Roasted Pig Head - Masterchef Australia 2009
An impressive crispy roasted pig head...
A very impressive dish from Chris! - Masterchef Australia 2009
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Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Monday, June 29, 2009
Cucumber Carpaccio
Paper thin slices of cucumber served with olive oil and lemon dressing. Simple, but beautifully effective salad, achieved with a quality sharp knife.
Check out King of Knives for their range of top brands at discounted prices, from budget Victorinox to Shun and Wusthof. This is the place where the local culinary school (TAFE) sends their commercial cookery students.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Gluten Free Pseudo Rye Bread
Red millet bread as a rye bread replacement. Red millet is also known as finger millet or ragi at Indian grocers. As with the beautiful breads in this blog, this pseudo rye bread is made using the starch gel technique.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Gluten Free Baguettes
Gluten-free rolls and buns become a reality now that Noodle Cook perfected French style bread. These lovely baguettes baked to perfection in baking paper molds. The crisp crust and bakery aroma from the yeast really compare well with wheat baguettes.
Using the starch gel method for bread making, the baguette turned out light, fluffy, moist and flexible without the need for GFG, xanthan or guar gum.
The bread dough is a cake-like batter. Seen here are well risen baguettes ready to bake. There is no time consuming kneading with batter breads.
The paper molds are made by folding and stapling silicon paper parchment, and held in place using skewers. The paper molds can be used several times before discarding. These molds make a cheap alternative to specialty French stick tins. Check out GFVeg for foil molds.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Gluten Free Bread Retrogradation
After 2 months hanging out for gluten-free Easter bread, Noodle Cook celebrates with a successful high protein LSA white French style bread for lunch. Shown here is a beautiful moist, fluffy and flexible sandwich. This is incredible for a bread made without GFG, xanthan, guar gum or any other potential allergens with foodcodes. The bread stays fresh for 2 whole days with acceptable eating quality for close on 4 days.
The celebration proves premature as there is one slight problem. Like all gluten-free bread, including commercial ones, this type of bread often stales rapidly. The main effect is rapid drying out of the starches (syneresis), leaving a dry mouth feel. The other effect is crumbling when the texture of starches changes on cooling (retrogradation), such as freezing to extend shelf life. The crumbling occurs when frozen bread is defrosted, but is easily reversed by toasting, or reheating in a microwave oven.
The moistness of the bread is achieved using the starch gel method of bread making, also known as "tangzhong" in Chinese wheat bread making. Through gelatinization of a small portion of the total flour, the starches swell to absorb more moisture.
For gluten-free bread doughs (batters), the gelatinization enables 2 things:
- develops the stretch, particularly of the amylopectin starch component, to simulate the gluten of wheat flour
- thickens the starches to suspend the flour particles, especially whole grain gluten-free flours and nutritious seed and nut meals
The starch gel under development here relies on potato starch to replace the characteristics of gluten. The temperature range for gelatinization is 60-90 deg C. Fermentation is at room temperature to maintain the consistency of the starch gel. There is still a lot of hit and miss as to what proportion of flour to gelatinize and the right gel viscosity to create the desire bread texture. Regardless of the imperfection of the technique, all the gluten-free breads made using the potato starch gel turn out, as pictured, light, airy, fluffy, moist, and flexible.
Retrogradation is harder to control. Research shows that SWEET potato starch retrogrades less. Unfortunately introducing sweet potato starch slows the retrogradation but not prevent the effect as the bread ages in the freezer. The defrosted bread after 7-day freeze shows sign of staling at lunch time, 4 hours after successful thawing to freshness as when first baked. After more research, it seems to stabilize sweet potato starch, you need polysaccharide gum like guar gum or xanthan!
It seems that the quest to replace guar gum and xanthan has gone in a circle. However, the starch gel is still the answer to those dense cake-like gluten-free breads. There's nothing wrong with baking every 3 days to enjoy that beautiful fluffy bread that sceptics say is impossible for gluten-free flours. Read more...
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Gluten Free French Bread Marvel
Behold, a feather-light, fluffy, moist, flexible high protein white bread that stays fresh for 2 whole days, with a crispy golden crust to top that achievement for a gluten-free French breadstick style bread.
Homemade using a simple starch gel without GFG, xanthan or guar gum. Finally, a real bread for those who dream of something better than eating those dense gluten-free bread while pretending the taste is wonderful.
Noodle Cook not only dreams of that oven fresh gluten-free loaf with bakery aroma, but researches and produces the real thing on the first try.
There's still work to stabilize the starch when freezing to extend shelf life, but what an amazing achievement to come this far after the Easter weekend bread drama.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Lunch Special: Rice Rolls with Salad
Fresh rice rolls with salad and aromatic herbs, served with choice of sauces.
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