Stewed! New range of gluten free stews (and what about the one with beer in?)

I just followed up a link from Glutenfreeguerillas about Stewed!'s new range of ready to eat stews, which are labelled as gluten-free.  I haven't tried them yet, but well done for adding to the variety of foods made from wholesome ingredients and making them readily available.


I had a quick look down the list and checked ingredients.  I noticed beer in one stew, so wrote to the company.  They replied within a few minutes.




Bob's British Beef in Ale

Chunks of tender British beef slowly cooked in Dorset ale with tasty root veggies and potatoes.

Ingredients
Beef (23%), onion, chopped tomatoes, carrot (10%), Dorset ale (10%), potato (8%), water, swede (7%), parsnip (7%), refined rapeseed oil, tomato purée, beef stock (beef stock, salt), cornflour, salt, garlic purée, mustard, ground bay, dried thyme, cracked black pepper.

• 2 of your 5-a-day
• British Beef
• No artificial flavourings or preservatives
• Gluten free
• Can be frozen

reply from company:


Hi Lois

Thanks for getting in touch.

The beer we use is a Dorset ale which does contain malted barley. The gluten is broken down into smaller protein molecules during fermentation process and the resulting barley gluten levels in the beer are tiny, it is tested to less than 5 parts per million (ppm) and the guideline for gluten free is 20ppm.  We add the beer to a level that is about 10% of the recipe.  This would result in a further dilution of the gluten, down to a maximum of 0.5ppm.  The beer is also clear of other artificial nasties.

The products once made are tested for the presence of gluten and the results are clear.

Interestingly when we started out, we weren't specifically aiming at the Gluten Free market, however, as we were cooking it exactly as you would at home our products were gluten free.  Since then it has become apparent to us how important it is, and how with a reasonable amount of effort you can achieve the same great results.

I hope this helps.  Please let me know your thoughts, especially after trying one!
Thanks
Mark


Mark Seymour Mead
Operations Director

www.steweduk.co.uk




So, if you can manage gluten at very tiny levels this stew should be fine for you.  I won't try it as  I can't even eat the 'made in a factory which also handles wheat' foods without trouble.  I will keep an eye out for the other varieties and try them at some point.

Toby Carvery - a novel experience

Last Friday I fetched my mother to see the house while it was all tidy for viewings, and took her to see the area we will be moving to.  We set off on the return journey, only to discover the M5 was closed.  We had a slow but interesting two hour detour through the middle of Birmingham, seeing places she hadn't been to for several decades.  As the road was still not clear when we got to her house I decided to take her out for supper to the carvery my brother always takes her to.  It is one of those places where they have three types of meat that you get served as wanted, and then you help yourself to a variety of vegetables.

It was seven o'clock on a Friday evening, and the place was full.  We had to wait twenty minutes for a table.  The menu came.  You could have the carvery or there were other items on the menu.  A statement on the menu said that they couldn't be sure about anything being free from contamination.  I figured the carvery wouldn't be safe, as there were Yorkshire Puddings, gravy, and other sources of gluten.  I asked about the salad.  Sorry, I was told, it has gluten in it.

I sent my mother to get her meal from the carvery. In the meantime the very helpful waitress brought me a plate of steamed peas, broccoli and something else which escapes my memory.  It had been fetched from the kitchen to make sure no contamination from tongs in the carvery area had occurred.  My mother took ages getting her meal ( I was surprised and a bit worried) as the person who normally served the meat was the one getting my plate of greenery.

I ate my food.  My mother ate hers.  I didn't get sick.   They didn't charge for the plate of vegetables.  At least they didn't turn me away or refuse to give me anything, which has happened at other places.

They gave me a card asking me to participate in a Internet survey.  I did.  None of the text boxes were long enough for me to explain what had happened.  I filled in lots of useless and uninformative questions, but could not tell them what happened, thank them for trying, or ask them to improve their menu.  A wasted opportunity.   AND I didn't win the free IPOD.  I hope I don't win the £1,000 prize draw to eat there.

Yorkshire Pudding tests - gluten-free

I decided to test a yorkshire pudding recipe I got from the BBC Good Food website.  I used my standard gf flour (40% urid, 40% tapioca, 20% cornmeal).

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/9020/best-yorkshire-puddings

Basic recipe

Oven – as hot as you can get it – 200C (recipe calls for 220C)

2 eggs

70 g flour

100 ml milk

Grease tins with oil and put in oven to get as hot as possible. 

Mix batter.  When ready pour into tins as swiftly as possible and bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown.

As gf flours don’t brown the same way as wheat, if you want a darker Yorkshire pudding without burning put a little sugar into the batter.

First pudding.  

