The biggest difficulty with a GF diet is caused by the change in the culture of food: - In previous generations, the majority of food consumed was prepared in the family home, usually from raw/fresh ingredients.
Today, most of the food is either bought ready-cooked, or cooked at home by "assembling" pre-prepared ingredients.
So - coping with a Gluten free diet for many means learning to cook !
Luckily, today the range of pre-prepared food which is naturally GF is large, and growing. This is, in part, because of the increase of choice in food from different nationalities.
Cooking Gluten-free is NOT difficult, just different.
An article in the June, 1976 issue of 'Gluten Free' (the magazine of the Coeliac Society of S.A.) included the following advice from 'An Old Hand'.
"Scan recipe books for recipes that use no ingredients containing gluten. Adapt others by substituting gluten-free ingredients where possible. I recommend Chinese and Oriental cookery books as a good source of gluten-free recipes."
"To swap the whole family to a glutenfree meal is much easier than cooking two separate meals. Even dinner parties etc. can be gluten-free and no-one will know the difference."
* * This is still good advice today
Recipes designed for whole-meal flour or using combinations of flours convert to G.F. cooking better than those designed with just white wheat flour. So in addition to the Asian cook books, many vegetarian cook books and books such as 'Taste of Life' contain recipes which are naturally G.F. or convert to G.F. very well.
CONVERSIONS
When converting recipes - the following substitutions work well.
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For 8oz or 250gm wheatflour substitute;
1 1/4 cups of maize cornflour For S.R. flour to the above add 1 1/2 tsp G.P. baking powder
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For 8oz or 250gm wholemeal S.R. substitute;
1/2 cup of maize cornflour
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Rice flour can be used instead of maize, but may be not as successful if it has a gritty and much heavier texture. If using that rice flour, the gritty part can be minimized by soaking the rice flour in liquid from the recipe for 4 hrs or overnight, before mixing into the rest of the ingredients.
A WORD OF WARNING:
All GF recipes in this page are wheat and gluten free.
Recipes designed for
maize corn-flour will not work with wheat-starch (frequently called
'corn-flour' in Australia), and vice versa.
The one food which most people in our western culture cannot imagine life without is bread. More than any other item in our western diet, bread is seen as the "staff of life". Gluten-free bread can be made at home quite easily, and a range of loaves are baked and sold commercially.
Whatever recipe is used for Gluten-free bread, the result resembles a batter rather than "dough". The method of preparing and baking is not the same as for as bread containing gluten. The texture of the "batter" means that it is not kneaded and cannot be shaped in the same way as "normal" bread dough. However, bread rolls can be made using pie tins and the shape of the loaves depend on the shape of the tins. Even frenchsticks work out well.
It is suggested that for the first few times, you use half the recipe and make a small loaf or 6 rolls. Using these recipes as a base, there are many variations of loaves and rolls which can be baked and enjoyed by the whole family.
As with all bread (not just gluten-free) made without the preservatives that are used in commercial mixes and baking, this bread does not keep fresh long, however it does freeze and toast well. The yogurt in the third recipe provides a preservative and hence that bread will remain fresh for days.