Planning your next hearty meal or choosing from a range of foods on a restaurant menu is one of life’s simple pleasures. But for someone with celiac disease, a food intolerance or allergy, the choice can be painfully limited. Food is central to so many social situations, and food intolerances can make people feel totally alienated and full of anxiety.
But it doesn’t have to be that way.
Our restaurant, Food for Friends, in Brighton, England, has been serving vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free dishes for over 30 years. The focus is on fresh, great quality and locally sourced ingredients to create really tasty food, without substitutes. And because so many of our customers follow a gluten-free diet, gluten-free cooking was something — whether we liked the challenge or not — we simply had to embrace.
The restaurant’s owner is sensitive to the subject because his daughter has a mild intolerance to gluten. He said, “When we found out it was quite daunting; we not only had to think about what we were cooking for her in a family environment, but about how she was being fed at school, at parties and in other people’s houses. And this is the same for adults with intolerances.”
But having a gluten intolerance need not be an obstacle to great food. There are many exciting and readily-available ingredients these days, certainly a lot more than when the restaurant opened back in 1981. Over the years we’ve found some really great ingredients that are not merely a substitute for their gluten-containing counterparts, but often superior, more nutritious, and tastier.
Here are our top 10 gluten-free (and vegetarian too) ingredients:
Quinoa
Known as the ‘mother grain’ by the Incas, quinoa is a complete protein (unlike wheat or rice) and is packed full of dietary fiber and iron, particularly important for vegetarians. A bestseller at the restaurant is our quinoa salad with broad bean, red currant and caramelized fennel with fresh lime and herbs.
Buckwheat
Don’t be fooled by the name—buckwheat doesn’t contain wheat or gluten. Buckwheat wraps are an easy lunch option, filled with your favorite ingredients (we like avocado and fresh tomato salsa). A great idea to bring out the flavor of the wrap is to toast it once it’s filled.
Polenta
An Italian cupboard staple, polenta is made by grinding corn into flour. A favorite treat at the restaurant is polenta chips with garlic aioli. They fly out of the kitchen when we put them on the menu!
Tapioca pearls
Tapioca is a white starch extracted from the root of the cassava plant. Tapioca pearls are sold dried and need to be simmered until plumped and soft. They can be used in drinks or sweet or savory foods, or even pickled.
Taco shells
These crispy shells made of cornmeal are a natural for a midweek casual dinner. We think they’re best served with pinto bean chili, sour cream, grated cheese and homemade guacamole.
Almond flour
This wonderful flour has a fabulous nutty flavor. Almond and raspberry is a winning combination and our most popular cake is, in fact, a gluten-free raspberry and almond tart.
Coconut flour
Baking with coconut flour can be tricky as you need a lot of eggs to help bind the flour together — but the results make it totally worth it! There are great recipes online, and muffins are a good starting point.
Gram/garbanzo/chickpea flour
High in protein (particularly important for vegetarian diets), gram flour is wonderful for coating vegetables for Indian pakoras, fritters, or flatbreads. Falafel is also made from chickpeas, has a wonderfully crunchy exterior when fried, and is delicious served with hummus or tzatziki (cucumber-yogurt sauce).
Blended flour
The range and availability of gluten-free blended flour available these days is astonishing. It’s usually a mixture of rice, potato and tapioca flour. The process of baking bread with blended flour is completely different but totally manageable. “It’s much more like cake batter as the mixture is very wet,” says Food for Friends’ dessert chef, Rod. “Gluten-free flours are a little more difficult to work with than regular flours, but it’s just a matter of getting used to cooking with them.”
Tamari
This is a wonderful wheat-free soy sauce. Wheat is probably not something you associate with soy sauce, but it is sometimes part of the manufacturing process, making the salty sauce problematic for people with celiac disease and gluten intolerance.
Initially, following a gluten-free diet may be frustrating. But with time, patience and creativity, you’ll find there are many foods that you already eat that are gluten-free and you will find substitutes for gluten-containing foods that you can enjoy.
The Food for Friends vegetarian recipe book with over 100 recipes including gluten-free and vegan is available for download or your iPad or Mac.
First published February 2015
Gluten-free Chocolate Brownie
The gooey Gluten-free Chocolate Brownie from Food for Friends is gluten-free, but contains nuts.
