Spicy Dipping Sauce

This is a Paul and Jeanne Rankin recipe from their little Hot and Spicy book. Sharon made it to go with some chilli chicken puffs but I used the leftover sauce as an impromptu stir-fry sauce with some chicken and it was spot on.
Ingredients
1 tbsp rice wine vinegar
1 tbsp sugar
1 1/2 to 3 tbsp chilli sauce
2 tsp finely chopped garlic
1 tsp white pepper
3 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
100ml fresh orange juice
1/2 tsp salt
3 spring onions, finely sliced
Method

1. Place all the ingredients in a bowl and whisk with a fork.
2. It's then ready to use as a dipping sauce but if you are using it for a stir-fry then cook your veg and meat over a high heat before adding the sauce and letting it coat the ingredients and reduce for a minute or two.

It's a hot sauce, quite peppery, so regulate the heat by adjusting the amount of white pepper and chilli sauce. The latter may depend on your brand of sweet chilli sauce. I prefer Blue Dragon as it is gluten-free. Worcestershire sauce may not make it into the strict gluten-free category (check the ingredients) but I've never had any problems with it.

If you make up too much then it'll keep for a week in the fridge in a screw-top jar. Just make sure, from a gluten-free perspective, that nobody has been dipping battered or pastry-encrusted nibbles in there!

Cost: Cheap
Preparation time: 5 mins
Ease of cooking: As easy as it gets
Taste: 8/10

That bloated feeling

Since the New Year I've definitely felt a change for the worse. The bloated, bagged-up feeling that I used to have before being diagnosed seems to have made a return. The two main changes to diet I can think of are:

1. I'm now eating loaves made with the Juvela fibre mix - could the gluten-free wheat starch (within the Codex limit) be a cause?
2. I've almost cut out sweets and chocolate since before Christmas - not deliberately, it's just happened. I feel as though I'm eating less fruit too.

You'd think this second point would be a benefit, but perhaps not so. I found an interesting piece on the causes of "bloating" today which actually described what bloating was (and wasn't) and presented a good few sides to the argument of what causes it. Many articles go on to promote some kind of colonic cleansing treatment when I'm just wanting to know the facts or the research that has been undertaken.

Anyway, the article above noted that "There are a number of reflexes that help to control the intestine. Glucose (a type of sugar) entering the small bowel tends to speed up transport along the small intestine, whereas fat in the small intestine slows it down." So maybe the obvious change to the Juvela fibre mix is not the cause and I should revert to having chocolate bars now and again.

This is where it's frustrating, from a scientific viewpoint, trying to figure out whether or not changes to diet have an effect on me. The time it takes for food to have an effect, being uncertain as to whether you feel better or worse over periods of time and the impact of other factors (viruses and other foods predominantly) make it difficult to draw any conclusions. There is no quantitative indicator (like weight) that you can turn to and say, "that measured 6.7 last week and now it's up to 10.3 so that pie supper evidently didn't do me any good."

As it happened, later in the afternoon I decided to have a chocolate bar. An hour later, having had stomach grumbles all day, I felt better and less "bagged-up." Coincidence? Placebo? Who can tell? Maybe I need to make sure my diet still has high-carbohydrate, low-fat food in the mix.

Gluten-Free Fish and Chips

Sharon had left early to go through to Kilmalcolm, the boys were bored and annoying each other (and me) and I had to ccok fish for the tea. I really fancied fish and chips, one of my favourite meals of pre-coeliac diagnosis days, did a quick search on the Internet and came up trumps with this recipe for a battered fish that really did the business. It's great when the Internet can be used for such a quick positive outcome!

The crux of the recipe is the batter:

Dry Ingredients
3/4 cup Doves Farm GF plain white flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp Xanthan Gum

Wet Ingredients
2 tbsp vinegar (I used rice vinegar)
1 egg
1 cup water or Gluten Free Beer (I used water)

Method

1. Mix the dry ingredients in one bowl.


2. Whisk the wet ingredients in another bowl then combine the wet ingredients with the dry to make a thick batter.


3. Heat about 2cm vegetable oil in a deep pan (clear the area round about, just in case things get out of hand!) or use a deep fat fryer if you have one (ours was binned a few years ago) until it is hot but not smoking. I tend to go for trial and error myself, although it should probably be 180°C.


4. Cut the skinned, filleted, firm white fish of your choice across into pieces about 3cm wide and dip them in the batter, ensuring they are well coated. You should probably dredge them in seasoned GF flour before they go in the batter but I didn't and it worked fine for me. You could add some chopped herbs or maybe mustard seeds or curry powder to the flour for an Asian variation.


5. Fry 2 or 3 pieces at a time. The batter holds together superbly and the fish pieces should float in the oil. The reason fish fried in this way is reasonably healthy as well as tasty is that the fish is protected and effectively steamed inside the batter. You could always discard the batter if you're calorie conscious. Yeah! Right!


6. Turn the fish over after a couple of minutes to get an even crispness to the batter. About 2-3 minutes should be sufficient cooking time in total, depending on the thickness of the fish. I use a cook's eye (remember that I'm no professional!) so once the batter is a nice golden-brown shade the fish will probably be done.


7. Remove the fish with a slotted spoon and place in a basket or sieve lined with paper towels to soak up excess oil.


8. Serve it up with chips and peas and tomato sauce and vinegar and salt but sadly no triangles of pan bread smeared with butter, unless you can stand the sight of your dinner companions tucking into this essential accompaniment to the "fish tea."

The boys really enjoyed this one too with Finn asking for it every time Mammy goes out to work early!

Cost: 8/10 (depending on the fish of course)
Preparation time: 8/10 (the batter is very straightforward)
Ease of cooking: 6/10 (you'll probably have to cook the fish in batches and keep a keen eye on the pan of oil)
Taste: 9/10