briefcase which he offered to open so that I could see his wares.  It was a great relief to find that he was a genuine gentleman, and that what he wanted to display was an assortment of tiny envelopes containing samples of unique cheese molds that were required in the production of famous French cheeses such as Camembert and Brie.  Perhaps interpreting my relief at his desire to talk about cheese as an ardent interest in learning about his profession, he explained the whole process by which these molds would be sprayed on the cheeses during the manufacturing process.  The uniform, paint-white rind of fresh Brie, with its mushroomy aroma, had mystified me until that moment when I learned that the rind was a fungus just like the kind of thing that produces mushrooms and that this fungus was sprayed on to the cheeses; an aerosol mushroom.  I had wrongly pictured the right molds, living in the area, just meandering in on a fresh lavender-scented breeze from the French countryside and settled conveniently on each cheese, creating a uniform coating.

 

In fact, a mushroom is the fruiting body of an underground fungus, poking up through the forest floor.  The Brie cheese rind is seeded with the spores of a particular fungus that does not make those pop-up fruiting bodies.  So, fine cheese and mushrooms are related, which makes sense when you think about it, and I got the first inkling of this knowledge on a rumbling train.

 

It was also news to me at the time that cheeses were mass-produced rather than made individually the way we had tried to do at home.  Unlike our lonesome artisanal cheeses that cured with the native spores traveling through the air at our house, there were whole rooms full of camembert, just sitting around waiting to be sprayed with precisely engineered mold. I pictured in my mind whole rooms full of cheeses just sitting there, waiting.

 

Our few attempts at making homemade cheese had been laborious.  One particular cheese required a few gallons of whole, unpasteurized milk and some rennet, a funky smelling material derived from the stomach of a cow. You could obtain rennet at almost any grocery store by purchasing a package of “junket” mix – this is actually rennet that can be added to milk to make a sort of custardy dessert that has now fallen out of favor – or you could purchase rennet tablets specifically intended for cheesemaking, in a small cylindrical vial.[i] We used the rennet tablets and our homemade cheese had a pleasant flavor.  We coated the cheese with wax that we tinted turquoise with candle-dye, to make our cheese stand out from those endearing goudas encased in the bright red wax that children love to play with at the table, annoying the grownups.  Our wax was too hard and did not have the elasticity of the red cheese wax, so there were occasional holes and leaks in our coating which we patched horribly with little globs of additional wax.  As amateurs we had lots of enthusiasm, but we didn’t have all the skills and equipment of the professionals.

 

There are so many diverse careers out there in the world.  Here was a man who traveled around on trains with a suitcase full of mold.  He provided a vital service to one of France’s major food industries, and he obviously enjoyed the work, the travel and the conversations along the way. He was not a Willy Loman character[ii] suffering from depression and despair, ruining his home life with his philandering ways.  He was a proud, friendly gentleman who happily went about selling cheese mold to the heroes of French cuisine.  I did not get his name, and by now he must be a very old man, but if I could I would thank him and ask him so many more questions.

 

I encountered another great member of the world of cheese professionals on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, New York, in the 1980s. My memory is of a small shop where a lumberjack-sized man with large handlebar mustaches created mozzarella cheese with his bare hands.  He made it look easy, as he kneaded the white curds in nearly boiling water until the cheese stretched like taffy.  The process of creating hot ropes of cheese from milk turned out to be much trickier at home, especially since my hands were not used to being immersed in very hot water for extended periods. My hands turned red as they cooked, and I did not have the strength of this giant professional.

 

This video demonstration evokes the gentleness and patience of the true process similar to what I recall from watching the fellow making mozzarella in the Bronx in 1982: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_48-nGlxaw&feature=related[iii]

 

I have recently learned that it is possible to make homemade mozzarella using a microwave oven.  People swear by this method and some claim to make cheese every week, almost ritually. This development could revolutionize many home kitchens, whether or not the cook adopts an obsessive-compulsive cheese-making habit.  Following are links to a pictorial instruction on how this microwave mozzarella is made.  The thing that is missing though is the slow, steady stirring; the brilliant efficiency of the strainer sinking in to the whey to separate the curds; the loving kindness of the great artisanal food artist at work.

 

Homemade microwave mozzarella: http://www.cheesemaking.com/store/pg/21.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPUortoNUWo&feature=fvwrel

 

 

 

 

 

[i] Junket mix is still available today, and there are recipes for using it to make cheese here.

[ii] Miller, Arthur. Death of a Salesman.

[iii] This demonstration gives an idea of the same process done by cheese professionals: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2o-55_Hhjek&feature=related

Gluten Free Fruitcake

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The Best Laid Plans of Mice[i]….

By Alice DeLuca

 

The black-and-white “tuxedo” cat who moved in recently is sleeping on the radiator, as an early snowstorm downs trees and power lines outside, and there is no sign of any mouse in the kitchen.  At this time of year, just before guests start arriving for holiday meals, hordes of country mice would usually flood the house from every hole that is larger than a dime.  They are Old World house-mice and little New World white-footed mice. These tiny half-ounce creatures can run at 8 miles an hour and jump vertically to distances of a foot and a half.  The speed and agility explain how the fabulous mouse athletes got in to the chocolate, and also why we have a cat. Quite directly related to the presence of this cat is the very sparse influx of mice for the 2011 holiday season.

Mice Named After Famous English Cheeses - The Misses Cheddar - ADeL

These are “The Misses Cheddar,” from a series of costumed mice called “Mice Named After Famous English Cheeses” obtained in Britain in the late 1990s. They are shown alongside an American dime, to demonstrate that a dime-sized hole, through which mice can pass, is very small.

