Chapati

Righto its been a while, but I've found a recipe so good I am blogging it before I've even got up from the table.  I went to my local Indian Foodmarket today, and while checking out I happened to mention to the lady that I need to cook Gluten Free.  She gave me this awesome and simple recipe:

Gluten Free Buckwheat Chapatis

1 cup Buckwheat Flour
1 tablespoon rice flour
good pinch of salt

Place in a bowl, then add a little boiling water, mix with a spoon adding just a wee bit of water at a time until you have something a bit like breadcrumbs that sticks together if you push it.  Careful now as its hot, using your hand start to bring it together into a ball of dough.  If you've added too much water it will be sticky, add a bit more buckwheat flour to bring it back to a kneadable dough.

Either knead it in the bowl, or turn it out onto a floured board.  I have a silicone baking sheet that I use for this.  Knead for 3-4 mins.  Set aside in the bowl, cover with plastic wrap and allow to rest at least 20 mins.

Once rested divide the dough into 8 pieces and roll into balls.  Roll out each one to about 3mm thick, or as thin as you can go and still pick them up easily.  Use extra flour to dust the board and rolling pin, or you can try doing it between two sheets of plastic wrap.  Good luck with that by the way.

Dry fry each one in a frying pan, turning frequently and squash them flat with a spatula when they puff up.

Now the exciting part, to be a chapati it needs to go briefly on an open flame.  If you have a gas stove you can pop each one directly onto the burner flip it over before it burns.  I don't have a gas stove (sadly) so I tried the bbq, this didn't work, the grill is too far from the flame.  A wok burner would be ideal.  My solution was to get out the camping stove, and this worked a treat.  Entertained the kids too.

Sorry no photos I was too hungry.  Promise I'll add some next time I make them.

July + Stew = Dumplings

Lately I've given up on my slowcooker after some very average results, and gone back to the faithful cast iron cassarole dish. What a relief! My stews are tasty again, and I can put them on in the afternoon, I mean honestly, who has time in the morning anyway?

Yesterday's beef stew was bubbling happily when my Dad dropped by to say hello. I took the opportunity of child distraction to try out some cornmeal dumplings. What an inspiration, they were delish and much enjoied by the test team.

Following on from this success I rebooted the stew tonight and tried the dumplings again, buckwheat this time.

Dumplings

1 c cornmeal or buckwheat
1/2c GF baking mix
2 tsp baking powder
pinch salt
bt of ground black pepper
25g DF spread
1/2c rice milk
I also added some chopped parsley to my buckwheat ones which was nice. Other herbs to compliment the dish would be good, such as rosemary with a lamb stew?

First cook your stew, it needs to be ready, and you make the dumplings just ahead of serving time.

Measure spread, flours and baking powder. Rub it together, I use a wooden spoon then just get in there with my fingers to get it all done. Should look a bit like breadcrumbs when this is done. Throw in salt & pepper to taste, mix it up, then add the rice milk. At first it won't seem like enough milk but just keep stirring, it will come togeher into a nice ball of dough. Ofcourse you can ad a litle more if this isn't happening after lots of stirring, but use a bit of elbow grease first.

Take spoonfuls of the dough and drop ontop of your hot stew. The buckwheat allowed me to roll the dough into little balls, but the cornmeal would not hold together enough for that, I just plopped them in and poked any really sticky out bits with my finger.

Put the stew back in the oven without a lid for 10-15mins until the dumplings are cooked. No doubt this would work on the stove top also, you might need to experiment with lid on/lid off.

On balance I'd say the cornmeal ones were better, slightly crumbly but in a yummy sort of way. Buckwheat turned out a bit more dense and brittle. I think it would be worth trying them again with cornflour instead of baking mix, but don't get me wrong, they were still yummy yum.

Buckwheat pancakes

These are a winner, I'll never go back to wheat flour pancakes! I find them very filling and I don't get hungry right away the way I used to after a wheat pancake stack.

Enough to serve two ordinary adults (I always make a double batch for our family of 3 :-)

Ingredients

1/2C Buckwheat Flour
1/2C Cornflour
1t Baking Powder
1 Egg
1T Oil
1C Rice Milk or Soy Milk

Method

Combine dry ingredients. In another bowl mix together oil and milk. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and add egg, and oil/milk mixture. Stir till smooth. Cook over a medium heat, the key is to wait until the bubbles pop and the pancake is mostly cooked before trying to flip.

My favorite toppings are jam and banana, or tinned peaches, yum.

Bread - better than any I have been able to buy

My local supermarket isn't really big on providing a wide selection, but I used to be able to get GFDF bread most times I went shopping. Since then a local bread maker, Burgen, have introduced a GF range. Great! Not great, as every flavour contains milk. Since this big brand is now covering off the GF department, Countdown no longer stocks the other GF breads which were also DF. Long story short I needed to get sorted with a decent recipe to make my own.

Thanks for this one go to my Mother in Law Mary! Recipe is for your breadmaker, though I'm sure you could do it in a loaf tin in the oven.

400ml Warm water
2 tsp dry yeast (I use the Edmonds active yeast in the jar)
3 tab sugar

Place in a bowl and set aside to get the yeast going.

In another bigger bowl place:

2 1/4c White rice flour
1c Brown rice flour
1 1/2 tab Xanthan gum
1 tab salt (yes sounds like a lot but I think it is important as changes how the yeast behaves?)
3 tab milk powder (I use coconut milk powder)

Stir together. Check the yeast mix, by now should be frothy on top. Give it a stir then add to it:

3 tab oil
3 eggs
1 tab vinegar

Pour the wet into the dry, mix it up and place into your bread machine, the machine will try to knead it so don't worry if you haven't mixed it very well. Will look like a freaky pancake batter at this point - don't worry!
Med Crust, I think I use the 750g setting, takes 3 hours.

Make sure you are there to take it out as soon as it is cooked or it will collapse and you will have a very wet loaf which goes moldy quickly.

Variations:

Great results have been with replacing the white rice flour with fine ground cornmeal, or with buckwheat flour. I've used the healtheries brand cornmeal from New World/Countdown etc, and get my buckwheat flour from the organics shop.

You can make this a fruit bread by adding 3 tsp spice (mix of cinnamon, nutmeg etc) to the flours and 2/3c sultanas.
Let me know what other ideas you come up with!

 

I ate that slice still hot with homemade blueberry jam. I even picked the blueberries!