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highlyeccentric) wrote2023-07-31 12:13 pm
highlyeccentric) wrote2023-07-31 12:13 pm
Some things we have cooked lately
1. Pork belly with fennel, from the Big Red Book (In the Kitchen, by Campion and Curtis). The really notable component of this recipe was the sauce: a sort of toum/aoli type thing with quince paste. Garlic, quince paste, oil, and I think cumin and fennel seeds, processed together. As with many things from the Big Red Book my partner looked askance at it and then pronounced it good. VERY good on pork (and that section of the Big Red Book has multiple different pork + quince combinations).
2. Luke Nguyen's Vietnamese chicken curry, which has a similar logic to it to green thai curry, but is heavy on fish sauce and lemongrass. Shiny made it with about half the recommended liquid - if you use the full amount you get something more soup-y, and it would be great with rice noodles or pure soba noodles in a laksa/ramen kind of way. (Probably great with ramen noodles, too, if you aren't gluten-intolerant)
3. Palak Paneer (lazy version: ie, I don't blend the spinach and tomato, and actually I don't think I use any cream at all) with "Bombay kumara", ie, Bombay potatoes done with sweet potato instead (and green beans thrown in).
4. Item 3, served with Becky Excell's gluten-free naan bread. Which doesn't taste like naan - looking at my Madhur Jaffery Vegetarian India cookbook which I've reclaimed from K, the texture might be closer to roti. I present to you an annotated recipe:
1. This recipe is: This works on basic gluten-free flour mix. Becky Excell is based in London and uses Doves Farm (I found Sainsbury's own brand fine in the UK but haven't tested this particular recipe on it - Dove's Farm was better for cake, I admit). I've been using Ograms in Aus, although I've just bought a thing of Woollies brand and will try it on that soon. I'd also be interested to try it with chickpea flour, or a mix of both, but suspect one might need more raising agent if so.
2. This recipe could be: dairy-free, or lactose free, on appropriate substitute yoghurt (Excell's cookbook implies she has tested this). Probably works on wheat flour, too.
3. This recipe needs: minimal kneading, some rolling (or possibly slapping), a smooth worksurface, and ability to fry things in a hot pan.
- 1 cup gluten-free SR flour, or plain flour with appropriate amounts of baking powder
- 1 cup greek or other thick natural yoghurt
- 2 tsp nigella seeds
- pinch of salt
Substitutions: I have made this on a mix of gk yoghurt, sour cream, and milk added slowly until the texture looked "right". You might need to make it first to know what "right" looks like, because I bet it's not the same as wheaten flour naans. If you don't have nigella seeds, I recommend cumin seeds or black sesame seeds.
Quantity: makes about four. You want to keep them small, as gluten-free mixes lack structural integrity.
1. Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl, then use your hands to bring them together into a large ball.
HINT: coat your hands in peanut oil first. No, not flour. I don't know how Ms Excell or indeed anyone does this with floured hands and floured surfaces - it throws out the composition and you just end up with dough stuck to your hands. Use peanut oil, coconut fat, or vegetable oil.
Thinly coat a smooth board with oil, and a rolling pin (or clean label-less wine bottle).
2. Divide the ball into 4. Shape each briefly by hand so that there's no clumpy bits left. Roll out to about 4mm thick. Flip onto baking paper (use the flipper to test if the naan has structural integrity).
3. Heat a large frying pan. Becky Excell recommends cooking them in a dry frying pan; i've used a smear of oil.
4. Cook 1-2 at a time, flipping when browned on first side. Pressing down on them after you flip will encourage a bit of puffiness.
These are tasty but don't keep well. I suspect the wet dough keeps fine, though, so you could make a double batch and reserve more dough for later use.