 

Some mice sing[ii] – a lucky person who lives near mice will have heard this unforgettably sweet song once or twice, and there are scientific references from long ago alerting us to the fact that mice are known to sing.  Despite this long-standing human knowledge, the internet abounds today with seemingly authoritative articles stating “It was recently discovered that male mice produce complex, ultrasonic songs” [iii] – but this is not news to anyone who lives around these delicate, small but annoying creatures.

 

The beautiful soprano warbling song coming from the silverware drawer late at night leaves me with mixed feelings.  On the one hand having mice in the kitchen is disagreeable – since they rarely venture more than fifty feet from their established nest, have hundreds of offspring, spread disease and inadvertently cause expensive damage when they nip through electrical wiring and such.  I do not blame them as they are just trying to live their lives, but when they nested in the seldom-used oven broiler, the conflagration of the nest caused a smoky incident that brought 3 fire fighters decked out in full turn-out gear to the house.  There followed a visit from an extremely well-compensated stove repair technician who nonchalantly advised me to “turn the broiler on at least once a month just to discourage them.”  He said he “saw this kind of thing all the time.”

 

A cascading mouse disaster also led to the expensive replacement of an automatic dishwasher – a mouse nested in the dishwasher insulation; the cat yanked off the bottom panel of the dishwasher to get at the mouse; the plumber who installed the new, replacement dishwasher said there was no point in plugging up the holes in the floor – “they can get in anywhere. It doesn’t matter what you do.”

 

Even while the mice cost us untold thousands of dollars and un-ending work, the presence of mice who have come in from the cold signals the start of one of the best food seasons of the year. It is a good season for roast pork, chicken and duck, and though many people today have lost touch with its glories, fruitcake.

 

A really good fruitcake made mostly of fruit, and soaked repeatedly in vast quantities of distilled liquor, is a great treat – very expensive and a required food for the winter season. The creation and production of a fruitcake marks the passing of time in the dark months. To have a fruitcake ready for the Christmas season, it is necessary to start working on the project now.

 

There follows a recipe for a terrific Fruitcake based on instructions from Darina Allen and Rosemary Kearney in their authentic and down-to-earth cookbook Healthy Gluten-Free Cooking. I have interpreted their instruction to season with “mixed spice” through research on such mixtures curated by the authoritative Elizabeth David, and I have adulterated the cake by completely saturating it with copious quantities of high quality gluten free Irish whisky*. (For the gluten free status of this whisky, see: http://www.jamesonwhiskey.com/Distillery/Meet-the-Distillery-Masters/FAQ.aspx)

 

1. Prepare an 8 ½” inch round, 3” deep pan, buttered and then lined with parchment. The parchment should stick up at least 1 ½ “ above the top of the pan. We have used one pan that was originally purchased to make cheesecake during the cheesecake mania of the early 1980s and have also used a spring-form pan effectively.

 

2. Mix up a batch of Mixed Spice (there will be some leftover after you use a teaspoon to make the cake so you can store that in a bottle for other uses). This mixture is based “loosely” on one from Elizabeth David’s English Bread and Yeast Cookery.  I say “loosely” because I made a careless error in transcribing it at one time or another, and doubled the ginger.  The error has persisted and this is the mixture I use. Again note that this will yield 3 teaspoons of which you will use only 1 :

1 teaspoon ginger
½ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon cloves
½ teaspoon nutmeg
½ teaspoon cinnamon

 

3. An important and informative note on Whisky:  We use the better part of a quart of Jameson’s Irish Whisky for this cake.  I would recommend that you use an Irish Whisky that does not have any smokiness to its flavor.  Some Irish whisky is “enhanced” by smoked peat and frankly that flavor would do nothing good to this cake.

4. Use a kitchen scale to weigh the ingredients for this recipe.

5. Macerate the Fruit ingredients for an hour or so – the timing is truly irrelevant as this is not science and very little whisky is involved at this point in the recipe:

2 ounces sliced almonds

2 ounces finely ground almonds

12 ounces brown raisins

12 ounces golden raisins

12 ounces dried currants

1 cup (8 ounces) glace cherries (leave whole or cut in half but no smaller than half. I have successfully used dried cherries that have been rehydrated and cooked in a sugar syrup)[iv]

½ cup (4 ounces) candied citron – you can use homemade candied citrus peel instead[v]

Shredded rind of both an orange and a lemon

2 Tablespoons of Jameson’s Irish whisky (Jameson’s is an excellent choice – a whisky that does not have heavy “tobacco” notes – and noted as gluten free on the manufacturer’s website 2011-11-29)

 

Note: You want a total of 3 pounds of dried fruit, with vine fruits predominating.  Candied Pineapple can be added successfully, providing a nice textural nuance. Currants are a required ingredient.  Much different from raisins, currants are sugar-packed and have a crystallized texture that cannot be achieved with any substitution.

Raisins and Currants ADeLuca 2011
Vine Fruits Predominate in a fine fruitcake

6. Preheat oven to 350 F.

7. Mix the Wet ingredients:

Cream 8 ounces of sweet butter, then stir in 8 ounces of brown sugar and beat until “pale and light.” Add 6 eggs one at a time, beating after each addition.

8. Mix the Dry ingredients:

 

Mix one teaspoon Mixed Spice[vi] with 8 ounces of finely ground almonds, 4 ounces of white rice flour (finely ground rice flour is available in Asian groceries – make sure it is rice flour and not sweet rice flour), 2 teaspoons of xanthan gum[vii], 1 cooking apple shredded (Golden Russet, Baldwin, Yellow Delicious).

