Sometimes we need to let go of the world around us, our daily cares, issues that cause stress, and get away for a few days – relax, recollect, and come back ready to face the world with new resolve and vigor. This Summer my husband and I have been doing just that, in a series of short little trips. Last weekend, we went to the top of the world (well, it felt like it to us) to slip away for three beautifully brisk and sunny days in Zermatt. It was majestic, incredible, awe-inspiring, and magical. It was pure escapism as we explored the fantasy-like region around Zermatt and the Matterhorn, and all of our day to day cares floated with the clouds that sailed on past the mountaintops. No worries, no stresses, nothing but pure meditative existence, scenery, and a sense of childlike exploration. What more can one want in a holiday?
When my husband and I first started cooking gluten-free in our kitchen, we mainly focused on one type of meal — those that were naturally gluten-free.
The naturally gluten-free foods were the easiest to cook from scratch because they required no substitutions at all — risottos, fresh fruit, vegetables, custards & puddings, stir fry, roasted potatoes, homemade “chips”, salads, fresh steamed fish, bean stews, meringues, and even a macaron attempt or two. As a beginner to the gluten-free world nearly five years ago, I was thrilled with how many foods we could make without ever having to worry about an ingredient on a package label that could be harmful to my husband’s health. As long as we cooked from entirely fresh ingredients and avoided anything that came in a package or required flour, we were fine — and what a great variety we had to choose from!
But it didn’t take long before my husband would say, “You know, I really miss pizza,” or “Wouldn’t it be nice to have a thick creamy gravy to go on mashed potatoes sometime?” It was inevitable, really, that shunning all things flour-related was bound to cause waxing nostalgia for the meals we no longer ate. While it was great to get our feet wet by starting with the easy gluten-free meals that didn’t require any substitutions or extra thought, it seemed wrong to deprive ourselves completely of other foods that we enjoyed.
I set out on a mission of sorts to figure out how to convert our favorite foods to gluten free, where I found a veritable “Wild West” frontier land when it came to recipes — myriad flour blends and formulas either in packages on grocery store shelves or listed in books, none of which explained how they came to be or why they worked, often calling for expensive and elusive ingredients. It all seemed like some esoteric recipe voodoo.
I decided instead to create my own blends, first categorizing the various alternative flours and ingredients by texture and coarseness, and then quickly realizing that while those aspects do play a role in the end product, the key factor was in fact not the texture, but the starch, protein, and fat content, as these are the things that determine most how a flour will behave in a recipe. I can’t say I get a perfect product every single time on the first try, but the turning point in my success was when I started looking into exactly what I was replacing with my gluten-free flour blends.
Sometimes it really is the gluten that needs to be emulated, such as in a bread recipe, where the developed network of gluten in conventional breads actively works to trap the air pockets made by the yeast, allowing the bread to rise. Techniques for mimicking this include adding other leavening agents to help account for the fact that some of the air will indeed escape before the bread is done, or adding binding agents to help trap the air that is formed — and maybe even a combination of both of these techniques.
Often this is why one sees gluten-free recipes that include extra eggs, or gelling agents like ground flax or chia seeds, manufactured gums, or incorporation of starches into the GF blend, such as tapioca or arrowroot. Once we understand why these ingredients exist in a gluten-free recipe, we can better judge how to make substitutions to fit our needs – for example, don’t have ground chia seeds? Maybe adding an egg in its place will do the trick. The bread fell flat a bit and was too dense? We now have options. We consider the properties of the ingredients we are using, and this information can be used as tools for determining how to logically go about changing our recipes to improve them.
Other recipes that conventionally use flour don’t actually care about the gluten at all. Take, for example, a roux, essentially made up of a flour and a fat that are cooked together and then used as a thickening agent in soups and stews, such as gumbo. In the case of roux, there’s no elasticity needed, and no air to be trapped – all we are looking for is thickening, which occurs thanks to the starch components within wheat flour. This is great news for gluten-free cooks; there are lots of starchy gluten-free ingredients at our disposal that we can use to replace conventional wheat flour!
All-purpose wheat flour contains, along with gluten, a fair amount of starch. So to create a 1:1 substitution (by weight of course), one would just need to come up with a gluten-free flour blend that is also mostly (but not all) starch. This can be done either by using flours with similar starch content to wheat flour, or by supplementing the GF blend with a pure starch (cornstarch, tapioca, arrowroot, potato, glutinous rice flour, etc.). Each type of starch differs slightly in its chemistry, but for the most part they all have gelling and viscosity properties – i.e. they help food thicken and stick together. In something like our roux example, it’s not going to matter a whole lot what kind of starches we use, because the only aspect of the starch we are calling upon in this case is its thickening power.
