Gluten-Free Dim Sum: Warm Silken Tofu in Sweet Ginger Water

Sadly, my dim sum days are over. If we were living a Monty Python skit, the waiter would offer the day’s menu:

“We have gluten dumplings, gluten balls, gluten pancakes, glutinous gluten, wheat gluten, gluten hash, gluten sauce…”

“Have you got anything besides gluten?”

“Well, we have gluten buns, gluten blobs, gluten on gluten, soft tofu, gluten soup…”

What was that!? Soft tofu? Shyeaaah! This, peops, is the only dish remaining on the dim sum raster that we can eat. But it’s so damn good, it’s almost worth watching friends mow their glutenfest while you wait for the giant vat of tofu goodness to make its rounds. Here’s my take on the recipe so you can enjoy it at home, at will, glutenfest-free.

Naturally Gluten-Free: Warm Silken Tofu in Sweet Ginger Water

Silken Tofu in a Sweet Ginger Syrup

• 1 package silken tofu
• 2 c water
• 2-4 T honey
• 1 T fresh grated ginger

Pour water and honey into a small pan and heat over medium heat until honey dissolves. Empty contents of one silken tofu package into the pan. Grate ginger* and simmer on medium-low for 15ish minutes. When tofu is heated through, spoon out some tofu and pour enough syrup (like most Chinese desserts, this is no where near as sweet as what we think of as dessert, so it’s less syrupy, more watery) over the tofu to almost cover it. Serve warm. Have a little joygasm.

Now if I could only find a recipe for making homemade silken tofu, this would be insan-yah-good.

*do you know this trick? Wash your ginger root well (peel if you like, but I don’t bother) and stick it in a ziploc baggie in the freezer. When you need fresh ginger for a recipe, just pull it out of the freezer and grate it with a Microplane grater  – no need to defrost. You have fresh ginger at your fingertips whenever you want it, rather than letting it wilt and die in the fridge between gingery recipes… Niiiize.

Momofuku-Inspired Gluten-Free Ramen Noodle Soup

Gluten-Free Ramen Noodles, Inspired by David Chang's Momofuku

My Momofuku cookbook came today and it is lighting a little fire under my overworked tush to get back in the kitchen and start creating once again. Of course, you’d be right to point out that the only ingredient he uses more than gluten is meat. What could a gfveghead possibly get out of a cookbook full of porky noodles? Well, saysme, a lot. Pickled melon, for example. Cabbage kimchi or cucumber kimchi. Ginger scallion sauce. Or slow-poached eggs.

Slow-poached eggs, you say? So what? Sooooo, Chang says if you cook eggs in the shell at a low enough heat for a long enough time, you produce a perfectly poached egg neatly contained in its own shell. No stringy white floaters in your egg-poaching water and no accidentally broken egg yolks. Imagine the surprise when you crack an egg over your ramen and instead of a raw, gooey mess a perfectly poached egg slithers out!? I am intrigued. Let’s give it a whirl!

Gluten-Free Ramen Noodles

8 cups water

1/3 cup tamari

1/4 cup cabbage kimchi, coarsely chopped

3 cloves garlic

3 scallions

handful of stringbeans

4 oz. shitake mushrooms, whole caps with the stems discarded*

3 nests of mung bean thread noodles

2 slow-poached eggs

hot chili oil

soft tofu

Egg-Poaching for Turtles: I categorized this as a quickie and one-dish wonder, but admittedly, the poached eggs complicate things. So feel free to leave them out, or do them the normal way (in a shallow fry pan with an inch of simmering water and a teaspoon of white vinegar). To make the poached eggs the slow way, you’ll need a steamer and a thermometer. Put 2 eggs in the steamer and cover with water. Put on medium heat until the water is between 140 and 145 degrees. The more water you have, the easier it will be to obtain and maintain this temperature over the course of the 40 minutes it takes to poach the eggs. Turn your attention to the soup at about the 25-30 minute mark.

