Paprika-ed cod with shaved zucchini

Friday night dinner was a lonely affair as the other half was off celebrating year end. A fish and vegetables feast was called for and I felt rather pleased to be able to amp up the spicyness of the dish instead of the usual tip toe approach - spice and vegetables are at best tolerated in our household.

The feast was shaved zucchini sautéed in diced shallot, pepper and a whole Thai chilli - the chilli being optional, topped with cod coated in paprika, lemon zest, thyme and another chilli but again optional... Secret smile.

Recipe:

Shave two baby zucchinis with a vegetable peeler. Sweat a small diced shallot and one diced chilli until soft then add the zucchini. S&P (salt and pepper - I blame the tv shows...). Stir fry until just cooked which should be about 3-5 minutes. Plate. Add some oil to the same pan and fry a tablespoon of paprika, thyme and the other chilli, if using, on medium heat for about 30 seconds and put the cod over the fried paprika. Cover the up-facing side of the fish with more paprika, lemon zest and S&P ;). When ready (the piece of fish should come away easily from the bottom of the pan without too much pushing and pulling), flip the fish and cook for 30 seconds and place over the zucchini. Question is, do you dare..?

Recipe testing for allergy free choux..

Save for salt, there is absolutely no ingredient in choux pastry of which I am not intolerant to: butter, tick, flour, tick, eggs, TICK. How can I replace all the key ingredients and still make comely choux?

First trial: I'm attempting a Paris-Brest and so am making a big wheel of choux. I cooked it for ten minutes too long (I really should invest in a timer) and did not turn down the oven... and it was a tad too crunchy, but the insides were cooked to perfection. A way to go - it wasn't quite choux (more like churros!) but we ate it anyway and so only a quarter wheel is left:

Recipe test 1: 40gm trex, 30gm sifted gram flour, 35gm sifted GF+RiceFree flour, 125mls water, 4 tsp egg replacer whipped with 8 tbs water, salt. Boil water and trex on high heat. Beat in both flours until "film" stage. Leave off heat and whip egg replacers with water. On low heat, slowly beat in egg replacer mix into flour mix until mixture becomes pipeable. Stick into oven preheated to 200degrees for 40 minutes.
Next test: 50 gm trex, 150mls water.  Stick into oven preheated to 220degrees for 10 minutes, turn down oven to 180degrees and bake for 20 more minutes. Open oven door, pierce choux's bottom and leave it to cool in the oven.

Free friendly fish curry

Infections and multiple visits to the doctor week just gone have not helped the cooking-through-Larousse-thintastically cause. Instead, with no forward planning, we whipped up a fish "curry" with what we had in our cupboards, with substitution and altogether do without, the name of the game (curry-purists look away now). Well, at least it was allergy free and yummy. Ignore the rice...

Serves two: Sweat half red onion, cubed, with minced garlic, 2 bird's eye chillies for ten minutes before adding salt, 3 tbsp curry powder, 1 tbsp turmeric, and 1 tbsp Dijon mustard (law of substitution..) and fry for further 5 minutes. Add one cubed large potato and fry for further 15 minutes before adding half a can of coconut milk. Simmer until tats are cooked through. Taste and adjust. Add 400gm cubed cod and cover for further five minutes on low heat. Serve!

Allergy free cashew based ice cream

It would seem in the nick of time that we noticed that almost every aspect of my life is food related, including the scents in our home, what with all that lamb and candles, sugo, choux and pho testing and what not. In fact, not only do our cushions, upholstery and hair reek of lunch, it would appear that even the pores of my very body is food-scented.. Mango bodywash, Parsley Seed toner (which makes me smell more like an anti-mosquito spray than parsley but nevermind), Cocoa Butter, Mint Tea body creams and Ginger & Lime hand cream. I had hoped that in sleep we would escape from food but the basil and mint candle is a dead give away.

If only our need for food were satisfied by scents of smell, then I would be a very successful walking talking food-smell vending machine. That or if anyone needs anti-mosquito spray, you know where to go...