Obviously, for baking, things get a little more complicated, but I’m convinced the overall strategy remains the same. The first thing I ask myself when converting a recipe is, “what in conventional wheat flour is doing the work? What traits do I need to make sure I replace with my gluten-free mix?” And then we can use our knowledge about the various gluten-free ingredients available to reproduce those properties. Actually, I think once one gets a bit more comfortable with gluten-free substitutions, there is even more freedom and more possibilities for “customizing” than when working with conventional all-purpose wheat flour. This is because one has the ability to pick and choose from amongst so many great ingredients — not just for certain properties, but also for flavors. For example, I often incorporate chestnut flour, because I just love the earthy rustic qualities it lends to baked goods.
Gluten-free substitutions don’t have to involve some mysterious wizardry in order to have success. Sometimes it’s just a bit of recipe tweaking, and other times, a little knowledge about the science behind why a recipe works goes a long way.
Soy Sauce and Umami: Now a Staple in Western Cuisine
Soy sauce has been around as a staple condiment in Asian cuisine for thousands of years, used for flavoring all manner of dishes and foods. It’s prized for the “umami” character it gives to the overall taste of a dish, and can have a wide range of subtle notes beyond the obvious saltiness.
For example, Japanese tamari is often wheat free (I stress, not always). Still, most of the soy sauces available on store shelves contain wheat. While there is some debate as to exactly how much gluten from wheat survives the fermentation and processing, the Celiac Disease Foundation Foundation does list soy sauce as a food that may contain gluten and needs to be verified. The Mayo Clinic also states that soy sauce should be avoided unless otherwise labeled. There is also considerable anecdotal evidence of experiences of people being “glutened” by soy sauce (my husband included). Therefore, for those who must eat gluten free, soy sauce immediately becomes a food that requires attention and is a complicated topic.
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!
Sauce for Thought: Coming in From the Cold – An Exploration of Soup
by Alice DeLuca
We’re turning down the new thermostat daily, stubbornly staving off the inevitable start-up of the furnace for the coming home-heating season. It’s the hot soup season and the knitting season also, so there are reasons to celebrate. Animals are busy storing everything they can get their paws on, for a long winter of curled up dreaming. I picture them underground and know why some people covet their fur coats. My coat of choice is made from the knitted wool of sheep, and to the sheep I am grateful.
Our new Nest thermostat is “smart” in that it knows what we are doing, but we maintain the illusion of control by tweaking it via tablet technology, even from remote locations. The designers thought of everything, down to the specially designed stickers for labeling the wires during installation. We’re hoping we won’t have to fool this new thermostat in to turning on when the temperature dives like a submarine, the first week of January; nor will we be tempted to put a space heater under it to keep it warm so it won’t activate the furnace, as my father used to do with his mercury-switch driven thermostat from those days.
When the temperature drops, the Canada geese start making tracks. Often they are flying south, but sometimes they appear to be confused and fly east or north, which is because some of them winter-over. The V-formations of confused geese overhead is another clear indication that the time has come to consider hot soup.
The upcoming festivities are all about sharing, seeing friends and family, creating new memories and reliving old ones. It’s a time of joy, inspiration, goodwill, and laughter that I look forward to each year, while looking ahead to the New Year and the fun and exciting experiences the coming seasons will bring. We stroll around the Christmas markets tasting chocolate, nougat, mulled wine, and roasted chestnuts, flavors and delights not just for the taste buds but all five senses — and has become something I look forward to at this time every year.
But for some — such as those who are gluten intolerant or celiac — holiday festivities can bring about a certain anxiety, a stress caused by imposing dietary restrictions on those doing the cooking, or fear of gluten contamination from the grand holiday meal. Just having had a successful family Thanksgiving dinner that everyone, including the gluten free enjoyed, I thought it might be useful to share some of our tips for surviving, and keeping the holidays fun without stressing out about food. So here are 10 gluten-free tips for surviving the holidays.
Be involved – The more you are involved in the process of deciding what gets made and from where everything comes from, the better chance you will have to help direct the meal towards foods and dishes that are safe for you. Being proactive from early on rather than waiting til the last minute may save a lot of stress and worry.