9. Mixing and Baking:

 

Stir the Wet ingredients in to the Dry ingredients, and then add the Fruit ingredients. Do not overbeat. Scoop the very thick mixture in to the parchment-lined pan.  Wet your hand and use your hand to smooth the top. Bake the cake for one hour, then reduce the heat to 325 and bake the cake for another 2 hours until a skewer comes out clean.  The cake will be very dark. The original recipe calls for more baking, but I have found that it is important to start checking the cake after 2 hours.

10. Soaking:

 

Remove the pan from the oven and pour 2 ounces additional Irish whiskey over the cake. Let cool in the pan overnight.

11. More Soaking, a critical addition to an excellent recipe: Remove the cooled cake from the pan and remove the parchment.  Wrap the cake in cheesecloth, and then soak the cake liberally with an additional ½ cup of Irish whiskey. Wrap the cheesecloth covered cake in an outer layer of tinfoil to completely cover the cake, then store the whiskied-up, tinfoil-covered cake in a tin or other container. Every 1-2 weeks, or whenever you remember, remove the cake from its tinfoil wrapper and soak the cake liberally on all sides with additional Irish whiskey. Restore the foil and put it back in its storage container. Continue soaking the cake every couple of weeks until Christmas.

12. In the original Allen/Kearney cookbook, there are elaborate instructions for adding an almond paste coating that I have never tried.  It sounds like a good idea, but since we soak our cake in whiskey we have not felt the need for the almond paste coating.

 

Our fruitcake will be safe from the mice this year, well-wrapped and now protected by the feline security system. The cat has shown the discouraged mice the door, and they have packed up and moved their residence outside to the car. They continue to be very expensive tenants, however, and I have just received the car repair bill – $99 for removing a mouse nest from the engine.

Mouse Nesting in the car
Mouse Nesting in the car engine - a very expensive problem

 

The cat brings his own set of problems and expenses, but he is a charming and effective mouse-deterrent.  He is good company, and does not eat and contaminate all the stored food, such as the all-important fruitcake – a medieval gourmet treat that marks the coming of the darkest season with the hope of new fruit on the vine the following summer.

 

[i] Burns, Robert.  “To A Mouse. On turning her up in her nest with the plough”, November 1785. Accessed November 29, 2011 http://www.rbwf.org.uk/poems/translations/554.htm.

[ii] Dice, Lee R. 1932.”The Songs of Mice”, Journal of Mammology, Volume 13 Number 3. Accessed October 31, 2011 http://www.jstor.org/pss/1373992.

[iii] Ballenger, L. 1999. “Mus musculus” (On-line), Animal Diversity Web. Accessed October 31, 2011 http://www.animaldiversity.org/site/accounts/information/Mus_musculus.html.

[iv] Witty, Helen, and Elizabeth Schneider Colchie. Better than Store-bought: a Cookbook. New York: Harper & Row, 1979. Print.  This book contains extensive instructions on candying a variety of fruits.

[v] Witty, Helen, and Elizabeth Schneider Colchie. Better than Store-bought: a Cookbook. New York: Harper & Row, 1979. Print.  This book contains extensive instructions on candying a variety of fruits.

[vi]The following mixture is based on reading David, Elizabeth. English Bread and Yeast Cookery. New York: Viking, 1980. Print. …and several other books..  and then making a transcription error many years ago.

1 teaspoon ginger

½ teaspoon pepper

½ teaspoon cloves

½ teaspoon nutmeg

½ teaspoon cinnamon

 

[vii] The Xanthan Gum compensates for the lack of gluten in rice flour.

Day of the Un-Dead

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The Day of the Dead and Halloween are nearly upon us and I am frantically digging for recipes that can protect the living against the Un-dead.  Books and papers fly as I paw through shelves and piles, seeking something to ward off the Zombies, Vampires and Werewolves that may be lurking outside the door, or that may invade my kitchen at any moment. They all have highly specialized dentition designed to make swift work of the main course – me!

I’m calling on restaurateurs –  please, this time of the year, an “amuse bouche” for the living might be just the thing to calm the customer’s nerves. Could chefs please get a little creative, and instead of offering me a puddle of olive oil, or herbed olive oil, or olives in a lake of olive oil with obligatory bread (that I don’t eat anyway), could they provide something that will protect our table from monsters? Let’s get our priorities straight please; safety comes first!

You can’t ward off zombies per se, with garlic or crosses, but you can put something on the table that won’t attract them to your establishment in the first place.   How about some complimentary zombie-immune starters along these lines:

  • Vegetable Pakoras with  a little yogurt sauce or a cilantro chutney on the side
  • Lightly pickled Carrot sticks and Dilly Beans, seasoned with garlic of course
  • A homemade cheddar-garbanzo bean cracker with a pear chutney
  • An endive boat with a vegetarian Banh Mi style filling
  • A black lentil salad with plantain chips
  • Yucca Fries with a sprinkling of salt and various peppers, and fresh limes

And chefs, if all the customers start moaning after the salad course, don’t assume narcissistically that they are in ecstasy over the fabulous new pâté de foie.  Admit it, you were just making the pâté as a cost-recovery measure to use up chicken livers. It’s time to think on your feet – could the moaning coming from the dining room be a sign of zombie behavior spectrum disorder [i]? If so, take appropriate action immediately.  If you are a fan of the zombie movie genre, you will know that you cannot necessarily trust anyone at this point, not even your sous-chef.  Especially take  note of this if you happen to be in Nashville, Tennessee this weekend where the Zombie Buffet 5K will be happening.