In that scented vein, I'm bent on making something which does not require any heat less it releases more smells. My cashew based ice cream is all blend and no heat... And it's dairy, egg and gluten free too.

Recipe:

Soak one cup cashews in one cup water overnight. Blend cashews and water with 1/3 cup maple syrup, 1/4 cut coconut oil, 1 tbsp vanilla extract and salt to taste. Blend as well as your machine allows and chill then freeze, stirring every 30 minutes after first 2 hours.

Cholesterol free...?

I have always counted myself lucky despite my intolerances as I am allowed to eat unlimited amounts of vegetables, seafood and meat. A recent blood test has come back with an agenda to deprive me of my (only) sense of food-fortuity, as it would appear - or given the fact based nature of a blood test, state - that my cholesterol levels are way off the chart. As my cholesterol levels a couple years back was below the normal range, my dear doctor has told me, without batting those long eye lashes one bit, that I must cut down on red meat and shellfish. He did say that should I really want and need red meat, he would allow really gamey red meat - not grouse, more ostrich... Nope, no eyelash movement whatsoever.

Back in the real world, I am righteously indignant over this whole meat&shellfish-fracas. And since a friend insisted that being hungry often keeps cholesterol levels down, I now have the following options: ostrich vs hunger. 

Such delightful options puts me at real risk of reconsidering myself lucky. While I ponder that - Korean 100% green bean vermicelli with peas and pancetta (pork is white meat, I insist!):

Allergy free brownie

When first told of my intolerances, my biggest preoccupation was that of dessert (and of a butterless life). Swearing off rice and wheat etc. is all in a day's work but dessert, biscuits, pastry, and all things sweet are the French on one's toast, the salt on all chips, the coco before the pop.

It is my very nature to obsess with finding replacements and I started with something easy (and not too dear to my heart for fear of total and utter failure): brownies. This recipe I "converted" from la barefoot and call it beginners luck at that time but it worked rather well. Note however that this recipe falls strictly into the cakey-brownie camp, for fear of over promising on gooeyness and chewiness...

Melt 450gm allergy free dark chocolate in a Bain Marie over low heat. Off the heat stir in170gm trex (vegetable shortening). In a separate bowl, mix 45gm potato flour with 150ml water and add in 3 tbsp of instant coffee granules, 2 tbsp vanilla extract and 150gm sugar. Add the melted chocolate to this mixture and let cool completely. Combine 150gm allergy-free flour with 1tbsp baking powder and some salt. When cooled, lightly mix the two and if desired, toss about 30gm of allergy free choc chips in AF flour and add that in too. Bake in a 12x18inch pan in oven preheated to 180degrees for 25 minutes. 

Allergy free corn ice cream

It's one of those days where everything I touch turns to dust (recipe testing choux and forgot to turn oven down again and in another recipe, and unforgivably rookie mistake of using baking soda instead of powder...) - high hopes then for my corn ice cream. Sweet and salty, corn ice cream could be considered the marmite of the dessert world and would more likely appeal to those who are familiar with oriental desserts - think sweet salty red bean paste mochi etc. It is after all, the preserve of south-east Asian childhood dreamers of the orient kind and therefore an apt follow-post to my recent excursions to ippudo and cay tre.

The verdict: the Italian half is not crazy about turning vegetables into dessert (not even carrot cake) and especially not ice cream... But, nothing beats the novelty of corn ice cream, and whilst we shouldn't like it, we do. Shhh.

The recipe:

Heat one cup almond milk with 2tbps cornflour dissolved in a touch of water. Stir on low heat until thick. Add in 1/3 cup sugar and a dash of salt. Stir until dissolved. Off the heat add in 160gm sweet corn purée* and blend together with a stick blender. Chill then freeze, stirring every 30 minutes. 

*If very lazy, blitz sweet corn and do not bother to sieve as bits of translucent corn "skin" could convey maximum authencity especially when stuck between ones teeth - charming.