They rose up to the top of the muffin tins I was baking them in.  This was a lot less spectacular than the descriptions of the puddings posted as comments on the recipe webpage.   The puddings were pleasant to eat, and better than some I have been served in people’s houses before I went gf.   I cooked them longer to try and get them browner.

Second pudding

Recipe 1 gave an acceptable result, but I wanted to see what would happen if I made them dairy free.  I had two egg whites left over from a previous recipe, so made a batch with these.  I had meant to try one egg white only, but it is so difficult to separated a bit of egg white out that I just put both in.  I expected these to have more body, to be less tender, as that is what egg white is supposed to do in baking.

Recipe

1 egg

2 egg whites

75 g flour

100 ml water

Whisk batter together and cook in hot oven as before.

These puddings were paler (less egg yolk) and seemed slightly tougher but not chewy.  TT said there wasn’t much in it apart from this slight toughness.  I thought they tasted eggier.  When cut in half you can see that the middle is more structured, with air bubbles visible, rather than the almost custardy base of the first pudding.

Third pudding

Following on from the doughnut tests yesterday I thought I would find out what baking powder does for this recipe.  Purists will say it is no longer a Yorkshire Pudding if you add baking powder, but it is probably not a Yorkshire Pudding really once you skip the wheat!

Recipe

75 g flour

1tsp baking powder

½ tsp oil (haven’t tried this without, don’t know if it helps)

2 eggs

100ml water

Mix wet ingredients together

Mix flour and baking powder (whisk or sieve)

Add wet ingredients to dry and mix until smooth.

Put in hot greased tin in hot oven for about 25 minutes until puffed and golden.

These ones puffed the highest and they didn’t collapse immediately on leaving the oven.  They taste more like the first traditional YP, and have the same slightly custardy base, but rose twice as far.  I don’t think most people would know they were gluten free or dairy free. 

The three types together - uncut and cut to show the middle texture

recipes 1, 2 and 3

recipes 1, 2 and 3

recipes 1, 2 and 3, cut

Batter three worked very well and gives a lactose and well as gluten-free Yorkshire Pudding.  

I have put some in the freezer to see how they will be defrosted.  Ideally with this sort of food, unless you are cooking for a crowd (and maybe even more then) it is good to be able to get a single portion out of the freezer when needed.

I used to always use hard white vegetable fat for the base of the tins and to get the tin very hot by having it on the stove and getting the fat to smoking point.  This always struck me as a bit arduous and dangerous.  These little puddings worked so well I shan’t be bothering with that in future.

DeLonghi deep fat fryer - another set of recipes for the gf cookbook

Deep fat fryer

I haven’t owned a deep fat fryer for years.  However, I thought that any good cookery book needed a section of deep-fried treats, then the user could decide how often to eat them rather than be exasperated at their lack.  TT gets fish and chips from the chip shop, and occasionally craves fried chicken.  I would like to be able to have an occasional doughnut and jellabie.

On Sunday I went to the electrical store and bought a DeLonghi deep fat fryer.  I chose it because it seemed robustly made, had a tap to drain the oil, and the element lifts out of the oil bath and then everything else can go in the dishwasher.  It also says it has a ‘coolzone’ which is where the element is above the base of the pan so that the oil is slightly cooler at the bottom and bits that fall down don’t burn so quickly, meaning you don’t have to change the oil so often.

I tested the fryer when I first got it.  I filled it with three litres of fryer oil, which I found at the cheap supermarket next to the electrical store.  It has an anti-foamer, which seems like a weird idea, but I certainly had no trouble with the fat rising up when I put the food in. It took less than six minutes to heat to 180degrees C.  I checked the temperature with my thermometer, and it was pretty close to the marked temperature.

I made four types of doughnuts, battered fish, mushrooms and onion rings, and fried chicken.  I have had the machine working for quite a bit of the time for the last forty-eight hours, and I am astonished by how little the house smells of cooking fat.  I used to find that a single batch of shallow frying permeated the house with fat smells, and I particularly had trouble with the laundry smelling, which dries in an open room above the kitchen.

When finished, let the oil cool down completely.  It takes a lot longer to cool down than it does to heat up, so leave it while you get on with something else.

The emptying tap has a filter on, which can be dismantled for cleaning.  The oil comes out clean.  The residue and bits of batter collect in the base of the tank, and they can be scooped out easily for disposal.  The heating element and probes can be cleaned, and the tank and lid washed in the dishwasher.

Emptying and dismantling is very easy.  I have read that it is best to store the filtered oil for future use in a cool dark place but not the fridge, which apparently increases the spitting when the fat is reheated.

Recipe write-ups to follow.

