Georgia's Choice gluten and wheat free chicken bites

I discovered both fish fingers and chicken nuggets in Tesco a little while ago - sometimes I can't find any of this type of product but they seem now to be keeping a supply next to the vegetarian freezer section.   These chicken nuggets contain chicken breast (66%) batter, crumb, sunflower oil, and the batter is water, maize flour, maize starch, potato starch, salt, raising agents and xanthan gum.  The crumb is rice flour, gram flour, maize starch, salt and dextrose.

I don't know what normal chicken nuggets are like, but these look the same as the ones I have seen in restaurants.  They hold together well, are easy to cook ( 20 minutes bake), easy to serve, and easy to eat.  They will have been made with non-free range chicken of course, so I wouldn't regard them as a normal part of my diet, but it is useful to have a few items like this in the freezer for unexpected kids or having run out of all the fresh stuff.

They are made in the company's dedicated gluten free factory in Wiltshire.

Spiced pear and chicken salad

Pears are in season here in the UK at the moment.  Ginger goes well with pear and also with chicken, so I made a simple warm salad with these ingredients as the base.

For two people

I small chicken breast, cut into strips
1 firm pear, peeled, cored and cut into similar sized pieces
1 piece of fresh root ginger, about 1cm cubed, cut into small strips
1 red chilli, de-seeded if you want to moderate the heat, chopped
1 tsp soy sauce - I use Sanchi Tamari gf soy sauce
1/4 tsp sugar
2 tsp oil
little water - I used an espresso cup
Salad leaves

Heat the oil in a large pan/skillet.  Place the chicken strips carefully into the hot oil and start to brown them.  Add the pear strips and the rest of the ingredients except the water.  When chicken is cooked add the water to form a sauce, cook for a minute.

Cool slightly and then toss salad leaves in the sauce, placing chicken and pear on top.

Serve immediately.

The day before flying - making convenience foods for a week

I spent yesterday evening making convenience foods for Rod for the week.  Before you get outraged at the idea that he cannot cook for himself - that isn't the case.  However, as part of keeping the house gluten free I try to have lots of tasty food handy so that the lure of the takeaway pizza doesn't become unbearable.   He is planning to spend the five days getting another novel out of his head and into the computer.  The first all the way through story telling is best done in undisturbed isolation.

So, the produce from the farm shop has become six portions of barbecue-style chicken, five portions of spicy beef and bean stew, labelled and frozen, plus other meals over the last couple of days and plenty for today when my we fetch my mother.  We need to leave about three am, so we will collect her from Birmingham this morning.

The little plug-in induction hob came in useful.  It heated my large cast-iron casserole dish very rapidly with its large load of beef and beans, before I put it in the oven.  It only cost £22 so I wasn't expecting much, and trying to make pancakes in our usual frying pans yesterday wasn't very successful - they buzzed and rotated while cooking.  However, using my excellent heavy cast iron skillet this morning produced good results.

Only jobs left are to sort out the final packing - my clothes need to go in my mother's suitcase, and to convert the chicken carcass into stock.

I have had a reassuring email from the person whose flat I am renting, so I know things like how to switch on the tv and the wifi code, plus a pleasant walk through a park to the town centre.

My cupcake carriers are stuck at customs with an address query, but the future MIL will sort that out for me today.  The car was serviced yesterday, so really shouldn't break down on the way to the airport.  We are driving in the very early morning so shouldn't get stuck in traffic.  We are being met at the other end by the groom's grandparents....oh, must remember to print out the recipe for the cake!  I tend to just look things up on my blog when I need recipes, but just in case, if the wifi doesn't work..best to have a hard copy.  Good to show airport security too, if they find my odd load of stuff in the suitcase hard to comprehend.

Local organic salad and chicken on a sunny day

I used to visit Roots at Rushwick, a farm shop that sells its own organic fruit, vegetables, eggs, chickens and beef, whenever I visited my accountant.  That was back in the days when I ran a management consultancy - before the gluten destroyed my health and I had to stop work. It's now the closest farm shop to the new flat, so I thought I should start doing my basic grocery shopping there if possible.