While there are many cookbooks with a brownie recipe in them, our chocolate brownie has been on the menu since the beginning of the restaurant so we felt it would be rude not to include it for all those die-hard chocolate brownie fans.
Ingredients
- •200g (7 ounces) dark chocolate (minimum 70% cocoa solids)
- •250g (9 ounces) unsalted butter, cut into chunks
- •5 eggs
- •375g (13 ounces) caster (superfine) sugar
- •100g (3½ ounces) gluten-free flour
- •4 tablespoons cocoa powder
- •1½ teaspoons baking powder
- •½ teaspoon fine sea salt
- •150g (5½ ounces) flaked almonds
Preparation
Preheat the oven to 160°C/gas mark 2–3 (350° F). Use a baking tray (sheet pan) approximately 20cm x 30cm (9 x 12 inches) and 2.5cm (1 inch) deep; grease it and line with baking paper.
Place a glass bowl over a pan of simmering water, but make sure the bottom of the bowl is above the level of the water. Break up the chocolate and put it in the bowl with the butter. Allow it to melt, then stir with a wooden spoon and mix it well.
In a large bowl, whisk the eggs and sugar until pale and fluffy. Carefully spoon the chocolate mix into the eggs and sugar, and stir gently to combine. Sift the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt into the egg and chocolate mix and carefully fold them through.
Put the mixture into the baking tray and scatter the almonds on top. Cook the brownie in the oven for 35–40 minutes or until just firm to the touch. When it is cooked, remove it from the oven and allow it to cool for 10 minutes. Then cut it into squares and cool them completely on a wire rack.
Sweet Tofu Pockets with Mirin Dressing and Pickled Vegetables
(Vegan and gluten-free, contains sesame)
We always have a version of tofu pockets on our menu as they’re so tasty and always one of our most popular dishes! Tofu pockets, known as inariage, can be bought from Oriental or Asian supermarkets. The tamari is a gluten-free soy sauce.
Ingredients
For the pickled vegetables:
- •1 carrot
- •Half a cucumber
- •100g (3½ ounces) radish
- •100g (3½ ounces) caster (superfine) sugar
- •100ml (6 tablespoons) white wine vinegar
For the mirin dressing:
- •4 tablespoons mirin
- •3 tablespoons tamari
- •2 tablespoons white wine
- •2 tablespoons sesame oil
- •1 tablespoon vegetable oil
- •1 tablespoon caster (superfine) sugar
For assembly:
- •200g (7 ounces/1 cup) brown rice
- •1 tablespoon vegetable oil
- •Half a white onion, chopped
- •400g (14 ounces) oyster mushrooms, chopped
- •2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
- •2 tablespoons tamari
- •1 bunch of spring onions (scallions), finely chopped
- •200g (7 ounces) roasted mashed butternut squash
- •2 tablespoons mirin
- •Salt and pepper
- •1 ripe avocado
- •4 packets of tofu pockets
- •Pickled ginger, for serving (optional)
- •Enocci (enoki) mushrooms, for garnish (optional)
Preparation
For the pickled vegetables: The night before serving, prepare the pickled vegetables. Using a mandolin, finely shred the carrot, cucumber, and radish. Whisk together the vinegar, sugar and 100ml (6 tablespoons) water until all the sugar has dissolved. Soak the vegetables in the liquid overnight.
For the mirin dressing: Combine all ingredients in a bowl, and set aside.
To assemble the pockets: Put 500ml (2 cups) water into a large saucepan, bring it to the boil and add the rice. Cook for 15 minutes. Drain well.
Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a frying pan and fry the onion and oyster mushrooms together for 5 minutes, then add the garlic and tamari, and half the spring onions (scallions). Cook until tender and mix with half of the cooked rice. Add the butternut mash, mirin, salt and pepper to the other half of the cooked rice, along with the remaining spring onions (scallions).
Open the tofu cases and using a teaspoon stuff them carefully with the two types of rice. Chop the avocado into 2cm (¾ inch) cubes and place these in the top of the tofu pockets; serve immediately with mirin dressing, drained pickled vegetables, and, if desired, pickled ginger and a garnish of enocci (enoki) mushrooms.