Gingersnaps -made with vintage marmalade (gluten-free and dairy-free)

gluten-free gingersnaps

We have been clearing the house and barns as we are trying to sell the house.  We came across a stash of marmalade so old it has to be called vintage - from 1999.  It wasn't hidden away - it was primly stored on the preserves shelves, but I like sprightly fresh marmalade and this just kept being ignored.  The seals were still good, and I had to use my jar opening device to get the lid off.

This morning I sorted out my spices.  I have lots of different types of herbs and spices, and buy frequently-used ingredients like cinnamon and cumin in large quantities.  The new house will be very small, so I was trying to think how to reduce the space needed - and this meant decanting spices, and soon the kitchen smelled enticingly of ginger.  So, gingersnaps became necessary.

I read several recipes, one using applesauce instead of fat, some egg free, others full of butter and syrup.   With the supply of marmalade that needed using up fresh in my mind I decided to make cookies where the marmalade took the place of the sugar and treacle and quite of bit of the usual fat.

gingersnap ingredients

I made up a batch of the batter, then baked a single cookie to test the flavour.  I added more spice and sugar at this point, and produced a cookie that is delicious, crisp on the outside and chewy inside, and that has a warm complex slightly bitter flavour, with the deep caramel of the marmalade complementing the spice.

TT has been in several times and snuck the slightly odd-shaped, smaller ones off the rack.  He can eat as many as he wants of course, but the temptation to keep coming back for more of the 'very grown up biscuits' as he puts it, is a good sign that they are something to make again.

Ingredients
100g crystallised ginger, chopped
350g flour (urid 40%, tapioca 40%, cornmeal 20%)
150g ground almond
4 tsp mixed spice
2 tsp ground ginger
1.5 tsp baking powder
60g soft brown sugar
2 eggs
400g marmalade
60ml sunflower oil

Method
Whisk or sieve the dry ingredients to make sure evenly mixed.
Mix the wet ingredients - marmalade, egg and oil.
Add dry ingredients to wet and mix
Stir in chopped crystallised ginger

Put spoonfuls of this stiffish but still sticky batter onto granulated sugar, roll to cover, then press flat, placing on a baking sheet.

Cook at 175C for about ten to twelve minutes, keeping an eye on them.  I cooked mine until the edges were just turning brown.  Cook at a lower heat for longer for a crisper biscuit.

Jellabis - gluten free and yummy

I don't really miss foods as I am so relieved to be feeling well.  However, if I had to spend the rest of my life without eating jellabis I would be a bit sad.  These are the syrup filled swirly sweets you see in Indian shops.  I made some many years ago, and had a go at these the other day.

This is a first attempt and I didn't follow a recipe so I do need to work on it, but the resulting morsels had the right flavour and texture, they were just the wrong shape.  So, I am confident that next time I could get it right.

The original way to make jellabis is to let your batter self-ferment the same way you would make dhosa.  I added a bit of baking powder and a bit of yeast as I wanted a quick result.  I also left out the yogurt as I have a problem with milk - I am realising after my experiments with lactase that I am probably not just lactose intolerant but also mildly allergic to milk proteins.

The dough needs to be dispensed into the hot fat to make swirls, and I now realise I should have made a a dough that needed to be extruded rather than just dribbled (I filled a funnel and kept my finger over the end...not the easiest option with such a runny batter).

Once the batter has turned golden brown, drain it on  kitchen paper then immerse in hot syrup.  Drain on a rack and then eat.  I like these left for a while to develop a good crisp outside to contrast with the syrup inside, but some people like them still hot.

Ingredients:
125g flour  ( 40%urid, 40%tapioca, 20% cornmeal)
1/4tsp yeast
1/4 tsp baking powder
200 ml water

mix to a smooth batter, leave to rise until you can see it has expanded

Heat oil to deep frying temperature
squiggle batter in to fat
cook until golden brown

Syrup
Make a sugar syrup to soft ball state.

Use whatever flavouring you want, traditionally it is cardomon.


I very rarely deep fry, but had a large container of sunflower oil in need of using up.  I made a sequence of things like these jellabis and pakoras so that I could make best use of the large pan of oil.  I don't like the smell of deep frying, but will have another go at making these properly for a special event sometime.  Do, however, go ahead and make jellabis with the gf flour - they should work fine.

Easter egg -gluten, lactose, nut and egg free

This posting is a bit late to have much relevance this year, but might help you spot a good safe Easter egg next year.  I was bought a Kinnerton egg, and have just finished eating the main egg though not the bar of chocolate it came with.

It would have been more fun if  the egg contained silly chocolates rather than being empty, but as a safe egg packaged in a bright and jolly wrapper it meets lots of needs.  It does contain soya.