The quickie part: Put 8 cups of water into a medium pot and bring to a boil. While you’re waiting, chop your kimchi, garlic, scallions. Add the tamari to the water as well as the garlic, mushroom caps, and scallions. Put the mung bean noodles in the broth and turn the heat down to low. Check the noodles every couple of minutes for “doneness.” When they’re close, add the green beans and kimchi.

The plating: Cut your silken tofu and place a few large cubes in each of your serving bowls. Ladle the soup and noodles over the tofu. Crack one poached egg on top of each bowl of noodles. Top with chili oil and serve.

* I keep my mushroom stems in a ziploc bag in the freezer; when I’ve collected a full bag, I use them to make mushroom stock. Drooooool…

New Celiac or Old: Great Guide to Gluten-Free Flours

The wild and wacky world of gluten-free flours

If you’re a newly diagnosed celiac, the world can be a dark and scary place. Walk into any mainstream restaurant and the list of can’t-haves is flat-out depressing. Supermarkets that were once joyful smorgasbords of whatever your leetle heart desired suddenly have whole aisles knocked out from your weekly romp. Even your own pantry lets out a dry cackle when you open the door in hopes of a little sustenance. What in the world do celiacs eat?

We eat a lot, actually. Eyebrow-raising, envy-inspiring, attention-grabbing goodies, in fact. Soon enough, you won’t even notice you’re “deprived.” People will apologize as they bite into a pillowing billow of glutenous bagel and you’ll just smile, knowing that when you get home you will make a feast fit for kings.

But hold on a sec – you just got diagnosed and you are confused about cooking without all-purpose flour. Understandable. The gluten-free flour world is vast and largely uncharted in American kitchens. But fear not. The learning curve is steep, yes. But at some point you will emerge at the top of Mount Everest with gluten-free bread in one hand, gluten-free muffins in another, gluten-free cookies and cakes in the crooks of your arms, and a gluten-free chocolate chip bundt cake balanced like a wreath atop your head. And you’ll feel like a million bucks. True story.

Living Without, a magazine dedicated to those with food allergies, has a fantastic article on the different gluten-free flours, their properties and uses. If intimidating at first, bookmark it and come back to it every couple of months. See if anything new piques your interest. Soon you’ll be baking your way to Breadville. And Muffintowne. And Cakeykins. Buttah!

Naturally Gluten-Free: Root Veggie Tagine with Lemon & Artichokes

Rough month for the gfveghead! Not so many posts. Truth be told, there hasn’t been much cooking going on of late. Just scrounging for scraps in the back of the fridge. And living off homemade olives, of course.

First night back in the kitchen and I’m confronted with lots of root veggies. I could do the roasted root veggie thang but I am kind of in the mood for something different… exotique… je ne sais… tagine. Yes! That’s it. Veggie tagine. Woohoo.

Root Veggie Tagine with Lemon & Artichokes

• 3 large potatoes
• 2 parsnips
• 3 stalks celery
• 1 large yellow beet
• 1 onion
• 2 T olive oil
• 4 cloves garlic
• 1 cup artichoke hearts
• 1 lemon
• 4 cups veggie broth
• 1 1/2 tsp cumin seeds
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• 3/4 tsp turmeric
• 1/4 tsp ground ginger
• salt & pepper to taste

Deeee-rec-shons: Cube up the first five ingredients into 1 1/2″ squares. (By the way, feel free to use whichever root veggies you have on hand – pick yer potato (red, yukon, purple, Idaho, youdahoe, you name it, whatevs), carrots, turnips, parsnips, beets, yadda blahdda.) In a big ol’ dutch oven, pour two tablespoons of olive oil and heat on medium high. Throw in the beggietables and Stir McStir. Coarsely chop ze gaaaahlic and throw into the pot. Stir McStir. When the outside 1/8th of the veggies begins to turn translucent, add the veg broth and dry spices (cumin, coriander, turmeric, pepper and ginger). Bring to a boil. Layer the artichokes and lemon slices on top of the stewing veggies. Cover loosely so some steam can still escape and turn down the heat to a simmer. Let simmer happily for about 30 minutes until the veggies are cooked through. Serve over rice. Boom.

