Asian Dinner

Saturday saw our Asian inspired dinner.  As a coeliac, I know that casual trips to the local take away or restaurant is something you have to accept is over.  If you have a local place where you can talk to them about gluten, educate them about cross contamination, and where they are happy to try and accommodate you, then if you are one of the fortune ones you can find a safe place to go.

In my experience though there is still that element of risk.

Here at Annie's because we run a 100% gluten free kitchen I knew I could serve up some tasty treats without that fear.  After all, if I can't taste it, I can't serve it!

As usual I was far too busy in the kitchen to take photos so the images here were provided by guests (thank you!).

We were fully booked for the dinner - a lovely split of five returning guests and five newbies.  Guests were prompt (one couple got caught behind a slow driver and were a little late but they soon caught up!) and seemed to relax immediately with one another.

The table was set with prawn crackers for guests to nibble on and as well as our usual still and sparkling water we also offered jasmine & green tea in Chinese teacups to help get diners in the mood.

We started in India.  I served Vegetable (cauliflower) Pakoras and Batata Vada Chaat (potato fritters) on top of some Coriander Chutney.  To accompany it we provided Tamarind Chutney and a Cucumber Raita. We had two dairy free guests at the table and their Raita was made with soya yoghurt.  The appetizer went down well - so well that no one took a photo of their plate before eating!  However, one guest did manage a snap of his empty plate...

The next course featured Indonesian cuisine.  A lighter course after the fried carbohydrate of the first appetizer, we served Udang Goreng Kecap Manis - stir Fried Prawns in Indonesian Sweet Soy Sauce.

I had not been able to find any gluten free kecap manis so had made my own.  I heated equal quantities of gluten free soy sauce with molasses sugar along with a star anise.

Once the sugar had dissolved and the sauce had thickened slightly, it was ready to use.

I fried off plenty of garlic which I then removed before adding the fresh prawns which had been quickly marinated in turmeric.

Once they started to change colour I reintroduced the garlic along with hot chillis (from our windowsill box!), tamarind paste and the kecap manis.

Innocent looking, they packed quite a punch!

We topped up the prawn crackers and provided everyone with bowls and chopsticks as we were heading to China for the main course.

We placed the serving bowls on the table and let our guests help themselves, in true Chinese restaurant style!

I made Sweet & sour Pork Cantonese Style, Lamb with Ginger & Spring Onions, Chinese Greens (bok choy and choi sum) and plenty of Egg Fried Rice.  I say plenty because despite the fact that the protein to carb ratio was 2:1 the rice dish was the only thing that had anything left in it at the end!


I had a bit of a nightmare with the dessert which was Pisang Goreng (banana fritters).  Now, I only eat bananas when a) there is nothing else to eat b) they are very ripe - but the fritters are usually thick slices of banana fried in a light crisp batter.  Pandering to my own tastes (chef's perogative!) I prefer to mash the bananas (ripe!) into the batter mix and deep fry a tablespoon at a time.

What happens is that you get a gorgeous puff of yumminess - and don't forget I don't even like bananas but I love these!  The issue was that for some reason the batter was sticking to the bottom of the pan (which has never happened any time I've ever made these before).  The result was not only a delay but also affected the look of the fritters.

Fortunately, the taste was not affected!  This is evidenced by the lack of photos of the completed dish ;-)    We served the fritters with a plain Kulfi (Indian ice cream) which I had made.  I had also made a dairy free version using home made condensed rice milk and soya cream.


Interestingly, a number of guests had expressed reservations about the kulfi in advance of trying it.  It appears that they had tasted kulfi in Indian restaurants before and found the taste overpowering.

I was EXTREMELY relieved that they all however loved my kulfi!  I had flavoured it with saffron, cardamon and rose water, enough to provide a subtle taste to the ice cream that didn't overpower the palate.

Guests had been told that the coffee course would include chocolate lychees. I had made some during the week and whilst I could appreciate the taste of the ginger with the lychee and chocolate, I dislike lychees even more than I dislike bananas and I decided that texturally the combination was unappealing.

