The Jim Patchell Gluten Free Webpage
First Posted 12-26-2004
Updated 8-23-2012
Why the heck would I care about doing Gluten Free
baking? Well, it seems I am one of the
lucky people who is sensitive to Gluten. I live in the lovely city of Santa
Barbara and I can tell you, finding supplies and food
that is free of gluten here is pretty much impossible. Below, I have listed three websites I do my
gluten free shopping at, plus I am compiling a list of recipes that at least to
me taste good. So far, I have not come
up with a satisfactory bread recipe.
When I do, I will post that here as well. Although, next on my list is to make dough naughts (donuts).
That will be fairly easy, as donut dough is very similar to pancake
batter. One thing you will notice is I
generally put another grain in with the rice.
This is because all by itself, rice has pretty much no flavor. Right now, I have been using Amaranth
Flour. I have also used Quinoa Flour as
well. Quinoa has a lot more flavor than
Amaranth and is very good.
Fenel Marinated Roast Chicken
August 23, 2012
This is a minor variation on brining chicken.
Brine: In a 1 gallon plastic container add:
1/2 cup of Kosher Salt (must be Kosher or Sea Salt,
DO NOT USE TABLE SALT)
1/2 cup of raw brown sugar
1 cup of aplle juice
1 cup of Fairbanks Sherry (or similar booze...do not use cooking sherry *(YUCK)*)
and enough water to fill the container up about 1/2 way
Disolve the solids into the liquid.
Fennel:
Put 2 TBL of fennel in a omlet pan and roast them
for about 2 minutes. Then grind them up with a mortar and pestal.
Not, in about 2 cups of water, make tea out of the fennel.
Probably boiling the fennel in the water for a bit is best.
However, I just did mine in a glass cup in the microwave.
Took a total of about 3 minutes. The stronger the fennel
tea, the better, in my opinion. Add the Tea to the brining
solution.
Chicken
I used 1/2 chicken breasts with ribs attatched.
My opinion, free range chicken has a much better flaver to
begin with. I would stay away from the big brands (Foster Farms,
Expecially Tyson...) I got my chicken at Gelsons. Put
chicken in bin. Put bin in refridgerator and let them soak for
about 12 - 24 hours.
CookingGet
a pyrex backing dish. Using your pump up oil sprayer, spay a coat
of Extra Light olive oil on the pan. Put in the chicken, skin
side down is what I prefer, and then give the chicken a light coat of
oil. Then I sprinkle on some italian seasoning. Roast for
about 1 hour at 350 degrees F. Remove
from oven, and let it rest for about 10 to 15 minuts.
Not even an iron chef could do better ... (well, probably could :-)
Gluten Free Cookie Recipe
1 Cup White
Rice Flour
½ Cup
Amaranth Flour
½ Cup
Vegetable Shortening (Crisco)
½ Cup
Tapioca Four
1 Tsp Salt
1 ½ Tsp
Xanthan Gum
1 Large Egg
2 Tbl Milk
¼ Cup confectioners sugar
2 Tsp Bobs Redmill Baking Power
Dash of
Cinnamon and Vanilla Extract to taste
Cream the
shortening and mix in the sugar. Add the
egg and the milk and beat until fairly smooth.
Mix all of the dry components in a separate bowl and mix together. Add ½ of the dry components into the liquid
and mix. Then add the rest of the dry
components and mix some more. Roll dough
on cutting board and cut into favorite shapes.
I bake these things pretty hot. I
set my oven to 450 F. It takes about 10
to 15 minutes. While these are not great
cookies, these are the best I have managed to do that are gluten free. Be real careful of the Xanthan Gum, too much
and you can bounce the cookies off the floor.
Gluten Free Pancake (baking) Mix
6 Cups of
White Rice Flour
1 ½ Cups of
Amaranth Flour
¼ Cup of
Tapioca Flour
¼ Cup of
Potato Flour
¼ Cup of
Bobs Redmill Baking Powder
1 Tbl Salt
1 Tbl Baking Soda (Bicarbonate of Soda)
1 Tbl Confectioners Sugar
Thoroughly
mix all ingredients in a large mixing bowl and then put it in some sort of
storage container.
To make
buttermilk pancakes:
1 Large Egg
2/3 Cup of
Buttermilk (Sort of depends on the buttermilk, I use Altadena Low Fat Cultured
Buttermilk, which is thinner than some others)
1 Tsp
Vegetable Oil
½ Cup of
Gluten Free Pancake Mix
Add the
liquid components first. Beat until well
mixed. Before adding in the Pancake mix,
make sure the Griddle is ready to cook on.
