Proving that you can cook delectable dishes without a tiny speck of wheat flour.
My first impressions of the book: I loved the look, the smell of quality paper, the feel, the thickness of the pages, the photography and the layout – all beautiful, inviting and clean.
I’m passionate about writing these articles with honesty and in doing so I have to admit that cookbooks scare me – more so a gluten free cookbook. It’s not the case of just chucking the plain flour in with the sugar and eggs like ‘normal’ cooking. One is required to house about 10 different flours, xanthan gum and four different types of milk. I felt uneasy looking through Good Without Gluten the first time so I carried it around with me for a good week before I built up the courage.
The little kid inside me got the best of the first selection menu choice; sage gnocchi, chocolate-coconut roughs and chocolate muffins. I was keen to bake the chocolate goodies before realising that the gnocchi needed to sit for four hours before cooking.
I was deeply surprised how good the Chocolate Coconut Roughs tasted with so little prep time and ingredients. They took less time to make than the oven took to heat up.
I learnt that cooking in general takes planning. When I was rushing around for the gnocchi ingredients I found myself switching the sage for basil, the preserved lemon for fresh lemon and the baby leeks for full sized leeks. As my close friend critics (that know a thing or two about food) agreed that it was a good batch of gnocchi but would have benefited greatly from the preserved lemons. However, the cooking process was enjoyable and that was a relief.
I then tried my hand at smoked duck pastry. The pastry took some planning as it had five different flours incorporated. I switched the Smoked Duck for bacon, but not from a lack of trying to find the scribed ingredient.
I was so proud of myself for making the pastry. I puffed up my feathers as I rolled it out into the baking tray. My first ever quiche, how accomplished. It’s a shame that the millet flour and the tapioca flour were still in ball form and needing breaking down. My critics assured me that the filling was delicious but the pastry was inedible.
This review has made me smarter:
- Buy a digital measuring scale – most of the labour is spent measuring the whole thing up and it’s so precise.
- Don’t beat yourself up if you swap something out.
- Read the method twice just to be sure, maybe three times.
Cooking a selection of the Good Without Gluten recipes has been a confidence builder. I have gluten free baking knowledge, something in the past I have left to others. I feel empowered.
No Glu is a restaurant and grocery store in Paris. Its three chefs, the authors of this book, Frederique Jules, Jennifer Lepoutre and Mitsuru Yanase, work together developing recipes for their clientele who seek guaranteed gluten-free food that is also delicious. This is their first book.
Good Without Gluten (Murdoch Books), RRP $29.99, is out now.
Image Credit: Murdoch Books