Instead I made white chocolates with chilli powder, a pistachio nut fudge and dark chocolate coated crystallised ginger.

Our dairy free guests had a plate of dark chocolates, some flavoured with chilli and others with crushed pistachios in them.

We thoroughly enjoyed our evening and were very pleased with the comments on twitter afterwards:

PKPWordsmith Phillip Khan-Panni
@anniesupperclub Such a splendid dinner last evening. Thank you Annie.

cinderelliekins Mrs Hughes
Just home from a wonderful and delicious evening at @anniesupperclub) - so happy and full! Thanks Annie, sorry we ate everything!!

kijakazi Jenn
Another fantastic evening eating at @anniesupperclub trying not to fall asleep on the tube home!

lovelybills Barbara Taylor
Just had a delicious 5 course Asian banquet @anniesupperclub in Bromley. Fine food & good company!

Where's the Bread?

Despite still very much being in love with the thought of bread, and regularly trying out new ideas for tasty gluten free loaves, on a day to day basis I don't really miss "real" bread.

Lunches rarely involve a specific carbohydrate.  My body reacts best to a high protein/low carb sort of diet so I tend to avoid potatoes, bread and pasta unless I'm feeling in need of comfort food.

Today's lunch was typical of what I eat.  I look in the fridge and larder for vegetables, proteins and flavours that are on hand and put them all in the saute pan!

I had some chorizo, green beans and goats cheese left over from the private Annie's on Sunday but I didn't want to just recreate the warm salad that I used them in for the starter.  I placed diced chorizo in the wok as it came up to temperature, releasing all that lovely paprika flavoured oil.  I like my chorizo to be very crispy so the heat was set high.  Once it was nearly to that stage, I added half a thinly sliced yellow pepper, a generous handful of fine green beans and one spring onion cut into chunks.

I stir fried the veg for a few minutes, allowing the pepper to soften slightly but keeping the beans lovely and crunchy.  I had found some of my spicy cherry tomato sauce in the fridge so I poured that over and turned the heat off.  After tossing it all together I added fresh basil and oregeno, sea salt and black pepper, and a very generous handful of diced goats cheese.

The texture contrasts were perfect.  The chorizo was hard, crispy on the outside and slightly chewy in the middle, the beans crunched, the spring onion was firm, the peppers were softened, and the cheese was melting.

The taste hit all the right spots too! The spiciness of the chorizo mirrored the light spice of the tomato sauce.  Overall the sauce was sweet - and that mirrored the peppers.  The cheese and even the beans provided an umami taste along with the meaty chorizo.  Salty, spicy, sweet, savoury - it might not look much on the plate but this was a sensationally tasting lunch that managed to wake me up in a way that coffee has failed to do today!

Bring on the afternoon!

Pulled Pork

My name is Annie, and I'm a TV food programme addict.

There. I've admitted it.

I've heard people say things like "who watches that stuff anyway?" or "does anyone ever actually try the recipes?"

Er, "me" and "yes"!

Second confession: I'm not a trained chef - well, not professionally trained.  Just trained in the crucible of life: realising what I didn't like about my Mum's cooking; experimenting with weird concoctions when first allowed near the cooker myself as a teenager; enjoying having my own kitchen when I got married and cooking 3 course meals from scratch starting when I got home from work in London at 7pm each night; learning to cook tasty vegetarian meals when hubby went veggie for a year due to ill health; learning to cook tasty gluten free food when 2 sons went gluten free; learning to BAKE gluten free; learning to make EVERYTHING from scratch by the time 5 out of 6 of us ended up on a gluten free diet....

All the time, I've watched cooking shows.  I find them even better than cookbooks because the real things I've learned have been from those throw away comments that the chef makes on camera, those little asides that make you yell "aha! So THAT'S the secret!" at the TV (or is that only me?).

