A Gluten Free Survival Kit

The festive season is once again upon us and many of us will be preparing to spend time partying and dining with our family and friends.  

If you are dreading the prospect of eating out or you you don't want to be a burden on your party host, then here are a few suggestions to make life a little easier.

1. Print out a copy of Coeliac UK's handy guide - Organising a gluten-free dinner party, or direct your host to the webpage for some excellent advice on cooking gluten free and avoiding cross-contamination.
2. Bring your own emergency supplies - I often turn up to dinner parties with a packet of Trufree pretzels and some Nairns gluten free oatcakes stashed away in my handbag!  If your host hasn't provided any gluten free nibbles, or you're still peckish on the way home, you're well prepared!
3. Offer to bring dessert.  It's quite stressful planning a menu for someone with any kind of restricted diet, especially if you're not used to doing it.  It it always much appreciated when the restricted dietee offers to carry some of the burden - even if they don't take up the offer.
4.  If you are an overnight guest supply your own gluten free breakfast (a box of Doves Farm cereal, or some Warburtons free from fruity tea cakes, for example), just in case your host hasn't thought of that.
5. Remember to thank your host for all they have done for you, a wee gift goes a long way towards your invite back!  Why not whip up some white chocolate rocky road?

If the worst happens and you accidentally eat gluten, I am of the opinion that it's best not to tell the cook until you're back to normal - you'll feel more level-headed then and they won't have to see quite how ill they have made you - then direct them to that Coeliac UK guide for the next time you eat at their house!

Hot and Sour Soup

I love Chinese food.  I love the well-balanced aromatic flavours.  I love the freshness of the ingredients.  I love the ritual of the Chinese takeaway, opening the boxes to release the inviting aromas, eating with chopsticks, giving up half-way through and using a fork!  It's one of the cuisines I have missed the most since being diagnosed with Coeliac Disease.  I have yet to find a restaurant or takeaway that I am confident enough in to serve gluten free offerings.  Mostly, due to Chinese cookery making use of soy sauce as a seasoning, I worry about cross contamination.  I do make it at home from time to time and I am always on the look-out for recipes that can easily be converted to gluten free and still taste convincing.  For some time, I have been trying to find a light soy sauce alternative, as generally gluten free tamari tends to be more like dark soy, but I search no more!  Kikkoman gluten free tamari is a great light soy sauce substitute and it is now available in Sainsburys.

Recently, I had a craving for my old takeaway favourite, hot and sour soup.  It's a brilliantly spicy, comforting soup, packed with flavour and a delicious sour element from rice vinegar.  I used to have it as a starter, but with the addition of noodles it becomes a thoroughly satisfying meal.  I have a quick and not particularly authentic version that I often whip up as a speedy snack but, I wanted something more like the soup I used to get from my local Chinese restaurant.

Whenever I feel the urge to cook Chinese food there are two chefs I check out: Ken Hom and Ching-He Huang.  Ken Hom is the Godfather of Chinese cookery in my opinion, and has been cooking on TV for almost as long as I have been alive.  Ching-He Huang uses fresh and simple ingredients to reinvent traditional dishes, and between the two of them I am guaranteed to find a fantastic recipe that I love.

Hot and Sour Soup

As far as I can tell, the basic elements of this soup are, Chinese mushrooms, stock, bean curd, shredded lean meat, white pepper, soy sauce, Chinese vinegar, spring onion, cornflour, egg and coriander, everything else is probably optional and depend on your own preferences.  My version doesn't include bean curd for the simple reason that I don't really like it!  If you do, feel free to add it.

1 tsp ginger root, grated

a large handful of mushrooms (I used frozen mixed mushrooms)

2 spring onions, sliced

1 tbsp Chinese black vinegar (Waitrose Ingredients have one, but if you can't find it balsamic vinegar works just as well)

1 tbsp gluten free tamari

1l vegetable or chicken stock

1/2 tsp ground white pepper

300g cooked chicken, shredded

1 egg, beaten

1 tsp sesame oil

1 tbsp cornflour mixed with 1 tbsp water

100g bamboo shoots, sliced into thin sticks

100g baby corn, quartered lengthwise

50g mange tout

10g coriander leaf, roughly chopped

• In a little vegetable oil, gently fry the ginger and mushrooms to soften.  Add the white part of the spring onion and fry for a further minute.
• Add the vinegar and tamari and combine well, then add the stock, white pepper and shredded chicken.  Bring to the boil and simmer gently for 5 minutes.
• Combine the egg and sesame oil and trickle the mixture into the soup, stirring gently to produce ribbon-like pieces of egg.  Add the cornflour slurry and stir gently as the soup thickens.
• Add bamboo shoots, baby corn and mange tout and leave soup to simmer for 2-3 minutes to heat the vegetables but do not allow them to soften (you want them to have crunch).
• Serve soup scattered with chopped coriander and the green parts of the spring onion.

Here are the original recipes if you'd rather make one of those.

Ken Hom's Hot and Sour Soup

Ching-He Huang's Hot and Sour Soup

(Oh, and those fortune cookies are not gluten free - alas - but Saara at The Gluten Free Student Cookbook has a recipe that you can try out.)

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