For the Vampire problem, everyone already knows to wear a garlic necklace, and frankly a random grouping of bulbs of garlic would fit right in with the giant globular necklace trends this season.  Help us out please!  Let’s see some velvety aioli, or the Greek skorthalia, or perhaps a beautiful green broccoli-garlic spread for gluten-free crositni or crackers – so easy to make, so garlicky and so green and lively that no zombie or vampire will come near the eater.

Broccoli spread:

  • · For each ½ pound of broccoli florets, 2 cloves garlic – peeled, 2-3 tablespoons olive oil, salt, pepper
  • · Bring water to a full rolling boil.  Add the broccoli and cook until tender in boiling water, about 5-10 minutes, uncovered.  Drain, dry and put into the food processor with the raw garlic.  Process until smooth,   adding the oil as needed.  Season with salt and pepper. Serve at room temperature on gluten-free crostini or crackers.

One caveat about the drinks menu – The brilliant Zombie movie  Ahhh! Zombies, a tale told from the perspective of the unfortunate zombies themselves, clearly demonstrates that to keep from attracting zombies you must absolutely avoid brain milkshakes, so there is no need for chefs to develop grizzly new martinis on the brain theme, thank you very mush.

For the werewolves, you need only serve the broccoli appetizer on a silver platter, and your diners’ problems with werewolves will be over.  No matter who comes through the front door, the customers will be able to survive until the dessert course.

[i] The Zombie Attack Disaster Preparedness Plan from the University of Florida http://www.astro.ufl.edu/~jybarra/zombieplan.pdf

 

Spicy Sticky Cherry Blueberry Sauce for Ribs

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This nicely balanced 100% gluten free spicy, sweet and sour sauce from gfzing.com will go perfectly with barbecued ribs.

The ingredients are ideal for late June and early July:

First, in a non-stick pan, caramelize

  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 1 teaspoon vegetable oil
  • 1/3 teaspoon salt

To caramelize, cook the mixture over low heat, stirring all the while, until the sugar clumps together in little lumps and then gradually melts in to a brown pool.

Add:

  • 1 clove garlic, peeled and minced
  • 1 dried cayenne pepper, chopped (about 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes)

Cook for just a few seconds, then

Carefully deglaze the pan with

  • 6 TB high-quality red wine vinegar (homemade is best)

There may be some spattering when you add the vinegar, so step back a bit and use a long-handled spoon to stir!

Stir constantly and when the sugar mass is nearly dissolved, add

  • 1 cup halved, pitted fresh bing cherries
  • 1/2 cup whole fresh blueberries

Cherry Blueberry Sauce plus fruit gfzing dot com

Raise the heat to medium and cook to thicken a bit, about 4 minutes.

Last, refresh the sauce with

  • 2 cloves of garlic, peeled and minced

Stir briefly and set aside.

Serve with barbecued ribs, duck or chicken.  In the winter, serve a similar sauce, using other fruits in season, for a roast dinner.

Homemade Seasoned Rice Vinegar

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Gfzing.com is once again bringing you the DIY recipe you have been looking for – how to make your own seasoned rice vinegar – the kind of vinegar that is used to make sushi.

The proportions for making Japanese seasoned rice vinegar are as follows – as described in the interesting Japanese cookbook Japanese Cooking for the American Table (by Karen Green, 1986, ISBN 0-87477-376-8).

Mix:

  • 4 TB rice vinegar
  • 2 TB sugar
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons salt

That’s it!  In any recipe that calls for seasoned rice vinegar you can use this mixture.  If you include your own homemade vinegar, even better! You can be sure that your seasoned rice vinegar is gluten free!

 

Armenian Dessert Cake with Syrup – gluten free

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Armenian syrup cake w honey gfzing

This outstanding dessert is a seriously sweet, robust cinnamon-clove flavored cake soaked until wet with a honey-lemon syrup.  The cake tastes like baklava, and is served cold, with whipped cream if desired.

Originally, this dessert is made with Cream of Wheat. Gfzing.com has adapted it to be gluten free, replacing the Cream of Wheat with Cream of Rice and cornmeal. The recipe is from Rose Baboian’s Armenian-American Cook Book, published in 1964. The book seems to have its own Facebook page now, and is available for sale here: http://www.stvartanbookstore.com/browseproducts/Armenian-American-Cookbook–hc.html.  Similar recipes for cereal cakes abound around the internet, with Greek, Lebanese etc. variations.

Make this cake by hand, for aerobic exercise.

If you are making this in a wheatavore kitchen, bring in your own sugar or make sure that their sugar does not have remnants of wheat flour from wheatavore cooks using the same measuring cup for flour and then for sugar.

Grease and 8×8 pan or 9×9 pan well, using the wrapper from your butter.

Preheat oven to 350.

Cream together:

  • 10 TB salted butter
  • 3/4 cup white sugar
  • 1/2 cup dark brown sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspoon cloves

Add and stir to incorporate:

  • 1/2 cup dry uncooked Cream of Rice cereal
  • 1/2 cup cornmeal
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 3/4 cup finely chopped walnuts
  • 3/4 cup shredded coconut

 

Add and stir to incorporate:

  • 1/4 cup milk

 

Add one at a time and stir til well mixed:

  • 3 eggs (large)

Pour in to the greased pan and spread out to distribute evenly.  Bake at 350 degrees, 45 minutes for 8×8 pan, 35 minutes for 9×9. A knife inserted in the cake should come out clean.  Take the cake from the oven, hold it ten inches above the counter and drop the pan straight down on the counter to settle the cake.  The cake should be top side up, still in the pan – you are just settling it, not removing it from the pan.