Becky Excell is a white londoner with a Malaysian-English husband, so I'm very excited by "Quick and Easy Gluten-Free"'s prospects of offering me recipes that are made on things I can obtain in Sydney, use supermarket GF staples where sensible, and might actually cover some of the Asian food staples I can no longer eat. So far, however, I have just made naan several times. My partner, who has a stack of frozen roti in the freezer, has even chosen to eat this instead of heating up his own.
2. Luke Nguyen's Vietnamese chicken curry, which has a similar logic to it to green thai curry, but is heavy on fish sauce and lemongrass. Shiny made it with about half the recommended liquid - if you use the full amount you get something more soup-y, and it would be great with rice noodles or pure soba noodles in a laksa/ramen kind of way. (Probably great with ramen noodles, too, if you aren't gluten-intolerant)
3. Palak Paneer (lazy version: ie, I don't blend the spinach and tomato, and actually I don't think I use any cream at all) with "Bombay kumara", ie, Bombay potatoes done with sweet potato instead (and green beans thrown in).
4. Item 3, served with Becky Excell's gluten-free naan bread. Which doesn't taste like naan - looking at my Madhur Jaffery Vegetarian India cookbook which I've reclaimed from K, the texture might be closer to roti. I present to you an annotated recipe:
1. This recipe is: This works on basic gluten-free flour mix. Becky Excell is based in London and uses Doves Farm (I found Sainsbury's own brand fine in the UK but haven't tested this particular recipe on it - Dove's Farm was better for cake, I admit). I've been using Ograms in Aus, although I've just bought a thing of Woollies brand and will try it on that soon. I'd also be interested to try it with chickpea flour, or a mix of both, but suspect one might need more raising agent if so.
2. This recipe could be: dairy-free, or lactose free, on appropriate substitute yoghurt (Excell's cookbook implies she has tested this). Probably works on wheat flour, too.
3. This recipe needs: minimal kneading, some rolling (or possibly slapping), a smooth worksurface, and ability to fry things in a hot pan.
- 1 cup gluten-free SR flour, or plain flour with appropriate amounts of baking powder
- 1 cup greek or other thick natural yoghurt
- 2 tsp nigella seeds
- pinch of salt
Substitutions: I have made this on a mix of gk yoghurt, sour cream, and milk added slowly until the texture looked "right". You might need to make it first to know what "right" looks like, because I bet it's not the same as wheaten flour naans. If you don't have nigella seeds, I recommend cumin seeds or black sesame seeds.
Quantity: makes about four. You want to keep them small, as gluten-free mixes lack structural integrity.
1. Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl, then use your hands to bring them together into a large ball.
HINT: coat your hands in peanut oil first. No, not flour. I don't know how Ms Excell or indeed anyone does this with floured hands and floured surfaces - it throws out the composition and you just end up with dough stuck to your hands. Use peanut oil, coconut fat, or vegetable oil.
Thinly coat a smooth board with oil, and a rolling pin (or clean label-less wine bottle).
2. Divide the ball into 4. Shape each briefly by hand so that there's no clumpy bits left. Roll out to about 4mm thick. Flip onto baking paper (use the flipper to test if the naan has structural integrity).
3. Heat a large frying pan. Becky Excell recommends cooking them in a dry frying pan; i've used a smear of oil.
4. Cook 1-2 at a time, flipping when browned on first side. Pressing down on them after you flip will encourage a bit of puffiness.
These are tasty but don't keep well. I suspect the wet dough keeps fine, though, so you could make a double batch and reserve more dough for later use.
Becky Excell is a white londoner with a Malaysian-English husband, so I'm very excited by "Quick and Easy Gluten-Free"'s prospects of offering me recipes that are made on things I can obtain in Sydney, use supermarket GF staples where sensible, and might actually cover some of the Asian food staples I can no longer eat. So far, however, I have just made naan several times. My partner, who has a stack of frozen roti in the freezer, has even chosen to eat this instead of heating up his own.
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The Big Red Book is out of print and nearly impossible to find second hand, but I will try to remember to copy out this particular recipe for you!