Actually, thinking about it, I find food blogs do that for me too.  The more chatty/off topic the writer is, the more I find I learn from those musings - far more than from the actual recipe that they kindly write out at the foot of the post.  Bloggers like Gluten Free Girl (who educates me at the same time as making me feel part of her life) and Pig in the Kitchen (who makes me laugh out loud every time whilst having been my life saver during 2 years of gluten, dairy, soya AND egg free cooking) and more recently foodie/supperclub bloggers like Food Urchin (who makes me laugh, nod in recognition, and invariably triggers me off on some wild food escapade myself).

All of which is a looong introduction to this post about pulled pork.  You see I love watching Diners, Drive ins and Dives.  Partly because I'm a frustrated Diner Owner, partly because I love food that is probably bad for me (yeah I know, I'm married to a wellness coach, go figure).  One of the most commonly featured American diner foods featured is pulled pork.  Rubbed, smoked, barbecued, pulled, sauced, in a buns, with fries...  Never understood the fascination.

I'd made pulled pork before you see.  Well, I thought I had.  I'd slow roasted pork till it "pulled".  Nice but *shrug* not worth a trip for.  I'd cooked it in my slow cooker (I LOVE my slow cooker) for hours and hours till it fell apart.  Nice but *shrug* a taste that I wasn't that keen on (I'd cooked it in liquid, braising it, and I'm not really a fan of braising!).

I wondered if it was down to the cut.  The Americans all used "pork butt" and I couldn't find it in the supermarket or the butchers over here (yeah ok, stop laughing at the back, I know that NOW!).

Finally I thought, after one particularly tasting looking episode, to google pork butt.  Guess what?  It's pork shoulder!

When a friend yesterday gave us a pork shoulder joint, it seemed like a sign.  Every person I'd seen on Triple D had made a dry rub and every time I saw the list of ingredients I used to laugh because it seemed to me that the first time they'd made it they'd thrown a little bit of everything in and, having found it worked, couldn't work out what exactly MADE it work so always recreated faithfully that first "bung it all in and hope for the best" concoction.

So that's what I did.

To the best of my recollection (don't shoot me, I'm new at this food blogging/recipe lark), this is what I did:

1 tbsp sea salt
1 tbsp dark brown sugar
1/2 tbsp freshly cracked black pepper
2 tsp ground cumin
1 tbsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp hot smoked paprika
1/4 tsp English Mustard powder
1/2 tsp cocoa powder
1/2 tsp good quality instant coffee (yes, really)

I'm pretty certain that was it.  Put it this way, I'll do it that way next time and check and I promise I'll update you!

I cut all the rind and large bits of fat off of the pork and rubbed it over with the dry rub.  Then I doubled wrapped it in clingfilm, very tightly, and left it in the fridge overnight for 12 hours.

I put the slow cooker on to low (mine has 3 settings) and just put a tiny bit of water in the bottom - enough to wet the whole surface - and placed the (now unwrapped) pork on top of it.  Put the lid on and left it for 9 hours.  It wasn't a huge joint (I know, sorry, I didn't make a note of the weight!) and a bigger joint could take up to 10 or 12 hours to get to the right "pulled pork" texture.

Do what I did and test it - you'll know when it's ready!

We wanted a BBQ sauce to go over it so after a quick google I settled on this one on the Food Network site.  No reason other than by then I was hungry and DH was just ripping into the pork so I couldn't be bothered to look further!

I halved the quantities (it was only for 2 of us after all) and to be honest we found it far too sharp for our poor English tastes.  I added a tablespoon of maple syrup and another good 2 or 3 tablespoons of dark brown sugar before we thought it was ok.  Then I had the genius idea of adding some of the liquor from the bottom of the slow cooker.  We mixed 1 part of sauce to 2 parts of the liquor and BOY that was the real deal!  The pork juices and the added flavour from the rub balanced out the sharpness of the sauce to perfection.

I'm a convert! Obviously the dry rub and then the dry cooking (instead of braise) of the pork made the right sort of cooking method to match all those American Diner pulled pork creations.

Next time we're going to try and turn our barbecue in to a smoker and see if we can go the whole hog (*ahem*)!

Asian Inspired Dinner - Saturday 24th September

Saturday 24th September we will be having an Asian inspired dinner, enjoying foods often off limits to coeliacs at the take away!