This morning I came back with two gorgeous deep red trailing geraniums (pelargoniums to you plant name obsessives), a large chicken, some stewing steak, lettuces picked this morning, strawberries, courgette (zucchini), broad beans and tomatoes.  A lot of the vegetable crop in the UK has been damaged by the extremely wet weather, so local or even UK produce is harder to find than usual. I also bought cream and milk and a meringue base made by Mary, at Bishops Frome.  Cherries, (£8 a kilo, most of the cherry crop locally was ruined by the rain) and a giant cauliflower completed the haul.

As our stove is out of order I steamed a chicken breast in the microwave with a little thyme, sage and lime juice, in my excellent orka multi- level steam cooker - replacement for the stove top double boiler/steamer I had used probably several times a day for twenty five years, but which was given away we we switched to an induction hob.  This is a four part plastic/silicone set that can be used in the microwave or the steamer sections used with a normal pan.

After rinsing the lettuce and steaming the broad beans I served these with sliced tomato and courgette, drizzled with a little olive oil and lime and sprinkled with parsley and thyme.  The herbs are from my pots on the balcony.  It is very handy having a ready supply of fresh herbs, but the mint has got mildew with the very damp weather..or else it just doesn't like living on a balcony,

The juice is the pear and apple juice we had made from our fruit trees before we moved last autumn.  We got Clive's fruit farm to juice and bottle this for us.

The odd plates that show up in my blogs occasionally are from a  set of six by Will Alsop RA, made as a limited edition of 100 for the Royal Academy of Arts.  We used to have six..but I broke one when I fell down the stairs and sprained my ankle.

Spicy Samphire and Chicken wraps

These wraps and succulent and spicy. The whole dish is made in a single frying pan so it would be good in a campervan or basic kitchen.  Serves two people with moderate appetites.

Wraps - I didn't weigh the flour or measure the water, I just took about about a cup of my new flour mix (1/3 each urid lentil, buckwheat and brown rice flours) and added water until I got a firm but not dry dough.  I rolled out six circles about the size of my frying pan - simply patting out with hands would have done but it is easier to get a thin wrap using a rolling pin.  I cooked these on both sides in a dry pan on a medium heat until they had little brown patches.  Keep them warm and soft in a clean tea towel until needed.

Chicken

I chicken breast, cut into six strips.  Marinade this for half an hour if possible before cooking.

Marinade

1 tsp gf soy sauce

2 tbsp  tomato and garlic pasta sauce (or 1 tbsp tomato paste and a tsp of oil if not available).

2 fat cloves garlic, crushed and chopped

fresh ginger, chopped finely - about a cubic cm

1 small chili, finely chopped

Cook the chicken strips on a medium heat in a little oil until browning and cooked through.  Be careful as the moisture in the marinade will mean the fat spits - I wear a long sleeved catering jacket when frying.  My pan was small so I had to do these in two batches.  Set aside on a covered plate to keep warm.

Wash and dry the samphire.  Cook this in the same pan, using all the left over marinade ingredients to coat the samphire.  

Place chicken and samphire on a wrap, roll and enjoy.  You could also add yogurt, mayonnaise, sour cream or avocado to add a creamy texture and moderate the spiciness.

chicken curry - two gf convenience meals

I wrenched my foot badly a couple of weeks ago and haven't been able to go grocery shopping.  I think we had got down to one lemon and some frozen peas.   I walked to the local garage which has a small Spar convenience store attached (only just made it home!) to test the progress of my foot.  They only had lettuce and tomatoes in the vegetable section, so I just bought eggs (essential for our morning pancakes) and two chicken curry meals.

One was frozen, by Birds Eye, and the other was in the chilled section, by Spar.  Both were gluten free, both contained milk.  I heated both for supper, and we set out to compare them.

The Birds Eye curry was very cheap, only £1.50.  The rice was yellow and firm, with little flavour.  The curry had the chicken peices added after the sauce was cooked.  The flavour was so uninspiring we ate enough to taste it but didn't finish the pack.

The Spar curry cost £3.50.  It was much better. The rice had whole spices visible, and was a better texture.  The curry had that seperated-out oil that I would expect in a curry I made myself.  The flavour was good, the texture and appearance more appetising, and the chicken seemed to have been cooked in the sauce.

I wouldn't normally buy this kind of food, but for a meal in a hurry the Spar curry was acceptable.  The Birds Eye one was really very poor.