Ode to my days of Ramen noodles

Ok, so we can’t eat Ramen anymore. But my local NPR station just interviewed David Chang, head chef at New York’s Momofuku Noodle Bar, and posted the most intriguing recipe for ginger scallion sauce. It looks absolutely divine. Amazon.com has reprinted it here. Substitute wheat-free tamari for the light soy sauce and you’re good to go. I can’t wait to try this over rice noodles, or 100% buckwheat soba! Hot dang!

Diet and Immune System Links

Sorry for the recipe hiatus of late. Life has been lobbing lemons at me with an elephantine sling-shot. Back to recipes shortly, but in the meantime, check out this fascinating article from Science Daily about a research study published in this week’s Nature that shows a link between a healthy gut and a healthy you. The key is fiber (no new news), but the interest is in the mechanics of it all. Apparently the bacteria in your gut luh-uh-uhhhhve their fiber and if you heap it generously upon them, they will shower you with their one-of-a-kind, artisanal immune-boosting boosters resulting in a happier, healthier, less-sick you. So don’t deny your small fry the glory of gritty grains! (and fruit. and vegetable matter.) Gimme some roughage. Mm.

Homemade Olives, Part III: Brining

It’s been more than 10 days, but forgive me. I vacate. (Did I just turn vacation into a verb? Yes, I did. I kind of like it…) By now my little olivinas are brining happily and approaching deliciosity. But I have not revealed how they got from tasteless snoozefest to their current state of yum. So let me divulge.

Ingredients for Brining Homemade Olives

Once the olives are cured of their bitter madness, it’s time to add back some flav-ah-flave. It starts with a basic brine that can be spruced up to your heart’s content with lemon, garlic, fresh herbs, dried herblinas, food coloring (what? ew – totally kidding), hot hot peppahs, gin, vodka, you name it. If you’re unhappy with what you come up with, the beauty of brine is that you can always change the flavor. Either add more of the same to bump up the flavor, add new spices to change the flavor, or if you’re totally disgusted by your first creation, dump the existing brine and start over. Brining is more of an art than a science, so if you feel moved to add 5 cloves of garlic rather than 3, by all means, knock yourself out.

Once brined, the olives need to be stored in the refrigerator. They will be ready to eat in about two weeks. Typically, the longer they sit in the brine the better they taste, but let’s be honest; who can stand to wait longer than 2 weeks!?

Basic Olive Brining Recipe

• 3 ¼ c. water
• ¾ c. white vinegar
• 5 T salt

Some of my creations in past years:

Homemade Olives A la Gioco:

• 1x basic brine recipe
• 2.5 lbs cured olives (will fill 1/2 gallon jar)
• 4 cloves garlic
• 1 T fennel seeds
• 4 whole dried chili peppers
• 2 star anise
• rind of 1 orange
• 1 T black peppercorns

Homemade Speecey-Espicy Olives

• 1x basic brine recipe
• 2.5 lbs cured olives (will fill 1/2 gallon jar)
• 1 lemon, sliced
• 10-20 whole dried chilis
• 4 cloves garlic

Lemony Snicket Homemade Olives

• 1x basic brine recipe
• 2.5 lbs cured olives (will fill 1/2 gallon jar)
• 1/2 lemon, sliced
• juice of 2 lemons
• 4 cloves garlic

Herbaceous Homemade Olives

• 1x basic brine recipe
• 2.5 lbs cured olives (will fill 1/2 gallon jar)
• 5ish sprigs fresh thyme or rosemary
• 5 bay leaves
• 3 cloves garlic
• 2 T black peppercorns

Woah. Dishonest labeling.

I just read this in the New York Times:

To finish off the Smiths’ ground beef, Cargill added bread crumbs and spices, fashioned it into patties, froze them and packed them 18 to a carton.

