Gluten Free Cookbook recommendations
I've been looking for a great gluten free cookbook for a person who has just been diagnosed as a Ciliac. I know it is a relatively new market and so far I haven't been able to find much feedback about which cookbooks are better than others. Do any of you Serious (gluten free) Eaters have any recommendations of books that you love?
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12 Comments:
I have come across great gluten free recipes in all the cookbooks I own, and have thought about writing a book of old school gluten free cuisine, but I don't want the words, "gluten" or "disease" to be in the title or the cover.
One of my best friends has to follow a gluten free diet, and in the past I have served:
Baby octopus in wine/marinara sauce over rice (Elizabeth David, Italian food)
Morcilla and chick pea paella (Penelope Casas)
Steak with bearnaise sauce, roasted potatos, salad (William Rice)
Ossobucco (recipe from Jane Grigson, Good Things ) with rissoto milanese
Ham in coca cola (Nigellla Lawson)
Chicken and Pig trotter in red wine (from Nose to Tail Eating, F. Henderson) with mashed potatos
For dessert, there's the usual flourless chocolate cake, ice creams and fruit, and the greatest of all, Montblanc -- chestnut puree with merengues and whipped cream.
So my crazy suggestion is that you go through your favorite cookbooks for your favorite recipes that are already gluten free and, give a collection of the flourless recipes to your friend.
Ortolan at 11:32AM on 07/01/09
I agree, the best recipes I've found are ones that are naturally gluten free like macaroons, almond tortes, flourless chocolate cakes etc. But I do miss things like muffins and breads etc. Just got 2 cookbooks after a long while of researching. Gluten-free baking by Rebecca Reilly and Gluten-free baking classics by Annalise G. Roberts. The latter of the 2 is much better as the first uses egg replacer in almost every recipe! And that is on top of using eggs so it can't be a vegan thing. I don't know if it adds structure to the baked goods but I like my food to be as natural as possible.
bigfatmouth at 11:39AM on 07/01/09
Too add to the list above:
Rice pudding
Creme caramel
Cornbead recipe that only uses cornmeal as the starch (Edna Lewis, Taste of Country Cooking)
Ring cake that uses cornstarch as the starch (Silver Spoon, Phaidon edition)
Chocolate walnut torte -- two people pronounced this the best they had -- using only sugar, ground walnuts and egg whites for the batter-- from Private Collection, recipes of the Junior League of Palo Alto.
Ortolan at 12:24PM on 07/01/09
I'm not gluten-free, but I reviewed the Gluten-Free Italian cookbook by Mary Capone. And I made some of the recipes. If you want bread that is like white bread and pasta that is like regular pasta, and pizza that would fool anyone, this book has recipes. You do need some odd flours and ingredients, but Bob's Red Mill has them all.
Trying to go naturally gluten-free when it's possible makes a lot of sense, but people I know who have to avoid gluten are bummed that they can't have things like pizza or a simple sandwich, and it's hard to say "suck it up and eat this eggplant instead and pretend it's pizza."
I was particularly impressed with the bread. I mean, it wasn't the best loaf I ever made, but it was actually bread and not some bread substitute. If I had to make bread that way every week, I'm sure I'd be tweaking it with flavors and add-ins, but all by itself, it was a very acceptable sandwich loaf.
dbcurrie at 12:43PM on 07/01/09
I get most of my gluten free recipes online. Karina's Kitchen is one of my favorite sites.
When the Babycakes cookbook came out, I got all excited because their bakery is so well known. I'm sorely disappointed though. Most of the recipes use bean flours (= gassy!) and the have a lot of recipes using spelt (wheat free but not gluten free).
If your friend is not vegan or allergic to eggs, the Cooking with Coconut Flour is pretty interesting. I've made some terrific cupcakes from their recipes.
Knitter at 2:17PM on 07/01/09
A gluten free cook book is nice but all one needs to do is learn all the substitutes for wheat flour. Those other bad grains like barley, rye or oats ( for some ) are easily avoided.
Poultrygeist at 2:22PM on 07/01/09
@poultrygeist, for some things it's easy to find subs for wheat flour, but if you want to make something where the structure that the gluten creates is important (like bread doughs) you can't just use another flour without making other modifications.
If you can live without bready things, no problem. But if you want something that looks and acts like bread (pizza, flatbreads, sweet breads, etc) it's handy to have a formula that's been tested. Honestly, it would have been a million years before I came up with the formula and the technique for making that gluten-free bread. It was nothing like regular bread until it came out of the oven.
dbcurrie at 6:18PM on 07/01/09
I have a couple gluten free cook books and find I really only use them for the baking recipes - the rest are easily adaptable (or already GF) so they're not really necessary. I'd look for a good Gluten Free Baking book - Bette Hagman is well known for her recipes as well as her flour mixes. One thing I'd look for in a GF cookbook would be the ingredient lists - some recipes require TONS of odd ingredients to "work" which makes them prohibitive for most (and are usually unnecessary). One tip for your friend is to play with the recipes - gf baking is far less of a science than what most assume "regular" baking to be. Each flour is different and will need different levels of moisture, baking time, etc. Its a challenge, but it can also be fun.
thinkingincrayons at 10:54PM on 07/01/09
Has anyone tried DePuma's Gluten Free Pasta? It's a pretty amazing product, considering it's gluten free.
abowlerperson at 7:07AM on 07/02/09
i wonder why so many people are allergic to gluten these days?
or has this always been a widely spread problem?
i swear, over the past few years i've come across an astonishing amount of people with it.
gastronomeg at 9:14AM on 07/02/09
the gluten-free ktchen by donna klein is really good. sorry about no caps...i have a kid in my ams.
grumblekitty at 6:34PM on 07/05/09
@gastromeg, I think part if it is that doctors are recognizing it and testing for it, so instead of people just feeling generally bad for no reason, now they know what it is and can take steps to avoid it.
I also think that a number of people are misdiagnosing it in themselves. The give up bread for a short while and feel better and say they can't eat gluten while at the same time they're happily eating all sorts of thing that they don't realize have gluten. It's the same with other allergies. People latch on to the idea, but maybe it's wrong.
dbcurrie at 7:32PM on 07/05/09