Make a syrup of

  • 1 cup white sugar
  • 1 cup water

 

Bring to a boil, then add

  • 1 Tablespoon honey
  • 1 soup spoon of fresh lemon juice

Pour the hot syrup evenly over the cake. Cover the pan and let sit until room temperature, then chill until cold. Cut into squares. The syrup will settle to the bottom of the cake, leaving that part sort of  “juicy.”

Use all gluten-free ingredients!

Sangria with strawberries

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gfzing dot com sangria fruit
It is nearly 100 degrees outside, and humid, so what better use of some dry red table wine than a tasty cold sangria to drink with a leisurely dinner of potato salad?  The cinnamon in this recipe lends a certain richness and depth to an otherwise light-hearted drink.

We followed along with and embellished upon the ideas expressed at the interesting Spanish website La Receta de La Felicidad that lists Webos Fritos among its ancestors.  These folks add salt and pepper to their sangria – brilliant!  We added lime and triple sec.

Combine and chill:

1 liter (1 wine bottle) of red wine – sangiovese is a dry red

1 fresh lime, washed carefully and finely sliced (peel and all)

12 ounces of fresh strawberries, washed carefully and sliced

3 TB of gluten free orange liqueur (a gluten free triple sec) or 3 TB sugar

1/2 – 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 – 1/2 teaspoon black pepper (depending on how spicy you like)

1 pinch of salt

1 Tablespoon vanilla (we make our own by soaking split vanilla beans in potato vodka for months and months)

Mix together fruit and wine and chill completely (about 2-4 hours).  Add the spices and vanilla. Serve in wine glasses with plenty of the berry slices in each glass.  The limes are there for flavor – you don’t necessarily eat the slices of lime.

We would have taken a photo of the glass of sangria, but all that was left was the fruit! Eat the fruit with a spoon.

According to the new food pyramid (which is now a plate), the combination of a potato salad made with grated carrots and hard-boiled eggs, and a glass of this sangria with fruit, would satisfy most of the requirements except for the mysterious “dairy” circle.  That dairy circle could be taken care of with a simple slice of manchego cheese.  And done! – a balanced meal.

 

 

 

Gluten Free Reuben Sandwich

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gfzing reuben sandwich

A craving for a gluten free Reuben Sandwich (Grill) sent me to the local supermarket in search of corned beef, sauerkraut, swiss cheese, dressing and gluten free “rye bread” since I have not made some.  Well, of course disappointment awaited, since they carry no gluten free corned beef at the store.  How is it possible to put wheat in corned beef?  It’s meat, right?  Sliced meat.  Of gluten free rye bread, there was none.

A few compromises later, and I had a decent sandwich that had much in common with a Reuben sandwich.  The following is a very good sandwich in its own right, and the directions show how to obtain the melted cheese and hot interior of a fine sandwich, despite the remarkable insulating qualities of gluten free bread.

Ingredients:

2 slices Rudi’s gluten free Cinnamon Raisin Bread

2 teaspoons butter

2 thin slices baby swiss cheese

2 thin slices gluten free deli barbecue chicken (check the label on the Dietz & Watson brand which at this writing was labeled gluten free)

Sauerkraut (check the status on refrigerated Ba-Tampte New Kraut which at this writing was labeled with these ingredients: Cabbage, Water, Vinegar, Salt, Sugar, Less Than 1/10 of 1% Benzoate of Soda, Sodium Bisulfite).

1 TB gluten free Thousand Island dressing (check the status of the Wishbone brand which at this writing was labeled gluten free.)

Melt the butter in a frying pan on medium low heat.  Put the two slices of bread in the melted butter to coat one side of each slice.  Turn off the heat and set the bread aside.

Drain 2 TB of the sauerkraut, place it in a microwavable glass dish and microwave for about 1 minute until hot. Set aside.

Put one slice of buttered bread, butter side down, in the pan.  Coat the top side of that slice with Thousand Island dressing. Lay the 2 slices of cheese and the 2 slices of chicken on top.  Cover with the other slice of bread, butter side up.

Turn the heat to medium low, and cover the pan.  The goal here is to brown the bread without burning the raisins. Fry the sandwich for about 1 minute (check to make sure the bread toasts but doesn’t burn).  When the bread on the bottom is brown, flip the sandwich and cook for 1 minute (covered) on the other side.  When both sides are toasted, transfer the sandwich to a microwavable plate.

Open the sandwich and add the pre-heated sauerkraut. Close the sandwich.

Microwave the sandwich for 1 minutes until the cheese melts.  (Adding the microwave step is the key to melting the cheese when using gluten free bread). Slice the sandwich in two pieces and serve!

Make sure that all your ingredients are gluten free!

 

Vegetarian Maple Baked Beans

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gfzing maple baked beans

These gluten free, simple baked beans are sweetened with maple syrup and maple sugar and have minimal ingredients.  They bake for a long time while your slow-cooked meat is cooking on the grill. Despite the small quantity of pepper they are surprisingly spicy.

Note: you add the salt to dried beans at the end of the cooking, so the beans will not toughen.

12 ounces dried flageolet beans (soaked overnight or pressure cooked for 2 minutes and allowed to sit until the pressure reduces naturally, or boiled for 2 minutes and allowed to sit for 1 hour.)

Drain the soaked beans and put them in an ovenproof casserole with a lid.  We use a Corningware casserole that hold 2.5 liters or quarts.