Both of these are gluten free.  They both contain milk.  I am very lactose intolerant.  I didn't take any lactase with these and did have a little colic but nothing unmanageable.  I had no gluten reaction.

Southern-style deep fried chicken - gluten free

Deep fried chicken -  based on southern-style deep fried chicken recipe by Nigella Lawson

If you can't / don't eat egg, use tapioca gel as a way of getting the coating to stick.  Make this by taking 10g tapioca flour, 100ml water, stir together while cold, then heat stirring constantly.  I find this an effective way of getting things to stick - coatings, seeds on bread etc.

Poach chicken pieces in stock until cooked.  This means that when you fry them you are only cooking the coating, so you can do it fast and hot, and you don’t have to worry about the safety of the chicken.  You can do this the day before and refrigerate until needed.

poach chicken until cooked

Pat dry.  I left the skin on as that is what the recipe suggested but I would remove this next time.

poached chicken

Heat fryer to 170 degrees C

For two chicken legs (four pieces):

1 egg,  mix and place on shallow plate

75g flour  (40% urid, 40% tapioca, 20% cornmeal)

seasoning for the flour – pick your favourites, and put in quite a lot as this thin coating will be the main flavour hit for the whole chicken piece.  I use garlic powder, chilli and paprika.

Place flour mix in a bag.  Put the chicken pieces in one at a time and shake to coat.  Dip in egg until coated, then put back in the flour and shake. Slightly messy activity but very easy.

coat with egg and flour

Place in hot fat and cook for a couple of minutes until crisp and golden.   Dip in slowly so that the coating starts to cook before you let the chicken fall into the fat. If you hold each piece with tongs you can do this safely. This will stop your batter sticking to the wire basket. Drain on a wire rack.

crisp fried chicken

I froze some and reheated.  They were fine so make a big batch while you have the fryer set up. 

TT says they are crisper than the bought fried chicken.  Having been poached, the chicken is succulent and thoroughly cooked.  Vary the broth and the flour seasoning to suit your taste.

Nigella Lawson, whose recipe I based this on, poaches the chicken in milk.  I used stock to avoid the lactose and milk proteins.

Crispy Chicken in breadcrumbs - gluten-free of course

crisp oven-baked, gluten-free chicken

When making bread tests or just when making bread I sometimes make a loaf that isn't good enough to eat as bread.  Gluten-free breads are particularly prone to producing a dense mushy area at the bottom when trying to make a large loaf.  Whilst our wild birds love these highly nutritious loaves you can make use of them yourself.  If you cube the bread and whizz it in the food processor you get versatile breadcrumbs to jazz up all sorts of foods.  I like to toast them in the oven for a bit to get them dry and then bag and freeze them.

dried breadcrumbs

Yesterday I visited an organic farm to ask about strawberry varieties for a Slow Food event in the summer.  Lots of useful information and contacts, and a fresh dry-plucked chicken, so thanks, Roots at Rushwick.

In the past I have fried the breaded chicken to get a good golden crust first then finished them off in the oven.  However, that adds a lot of fat to the dish, increases the washing up, and makes the house smell of frying.  I did try just baking them dry, and that led to an acceptable but not as nice product.  I saw Ellie Krieger lightly spritz her breaded chicken with a cooking spray, so thought it would be worth a try.

I cut off the chicken breasts and chopped them into medium sized pieces.   The rest of the chicken will make a curry, then I will roast the bones then make a stock.  I reckon on about four meals for two people from a chicken.

chicken pieces

Lightly beat two eggs and place in a wide shallow bowl.  If you can't or don't eat egg use tapioca gloop or your usual egg substitute.  Tapioca gloop is very sticky - take 10g tapioca flour, 100ml water, stir together then cook while stirring until you have a thick transparent paste,

beaten egg

Put your breadcrumbs in another shallow bowl.  Add spices or crushed cornflakes if you want.

breadcrumbs

Dip the chicken pieces first in the egg then the breadcrumbs then place on a greased tray.  Spray cooking spray on the chicken then bake at 190C for 15-20 minutes depending on the size of the pieces.

uncooked chicken

cooked chicken

These produced light crunchy chicken portions.  TT has a yearning sometimes for KFCs, and these keep him happy; they are gluten-free, local organic chicken, and lower fat.