Educate friends and family – It is beneficial for others to know about your dietary needs and what is involved in creating a safe environment. Not everyone fully understands the risks of cross contamination, or that croutons can’t just be picked off of a salad and that a knife can’t be double dipped into the apple butter when spreading on rolls.
Suggest naturally gluten-free dishes – Recipes abound for a myriad lovely and flavorful courses that never contained any flour to begin with, such as salads, roast meats, vegetables. Feel free to explore/suggest dishes that require no alterations to prepare gluten free.
Cook from scratch – Processed foods have a tendency to have a long list of ingredients, including some off limits and questionable ingredients, such as barley malt syrup, modified food starch, etc. Cooking from scratch gives one more control over what goes into a dish and is also easier to modify in order to make a food gluten free.
Offer to host – While hosting is often a lot of work, you know the safety status of your own kitchen with regard to holidays foods, and it may be easier to host than making sure that someone’s kitchen counter that was dusted with flour earlier that day from baking holiday cookies doesn’t end up contaminating your dinner. If you can’t host, offer to cook some of the dishes to help make it easier for the host to accommodate you, or at least to help with the cooking when you arrive so that you can help keep food prep safe for you.
Make GF versions of your favorites – Many dishes require very simple substitutions to be made gluten free – stuffing can be made by just substituting GF bread; gravy and creamed sauces by substituting GF all-purpose flour, or GF cookies can be used to make your favorite cookie crumb crust for a pie.
Keep GF foods completely separated from gluten foods – If you are eating at a mixed GF/gluten dinner, make sure that the foods you want to be able to eat are completely separated, so no one mistakes which serving spoons go into which dish and bread crumbs don’t find their way into the GF courses. Another idea is to serve the gluten-free folks first, before anything has a chance to get contaminated.
Try new traditions and recipes – Holidays are all about traditions, but they can be as much about making traditions as keeping them. Rather than trying to replicate a longstanding favorite dish, why not try something completely different? A new set of flavors perhaps, so you don’t feel as if you are replacing your great grandmother’s heirloom recipe, but more just creating a new tradition for friends and family to enjoy in the years to come.
Don’t gamble with your dinner – If you are not sure whether or not a dish is GF, it may be best to pass on it. No one enjoys being sick from having a gluten reaction over the holidays or while traveling. Depending on how long you will be there and who you are staying with, it may be a good idea to also bring some snacks just in case.
Remember, it’s just a meal – There is so much more to the holidays than simply one dinner together – the holidays are also about spending time with friends and family, and sharing those special moments. If dinner doesn’t end up being the idyllic meal you had dancing around with those sugarplums in your head, remember the fun moments and spirit of the season, and the real reason for getting together in the first place.
Wishing everyone a happy and safe holiday season, and a joyous New Year!
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Jenn Oliver writes our column Culinary Chemistry. She has a Ph.D. in science, and explains the scientific aspects of what really goes on when you cook (the next Harold McGee?). She’s been running a gluten-free blog, Jenn Cuisine, since 2008 and her kitchen is more like a laboratory than a kitchen. She’s focuses her chemical calculations and experiments on figuring out how to make traditionally glutinous food gluten-free.
Incorporating fruit into your starters and main courses: an untraditional approach
Fruit deserves to have a place outside of dessert. Dessert is often shunned for fear of ingesting too many sugar-filled calories and a myriad other reasons, and sadly fruit is often under-appreciated, being associated only with a guilty, and even naughty, indulgence.
How often do we associate certain fruits solely with pies, tarts, scones, cakes and other sweet delights? Such a view not only limits our appreciation for fruit, but forces upon us a paradigm that fruit should be “improved upon” by making it even sweeter than it already is. Maybe for some acidic fruits, such as certain berries or citrus fruit, this is true, but many are already pleasurably sweet and unfortunately get overlooked as a valid component in other parts of a meal.
What if fruit were the star of other dishes too? Maybe a first course, served with meat, etc.? Some of my favorite dishes involve fruits, and it’s not just for the sweetness – many fruits pair really well with savory items and I think provide a balance to other strong elements. One of my most frequented pairings this summer has been to add herbs and the tang of locally-made goat cheeses to baked or roasted seasonal fruits. The markets are absolutely brimming with succulent produce, and every two weeks it becomes a “new” mad rush to enjoy as many ways as possible: first strawberries, then cherries, then apricots & peaches, and soon plums and other berries will arrive en masse.
And you know what? Sometimes I think the taste of fresh fruit is even more enjoyable when it is not a part of le dessert.
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