I set mine to about 375 F. Add
the ½ cup of Pancake mix and beat until the lumps are gone. If it is too thick, I sometimes add just a
smidge of water and beat that in. Don’t
let the mix stand for very long, it thickens up real fast. I can get about four 6 inch diameter pancakes
from the above. It takes about 4 minutes
on each side.
Gluten Free Donuts
1 Cup Rice
Flour
¾ Cup
Amaranth Flour
¼ Cup
Tapioca Flour
1 ½ Tsp Bob’s
Redmill Baking Powder
1/3 Cup
Confectioners Sugar
¼ Tsp
Baking Soda
1 Tbl Nutmeg
1 Tsp Xanthan
Gum
Dash of Cinnamon
2 Eggs
1 Cup
Butter Milk
4 Tbl Olive Oil
I mix all
of the dry ingredients together first.
Then in a separate bowl, I mix the Eggs, Buttermilk and Olive oil
together. I then add the liquid into the
dry and mix together. When mixed, the
dough will be pretty gooey. This is
important. Makes it a little difficult
to work with…but… Now if you must, you
can maybe add one or two tablespoons of rice flour, but remember, it needs to
be pretty gooey. I divide the dough in
half. Dust a cutting board with a bit of
rice flour. Coat your hands with rice flour,
as well as the rolling pin. I put the
dough on the cutting board, coat the top with just a bit of rice flour and then
roll it out. Rather amazingly, it did
not stick to either the rolling pin or cutting board when prepared like
this. Cut out the donuts with a cutter
and put them in the bin for a deep fat fryer and fry at 375 degrees. It takes about 2 minutes per side. Just keep going until you run out. I didn’t actually count the donuts, but it
looks like I got about 2 dozen donuts and donut holes…When they are fresh, they
were pretty good. After a day, they are
OK but a little heavier in texture.
Still, the best gluten free donuts I have made to date.
More Pancake / Baking Mix Recipes
1 Cup
Teff Flour
1 Cup
Quinoa Flour
3 Cups
Bette's Gourmet Featherlight Rice Flour Blend
1 Cup
Bette's Gourmet Four Flour Blend
2 Cups
Brown Rice Flour
1/2 Cup
Frontier Psyllium Seed Husk Powdered (Barcode 0-89836-00709-4)
1/4 Cup Baking Powder
1/2 TSP Xanthum Gum....(do not
use any more than this...a little goes a long way...too much, and it
will be like eating rubber)
1 TBL Salt
1 TBL Baking Soda (Sodium BiCarbonate)
12 oz Saco cultured Buttermilk Blend (powdered).
One thing to note about this mixuter is the use of
Psyllium Husk. My doctor originally thought that this might help
with my intestinal problems, but I discovered that it is a very useful
ingredient in gluten free baking.
To make pancakes...
Two large eggs
2 TBL extra virgin olive oil
3/4 cup water
1 Cup Baking Mix.
Start with the two eggs, oil and
water and beat until the mixture begins to froth. Add the flour
and mix with wisk. Now, it should be noted that at first, this
will be pretty runny. You will need to let the batter sit for a
minute or two and it should begin to thicken up. It may take a
little practice to get the proportions of water to flour just right.
Too much flour will make a real gluey mess that is not going to
make good pancakes. As soon as it begins to thicken up a bit,
pour the pancake batter onto a griddle that is about 350 degrees F.
Cook about 3 minutes per side. I get very light and fluffy
pancakes from this, and they also tast very good. I don't even
miss eating wheat based pancakes anymore.
Where
to get supplies.
Finding
high quality rice flour is a bit of a problem.
Some of it is very gritty. I have
used rice flour from three places.
Arrowhead Mills
Bob’s Red Mill
Cause Your Special
This is pretty
subjective, but I would rank the white rice flour from Cause You Special to be
the best, Bob’s Red Mill is a close second, with Arrowhead Mills bringing up
the rear. All of the rest of the
products I would say are pretty equal.
Making flour out of rice must be extremely difficult judging by the wide
differences in quality.
Now if you
happen to live in Seattle, you are
in real luck. There is at least one
place up there that sell bulk white rice flour at a very reasonable price and
the quality is fairly good as well. I
can’t remember the name of it, but I am sure if you look around enough, you
will find it.