The Great Gluten Free Recipe Challenge!

Welcome, to the very first Great Gluten Free Recipe Challenge.

What is it?

I have gathered together some brilliant gluten free bloggers to cook or bake with a key ingredient.  With just a few restrictions on what they can make, each blogger must create a recipe to share with all of you.

Why?

Quite simply, I thought it would be fun!  More than that, however, I love a challenge, something to make me think outside of my routine, to cook something I wouldn't normally try.  Additionally; many people with Coeliac Disease, or other issues with gluten, have intolerances or allergies to other food types as well.  For most newly diagnosed Coeliacs, dairy products can pose a problem since the part of intestine that reacts to gluten is responsible for the digestion of milk, too.  Then, there are the difficult ones, like me, who have other health issues that can restrict their diets.  I have involved my other blogging friends in order to give you (and me) a wonderfully wide repertoire of recipes to try for yourself.  But, mainly because I thought it would be fun...

The Challenge.

For this first challenge, I chose oranges as the key ingredient.  Seville, blood, clementines, satsumas, tangerines, there are certainly enough to choose from!  The recipes could be sweet or savoury, as long as orange was the main ingredient.  The creations must also be dairy free and free from almonds, hazelnuts and chestnuts (as well as being gluten free, of course).

If life gave you oranges, what would you make?

Annie at Annie's Supper Club made Ginger and Orange Cakes

Bunmi at Foods You Can made Chocolate and Orange Mini Cupcakes
Christine at Christine's Healthy Kitchen made Coconut Dahl with Cauliflower, Pea and Chickpea Pancakes
Claire at Gluten Free Notebooks made Chocolate and Blood Orange Tarts

Hazel at Flicker of Fully Fun made Orange Jaffijelly

Hilary at Eat Free From made Lady Randell's Pudding

Jo at Diary of a Coeliac's Mother made Orange Drizzle Cake

Mrs D at Adventures of a Gluten Free Globetrekker made Orange Polenta Cake 

Ruby at Rubelle's Moon made Sticky Orange Tart

Saara at The Gluten Free Student Cookbook made Orange Flavoured Cupcakes

Sarah at The Gluten Free Blogger made Dark Chocolate and Orange Muffins

And I made...

Duck Braised in Orange Juice

This started life as a furiously scribbled down recipe from Rick Stein's Far Eastern Odyssey, on BBC TV, but the recipe was never published online - so I watched the show on iPlayer to catch the main ingredients. The "original" recipe has changed a fair bit since then as I've tweaked and substituted things, but it's still one of my favourite dishes.  Serves 4

4 duck legs
5 cloves of garlic, finely sliced
4cm piece ginger, cut into matchsticks
400ml freshly squeezed orange juice (about 6-8 oranges, depending on their size)
1 tbsp gluten free tamari (I used Kikkoman)
1 tbsp sugar
4 star anise
2 red chillies, sliced into rounds (de-seed if you don't want it too hot)
a bunch of spring onions, whites cut into 2cm lengths, green parts sliced into 1/2cm rounds)

• Heat some oil in a pan and add the duck legs, skin side down, for 5 minutes to start browning the skin.  Remove from the pan and place, skin side up, in an oven proof dish.
• Gently sauté the garlic, ginger and white parts of the onions to just soften.  Add them to the oven proof dish, around the duck.
• Stir together the orange juice, tamari and sugar, until the sugar has dissolved.  Pour around the duck legs and add the anise and chilli slices (save a few slices for serving).
• If you have a large dish, add some water so that the liquid is about 3cm deep.  Cover tightly with foil or a well fitting lid and place in a pre-heated oven at 160 degrees Celsius (lower in a fan oven) for 3 hours, uncovering for the last 30 minutes.  The orange juice will have cooked right down to a syrupy sauce, take care it doesn't burn!
• Before serving, sprinkle the green parts of the spring onions over the dish.

If you want to take part in the next Great Gluten Free Recipe Challenge, email me for more details.