Add to the drained beans:

2 Tablespoons ghee (clarified browned butter)

1/3 cup dark maple syrup

1/3 cup maple sugar

1/2 teaspoon black pepper (less if you don’t like spicy food)

1 large onion, peeled and diced

1 1/2 teaspoons French’s mustard (verify that this product is gluten free at the time of purchase)

2 Tablespoons of gluten free chili powder

4 cups boiling water

Cover and bake at 350 for 2 hours, remove the cover and continue to bake until the liquid has reduced to a thick sauce – another 2 hours or more is not unusual.  Stir occasionally.

When the beans are done, add 1 Tablespoon of table salt and stir thoroughly.

 

 

Gluten Free Sourdough Banana Bread

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This delicious, intensely-flavored banana bread is baked with brown rice flour sourdough, cinnamon and brown sugar.  It stands up to a good buttering!

Here is a real, honest picture of this bread, highlighting the banana elements.

Gluten Free Sourdough Banana Bread gfzing

First, make a gluten free sourdough starter according to this recipe http://www.gfzing.com/2011/gluten-free-sourdough-starter-and-pancakes/.  Then, the night before you want to make banana bread,  make a brown rice flour Overnight Sponge using 1 cup of brown rice flour and 1 cup of water, added to your starter.

Next day:

Preheat oven to 350 F degrees

Line a 9×5 loaf pan with parchment paper – use one large piece of paper and fold at the corners so that no part of the inside of the pan is showing

Ingredients:

1 cup gluten free sourdough Overnight Sponge (return the rest of the sponge, covered,  to the refrigerator – that will be the “starter” for the next project)

1/2 cup white sugar

1 cup dark brown sugar

1/2 cup melted butter

2 eggs, beaten

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup mashed banana (about 2 bananas)

1 teaspoon gluten free ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon baking soda dissolved in 1 teaspoon water

1 1/2 cups finely ground brown rice flour mixed with 1 teaspoon xantham gum

Mix all ingredients up through the cinnamon, then add the baking soda mixture, then the rice flour mixture.  Stir thoroughly – the mixture will stiffen as you stir.  You can add raisins if desired.  Spoon mixture in to lined pan and bake 1 hour at 350.

When the bread is done, remove the pan from the oven, lift the pan up about 10 inches above the counter and drop the pan straight down – that’s right – drop the pan on the counter top, bottom side down of course.  This action will prevent the bread from falling. Cool ten minutes in the pan, then lift up the parchment paper to remove the bread from the pan to cool the rest of the way.

Gluten Free Sourdough Starter and Pancakes

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gluten free sourdough pancakes 2 gfzing dot com

The yeasty, buttery smell of sourdough pancakes will bring everyone running to the kitchen for breakfast, with or without coffee.

Sourdough is simply a fermentation product  – it is made from ground grain, water and yeast – the yeast growing, reproducing and producing gas bubbles.  You must keep sourdough alive.  In the old times, maintaining sourdough was a practical necessity. Freeze-dried yeast was not available, so you would take out some of your live yeast culture from your sourdough pot.  In modern times, sourdough is more of a hobby than a necessity, but if you want to keep a sourdough starter on hand, each time you use some of the sourdough, replace the same amount with ground grain and water. The yeast will eat the new grain for breakfast, making more little yeasts and gas.  Keep the mixture in the refrigerator after the initial fermentation.

We have tried making gluten free sourdough starter with many different flours.  The thickness of the starter will depend on the type of flour used. The following starter is excellent and you can try using it for pancakes.  Note that sourdough pancakes are not puffy flannel cakes; they are thinner, more bubbly and have a nice browned edge if you fry them in butter.  If you want a sturdier pancake, use a mixture of sorghum and classical gluten free flour mix for the overnight sponge.  If you prefer a more tender, delicate sourdough pancake, use 100% brown rice flour. Here’s how to start from scratch and make a sourdough starter and some pancakes.

Two or three nights before you want to make the pancakes, make a starter culture by mixing the following in a large bowl:

  • 1/2 cup Authentic Foods  Gluten Free Classical Mix
  • 1/2 cup Authentic Foods Sorghum Flour (this brand is very finely ground)
  • 1/2 ounce gluten free freeze-dried yeast
  • 1 cup warm water

Stir and cover with a plate.  If it is fruit-fly season, you may have to cover the bowl with plastic wrap to prevent the accidental drownings of excited fruit flies.  It is very discouraging to start the morning with a bowl of sourdough starter peppered with the drowned fruit flies lured in by the yeasty aromas.

The night before you want to make the pancakes, re-invigorate the starter to make an Overnight Sponge:

  • Add 1 or 2 cups of gluten free flours to your starter – (you can try using 100% brown rice flour, or more sorghum and gf flour mix) – and the equivalent amount of warm water, stir, cover and set aside to make more sourdough. So, if you add 1 cup flour, add 1 cup water, and so on.  Only add ground grains and water to your starter – never add eggs or milk to the starter.  If you use 100% brown rice flour, the starter will be very thin, thickening slightly when you add the other pancake ingredients.

The next day, make the pancakes:

  • Remove 1 cup of Overnight Sponge to use for pancakes.  Put the rest of the sponge in the fridge as a starter for your next sourdough adventure.

For pancakes, mix in a two-cup measure

  • 1 cup of Overnight sponge (that you removed)
  • 1 egg
  • 1 teaspoon sugar
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 1/2 Tablespoons vegetable oil

Each 1/3 cup of the batter will make 3 pancakes.  Stir the batter up, heat a non-stick pan and add 1 teaspoon butter – don’t skimp on the butter.  Use at least a teaspoon of butter to fry  3  or 4 pancakes – we already gave up the wheat, but nobody says we have to give up the butter!  Heat over medium high heat until the butter starts to brown.  Pour 3 or 4 pancakes and cook them until the little bubbles on the top of the pancakes pop.  Flip the pancakes carefully and continue cooking them on the other side.