The listed ingredients revealed little of how the meat was made. There was just one meat product listed: “Beef.”

Smith’s hamburgers have breadcrumbs in them and they are not listed in the ingredients! Not that I am a hamburglar, but you’ve got to think that if one company is being dishonest in their labeling, that a few more are. Yikes. I guess those celiacs who call the company to inquire about ingredients aren’t so paranoid after all. Sigh.

Leftovers never looked so good: Noodle Omelet

Gluten-Free Noodle Omelet

I can’t remember exactly how or why it occurred to me that noodles would be good in an omelet, but it happened one night and I’ve never been the same since. HA! The drama.

Truth is, I often find myself with half a pot of leftover noodles, having gobbled up the sauce in an imprudent way. And although I appreciate the merits of a bowl of plain noodles as a vehicle for olive oil and cheese, cold rice noodles just don’t cut the mustard. So sauceless leftover noodles tend to languish in my fridge… that is, until the glorious advent of the noodle omelet. Noodle omelet! Sounds fun, doesn’t it? I feel funner just saying it.

Noodle Omelet

• ~1.5 – 2 cups leftover Tinkyada brown rice pasta
• 5 eggs
• a pat of butter
• 1 T olive oil
• grated parmesan or romano cheese
• salt & pepper

Heat up your pasta in a large non-stick pan with the butter and olive oil. In a medium bowl, crack the eggs and beat with 1/4 t. salt. When the pasta is warmed through, spread it evenly across the bottom of the pan and grate the cheese on top (as much or as little as you please). Grind some black pepper on top (be generous – it adds kick). Slowly pour the eggs over the noodles taking care not to dump them all in one spot. Cover and turn the heat to medium. Cook until the eggs are no longer runny (unless you’re a soupy omelet person) and the pasta has formed a crispy crunchy bottom. Oh lordie, take me now!

Gluten-Free No-Knead Bread

On a whim I busted out the gluten-free flour today and started to make a loaf. Inspired by the ease of The Bittman/Leahey no-knead wonderloaf, I wanted to throw something together, give it a grand sweeping mixmix (for dramatic effect more than anything else), and then get on with life and leave it to work its magic. The gluten-free gods were smiling on me b/c it turned out surprisingly well. Future tweaks will make it positively badass.

A very respectable gluten-free loaf

Gluten-Free Wonderloaf To Be

• 2 c. tapioca starch
• 1/2 cup teff flour
• 1/2 cup millet flour
• 1/2 cup oat flour
• 2 T ground flax seeds
• 1 1/4 t. dough enhancer
• 1/2 t. salt
• 1 t. active dry yeast
• 1 T sugar
• 2 cups warm water
• 1 T olive oil
• non-stick bundt pan*

Directions: Do you have a coffee grinder dedicated to spice grinding? If not, it’s well worth the $20. Anywhoo, if you do have one, measure out 2 T of flax seeds and grind them finely. If not, I believe flax seed meal can be found at fancy pants grocery stores.

Where were we? Put 1 cup of the tapioca flour and all the other dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl. Add the warm water and stir. Let sit, covered, for 3-4 hours and watch with glee as it rise, rise, rises. Then grease a non-stick bundt pan with the olive oil. Add the remaining 1 cup of tapioca starch to the dough and stir to incorporate. You’ll end up deflating it, which is kind of heartbreaking, but you’ll make up for it soon enough. Spoon the dough into the greased bundt and let rise for two hours in a warm place. Preheat the oven to 350 and bake for 20-25 minutes. Let it cool for a few and then pop it out onto a cutting board. Admire your handy work. Celebrate by tearing off a chunk and dipping it in olive oil. Live fully once again!

* I chose to use a bundt pan b/c I thought it might offer a little support in helping the dough rise and not collapse in the middle. Worked well, but the bread seems to have enough structure that it might not be necessary. You definitely need a pan with walls b/c the dough is too soupy to rise like a traditional loaf, but I might try a springform pan next time to see how I fare.