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.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Gluten Free Flours
Indian grocers provide a range of non-wheat flours suitable for bread making:
Lentil = urid/urad dal
Chickpea = besan/gram/garbanzo
Sorghum = juwar/jowar/milo/cholam
Millet = bajri/kurakkan
Red Millet (Finger Millet) = ragi
Water Chestnut = singoda
Amaranth = rajagro
Buckwheat = kutta ka atta/kuttu/kasha
Shown in this post is a beautiful sorghum bread made without GFG, xanthan or guar gum. The beautiful texture is controlled by room temperature fermentation (25-30 degrees). Slowing down the fermentation gives a much more refined and softer texture.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Breakfast Special
Poached egg with vintage cheddar in a tomato cup, premium leg ham, buttered melba toast, and spicy fresh tomato puree with basil dip.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Paper Chef #40 - Simplicity
This month's Paper Chef is hosted by April's winner, Bron Marshall. Paper Chef is a culinary challenge where cooks and chefs alike brag and boast showcase their cooking creations using 4 secret ingredients. Challengers have one weekend to star in their own kitchen stadium, like an Iron Chef, to cook for an international internet audience, and to write about their experience.
Bron, with the help of 2 beautiful fairies, randomly picked the secret ingredients:
Prosciutto
Floury Potatoes
Thyme
Mother’s Day
... the fourth ingredient selected for Mother's Day is STOCK. A good stock makes a great difference to a dish. Most people can identify with the labour of love that goes into creating the heart and soul of a meal. Stock making clearly reminds of a motherly figure bent over a stove carefully skimming off the fat. Without this skimming, we won't be light as fairies!
Since parents of baby boomers go through post war frugality, the dish presented for the challenge is titled Simplicity, a deconstructed vichyssoise, a French potato and leek cream soup. The dish is served as a creamy base with components of the soup: onion, leek, potato, thyme, and molded jellied stock (not shown here). The soup is usually served chilled, but can be heated. To serve warm, omit the jellied stock or set the stock with translucent starches like water chestnut or potato.
Soup
1 leek, cut into 2 cm lengths
2 floury potatoes, peeled
1 waxy potato, peeled
1 L chicken stock
1 onion
1 garlic
1 bay leaf
4 sprigs of thyme
1 teaspoon green peppercorn
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 pickling onion
1 cup milk (or 150 mL cream)
2 tablespoon butter (omit if using cream)
To make the soup, bring to boil all ingredients except milk and butter. Simmer for 1 hour. Remove the pickling onion, waxy potato and green leek parts after 15 minutes.
When the soup is ready, remove the bay leaf. Add butter and milk. Puree in a blender until smooth and creamy. Chill if serving cold.
For serving
1 stalk spring onion
8 slices prosciutto
1/2 cup jellied stock (boosted by pork rind)
1/2 teaspoon gelatin, if required
4 sprigs of fresh thyme
Cut the spring onion into decorative strips. Use iced water to curl.
Cut the prosciutto into 1 cm wide strips. Wind the prosciutto strips around a thin roll of baking paper shaped like a chopstick. Microwave on high for 30-45 seconds until crisp. Slide off the baking paper.
Heat the jellied stock, adding gelatin if needed. Pour into flexible ice cube molds and chill. Use star molds to appease Bron's fairies. Omit the jellied stock if serving the soup warm. The stock can also be set in water chestnut flour or potato starch to avoid melting.
Assembly
Pour the soup into shallow serving dishes. Add waxy potato cube, halved pickling onion, fresh sprig of thyme, molded jellied stock, and a slice of green leek. Place prosciutto chopsticks over the dish as shown. Garnish with spring onion.
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