Transfer the pancakes to a plate, serving them piping hot with real dark amber maple syrup – you can absolutely drown these pancakes in syrup.

 

 

 

Gourmet Gluten Free Brownies

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Gourmet Gluten Free Brownies from gfzing dot com

A gourmet gluten free brownie that is just like the best wheat brownie you ever had.

Use the absolute best quality gluten free chocolate you can obtain.  It is worth doing the website and company research to find the richest, darkest gluten free chocolate that is available.

For the brownies:

Melt the following in a small pot, then set aside to cool briefly:

  • 1 1/2 sticks (12 ounces) unsalted butter
  • 7 ounces bittersweet gluten free chocolate
  • 3 ounces gluten free unsweetened chocolate

Place the following in a large bowl:

  • 1 1/2 cups sugar
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla or 1/2 teaspoon of Authentic Foods gluten free powdered vanilla
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 4 eggs

Beat the sugar/egg mixture with a spoon, then stir in the melted chocolate/butter mixture.

In a small bowl, combine

  • 1 cup Authentic Foods GF traditional flour blend
  • 1/2 teaspoon xantham gum

Mix the GF flour mixture in to the chocolate batter.  Stir just to combine well.

Stir in:

  • 1 cup walnut pieces, sized according to your preference.

Line a 9 x 13″ pan with parchment paper leaving quite a bit up paper going up the sides (so that you can grab the paper later and pull the whole brownie unit out of the pan.  Pour and spread the batter in to the paper-lined pan and ease the batter out to the edges and corners of the pan.  Bake at 350 F degrees for 30 minutes.  Remove from the oven and cool completely before frosting.     Don’t remove the brownies from the pan yet – frost first!

Frosting:

Melt in a microwavable glass dish:

  • 6 ounces unsalted butter
  • 4 Tablespoons milk (can be non-fat milk if you want)

Add:

  • 4 Tablespoons (1/4 Cup) best quality gluten free cocoa powder
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 2 2/3 cups gluten free confectioner’s sugar

Stir together with a kitchen spoon until completely smooth.  Because the butter is melted, the frosting can still be a bit loose or runny when you spread it, because the frosting will stiffen up later, as the butter cools and hardens. Spread the frosting on the brownies, then transfer the pan to the refrigerator to chill until firm.

To remove brownies from pan, just grab the edges of the parchment paper and lift. Transfer the paper of brownies to a cutting board and proceed to cut them.

Cut the brownies with a sharp knife.  To make clean cuts, occasionally run the knife blade under hot water then wipe dry with a clean towel.  Using a heated, clean knife will ensure a clean cut with no crumbs.

Make sure to use all gluten-free ingredients.  If you are using a wheatavore kitchen, ensure that the sugar container is not contaminated with flour by wheatavore cooking adventures.

Potato Salad with Eggs and Carrots

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Potato Salad with Eggs and CarrotsA tasty gluten free potato salad with hard-boiled eggs, carrots and onion.  The cooking is done in the microwave to cut down on the heat in the kitchen.

This is based on the potato salad shown at this webpage: http://www.sachikocooking.com/english/en0106prt.htm, altered to use less mayonnaise and much less sugar.

  • 3 red bliss potatoes – if they are about the size of a tennis ball, the three potatoes together will weigh about a pound.
  • 3 large carrots, grated on the large holes of a box grater
  • 1 cup very thinly sliced onion
  • 1/2 teaspoon table salt
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/4 cup coarsely chopped flat-leaf parsley

 

Sauce:

  • 1/4 cup gluten free mayonnaise
  • 1 teaspoon gluten free ballpark mustard
  • 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
  • 1/2-1 teaspoon sugar
  • 1 teaspoon fresh lime juice

 

Mix the shredded carrots, sliced onion and salt thoroughly and set aside.  Let this rest while you do all the other preparation, so that the salt can draw water out of these veggies.

Clean the potatoes, pierce each one and remove the eyes, microwave them using the potato setting on your microwave.  Set aside to cool, then peel and chop.

“Hard-boil” the eggs in the microwave, adding 1 teaspoon water per egg.  We use a device called a “Micro Egg” for cooking eggs in the microwave.  With this device, it took slightly longer than 1 minute at 100 power to cook the two eggs in one Micro Egg. Set the eggs aside to cool, then dice.

Squeeze the water out of the salted carrot/onion mixture by putting these salted veggies  in a kitchen towel and squeezing firmly.

Put the squeezed carrots and onion in a bowl. Add the chopped cooked potatoes, diced eggs, parsley.  Mix the sauce ingredients in a separate bowl, then fold the sauce in to the carrot-onion-potato-egg-parsley.  Adjust the flavors, chill and serve.

 

 

Salmon with Curry Dry Rub and Dressed Vegetables

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This outstanding gluten free recipe is revised from one which appeared in Bon Appetit magazine nearly a decade ago.  There are 3 components:  the rice, the vegetables and dressing, and the salmon.

Prepare the Rice first:

Fry 1 Tablespoon homemade ghee or butter, then add:

  • 1 cup rinsed basmati or long grain rice

Stir fry for a minute or so, so that all the grains of rice are coated with the ghee or butter

Add:

  • 1 cup water
  • 2/3 cup coconut milk
  • 3/4 teaspoon salt

Bring to a boil, turn down the heat, cover and cook until the rice is done. Season with pepper.  Set aside, covered, to stay warm.