The menu has not been finalised but this is the draft - to wet your appetite!  We only have one place left so if you are interested (and haven't already booked), don't delay!  Book via http://tinyurl.com/bookingannies.  We will hold a waiting list should we be over subscribed.

Appetizer
Indonesian Fried Prawns
Served with Acar (Indonesian pickled salad) & home made kepap dipping sauce

Starters
A selection of Indian snacks such as Samosas, Chicken kebabs and Pakoras

Main Course
Sweet & Sour Cantonese Style Pork
Sesame Chicken
Lamb with Ginger & Spring Onions
Egg Fried Rice

Dessert
Gulab Juman served with Kulfi

Coffee + Indonesian Pineapple Cookies

As always, the 5 course dinner will include still and sparkling water and starts at 7pm.  Guests are welcome to bring their own drink.  The suggested donation per head is £25.  The exact address is provided to guests upon confirmation of their booking, but we are in the Hayes/Keston area of Bromley, just 10 minutes away from Bromley South station by either bus or car for those travelling via public transport.

Gluten Free Tortilla Wraps

Yesterday I decided to get out the Isobel's Pizza Base Mix that I had stock-piled from Ocado earlier in the month.  I'd first heard about the product from "meeting" Isabel's Free From on Twitter at the last GF Tweet Up and had been pleased to notice that Ocado was stocking the pizza mix.

My original plan was to make pizza for my two youngest (4 and 9 and both gluten free) as a treat whilst their two older brothers were away for the week on camp.  However, being the sort of person I am, I wondered if there was something more interesting I could do with the mix...

I had a look at the Isobel's Kitchen Corner website and found this recipe for Gluten and Wheat Free Tortilla Wraps.  That was EXACTLY the sort of thing I was looking for!

The dough was beyond easy to make and I was impressed both with the smell and texture of it.  The recipe suggested pre-heating a non-stick frying pan until very hot, and then adding the rolled-out dough to cook for a few minutes till it puffed, then turning it over to finish.

Now, one of my essential-items-every-glutenfree-kitchen-should-have is my panini press.  I find it the ideal solution for toasted gf sandwiches (because NO gluten free bread is the shape of "normal" bread and therefore suitable for a normal sandwich toasters), flatbreads, pancakes, and all sorts of other scrummy things.  I decided therefore to try cooking the wraps in the press.

It was a GREAT idea!

I divided the dough into four and rolled each portion out to a 1mm thick round before placing it on the hot press and shutting the lid.  I panicked at first at some of the noises coming out from the press until I remembered the "until it puffs" bit and realised it was the sound of air escaping!  When I opened the press (after 2 minutes) the tortilla had easily doubled in size.  I slid it out and continued to cook the rest of the dough.

I placed them onto my cake rack to allow them to cool.  The wrap was flexible and behaved fairly similarly to a tortilla wrap.  Two of the wraps had overcooked on some of their edges so I tore those bits off to have a taste.

Wow!  Have you ever fried a flour tortilla (pre-glutenfree days of course!)? They taste totally different to tortilla "chips".  Well that is just what the "toasted" wrap tasted like - I would happily have eaten them like that and indeed plan to make some on purpose next time for some serious Mexican food fun!

As for the rest of the wraps, they were delicious.  I had some left over cold chicken which I shredded, added finely chopped spring onion and some mayonnaise mixed with a dollop of sweet chilli sauce.  I placed a generous amount on each wrap and rolled them up.

Hubby is not gluten free and dislikes almost every gluten free bread he's ever tasted (bar just a few that I've made and even then he only likes them fresh from the oven) so the fact that he raved about them tells you something.

To be honest - and other coeliacs will probably recognise this apparent over the top sentimentality - I almost cried at the thought of being able to have a PICNIC with these wraps.  All of a sudden I can take my four children out to a picnic and have "normal" food in front of all their friends.  Nothing odd about these wraps!

If you haven't tried any of the Isobel's products I suggest you remedy that and, just for me, try out the wraps recipe using the pizza dough mix.  I'm pretty confident that you will be impressed!