Prepare the vegetables :

Fry the following aromatics in 1 Tablespoon toasted sesame oil for one minute:

  • 2 teaspoons minced fresh ginger
  • 1 clove garlic, minced

Add sliced vegetables and stir fry for just a couple of minutes, then set aside:

  • 1 red bell pepper, sliced
  • Sliced shitake mushrooms, stems removed
  • 1 bunch of bok choy, sliced
  • Other options include carrots, scallions, celery, spinach, baby spinach, watercress, zucchini, bean sprouts with the ends removed etc.

Set the vegetables aside.

Make the dressing for the vegetables:

  • 6 Tablespoons rice vinegar or homemade cider vinegar
  • 3 Tablespoons gluten free soy sauce
  • 2 Tablespoons toasted sesame oil
  • 2-4 Tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
  • 1 Tablespoon minced fresh ginger
  • 1 teaspoon sugar

Set the dressing aside.

Prepare the serving plates: You will need 4-6 dinner plates ready to go.

Prepare the fish:

Choose very fresh salmon fillets, with the evenest possible thickness for uniform cooking.  Instructions assume that there is a “skin” side, but if there is no skin side just proceed anyway.

Make a dry rub of  one teaspoon of each of the following spices:

  • gluten free chili powder
  • gluten free curry powder (make your own – that’s the best way)
  • gluten free ground cumin
  • gluten free ground coriander
  • gluten free mustard powder (difficult to find – if you can’t find gluten free, leave this out)
  • salt
  • sugar

Sprinkle each of 4-6 6-ounce salmon fillets (the flesh side of the fish, not the skin side) with a teaspoon or more of the spice mixture.  If you want to do something ahead, you could set the spiced fish aside, wrapped, in the refrigerator for 2-3 hours at this point, but we don’t bother – we proceed immediately with the cooking:

Heat a Tablespoon of vegetable oil in a non-stick pan over medium-high heat.  For 6 fillets, you might need 2 pans. When hot, add the salmon filets, skin side down, and fry for 3-4 minutes.  Flip the fish, spice side down now, and finish the cooking – another 3-4 minutes on this side. The fish should flake easily when done.

To Serve:

On each plate, arrange a serving of rice, a serving of vegetables, and a piece of salmon.  Drizzle the vegetables with a little of the dressing (a tablespoon or so).

Can be served with a rose wine, a dry red wine such as Tohu Pinot Noir from New Zealand, or a New England Hard Cider.  The dish is surprisingly well paired with a dry pinot noir, just for the record.

 

Gluten Free Miso Soup

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Miso Soup gfzing dot com

Loaded with vegetables, this simple, easy gluten free soup can be put together in under a half hour. Use other vegetables in place of the ones specified in this recipe – whatever you have available. Cruciferous vegetables (Brassicaceae family) like cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, turnip, watercress etc. or quick-cooking greens like spinach are ideally suited to this type of soup.

Ingredients:

2 Tablespoons toasted sesame oil

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 Tablespoon fresh ginger, minced

5 scallions, cleaned and minced

2 quarts water

1/2 cup dried sliced shitake mushrooms

1/2 head of cauliflower, in flowerets

1 bunch (1 pound) asparagus, washed, tough end removed, sliced in 1/2 inch slices

1 large yam or sweet potato (about 1 pound), peeled and cubed

8 Tablespoons gluten free miso (we used South River 3-year Hearty Brown Rice Miso – check with the manufacturer’s website for gluten free status)

black pepper

Simply heat the sesame oil, stir fry the garlic, ginger and scallions or onion for 30 seconds, then add the water.  Bring to a simmer, then add the dried shitake mushrooms, cauliflower, asparagus and yam or sweet potato. Simmer for 10 minutes until the yams are tender.  Stir in the gluten free miso paste, season with pepper and serve hot.

A surprisingly rich and satisfying vegan soup.

Double-check to make sure the miso paste you choose is gluten free.

Oyster Sauce and Hoisin Sauce

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Gf-Zing! received a request to find a gluten free Oyster Sauce and Hoisin Sauce in March 2006.  We have updated the links for 2011, and we remind our readers that we don’t verify the gluten free status of products.

For Hoisin, you might consider the Premier Japan brand of Wheat-Free Hoisin Sauce.  It is not the same texture as wheat-based hoisin sauces, and it is neither as thick nor as dark. See the Edwards & Sons Trading Company website regarding this product. We rely on the manufacturer to state the content. Please be sure to verify that any products you consume are safe for your situation. Gf-Zing! does not verify the gluten free status of products.

http://www.edwardandsons.com/specialdiets_celiac.itml (link updated 2011 Feb 23)

For the Oyster Sauce: You might consider the Lee Kum Kee brand for oyster sauce but  NOT for their hoisin sauce (see their website.)

Assuming you don’t want either 5 or 55 gallon drums of oyster sauce, then the Lee Kum Kee’s Choy Sun oyster sauce (yellow label) and the Panda Brand green label are the most likely candidates on their website (they make other kinds too, so it is important to check the bottle at the store.) Things change often in the food world, so you have to keep checking to see if they change their ingredients. Gf-Zing! does not verify the gluten free status of products.

http://us.lkk.com/faq (link updated 2011 Feb 23)

Note: Here at Gf-Zing! we do not verify the gluten-free status of any product. We rely on the manufacturers to declare the status of their products. It is up to the reader to check labels, and to verify that the products they consume are safe for them to use.