Gluten Free Beer Battered Fried Fish

Delicious Fish and Chips!

Last night Tim (my husband) made us an AMAZING Beer Battered Fish and Chips for dinner!  I asked him to write a guest post for the blog, I will warn you he has a VERY different cooking style than I do.  We joke that I'm a scientist and he is an artist, because I HAVE to measure everything and have a plan, he on the other hand, adds a dash of this and a pinch of that and it comes out perfect.  I cannot cook the way he does, and he can't comprehend cooking the way I do, and that's how we get fed around here.  So here it goes, I hope you enjoy Tim's cooking too!

Tim's Gluten Free Beer Battered Fish

I always get inspired to make things that are typically quite gluten filled, and then I adapt them for a gluten free meal.  The other night, I was really in the mood to deep fry, and we were having a couple over for dinner, who always give me lots of liberty to experiment. They suggested Fish and Chips.

For the Chips, I used a pretty well known and standard recipe. Cut the potatoes, wash off the starch, and then pat them VERY dry. Fry them at 375. Take them out, drain them on a rack, and then fry them again. Season liberally, before the oil dries. That's easy.

So, I decided to make a beer batter. After Googling regular beer batter recipes, and then gluten free recipes, I adapted, and made my own. I made a test strip, tweaked the batter, and made a second, which was pretty perfect, and highly praised by all who sampled.

Here’s what I did:

8 tilapia filets, sliced in half, lengthwise, separating the thinner ones and thicker ones in two separate piles, so when I fried them, they’d cook evenly. I did not want to mix and match the thicknesses, and end up overcooking the thinner ones.

The beer batter was:

1 cup of sweet rice flour, Paprika, Kosher Salt, Ground White Pepper, Ground Black Pepper, (I have a mill for the black pepper, but I like the store-bought ground white, because it’s a super fine ground.) I don’t really know how much I put in. I put in more than I thought I would. Then, after the first test strip, realized it needed quite a bit more. So I added more.

I mixed all the dry ingredients. Then, I took 1 egg, which I beat in another bowl, first. And then mixed in the egg, and whisked that.

Then I whisked, while slowly adding in the beer. I used a whole bottle of ice cold New Grist, right out of the fridge.

I covered the fish strip in tapioca starch, shook off the loose starch, and then immediately dropped it into the batter, swooshing it around to get full coverage, and put it into the fryer, into vegetable oil at 375 degrees, almost still dripping. The consistency of the batter was so thin, you could almost see the fish in there, under the batter. Andrea was concerned with the thin-ness of the batter (as was I, but I didn’t voice it), but it worked.

We have a Fry Daddy fryer, so it fit 3-4 strips comfortably in the basket, without touching each other. I fried until they were golden brown, took them out, and drained them on paper towels, flipping to drain both sides. That was it!

In between each batch, I re-whisked the batter to keep it from separating.

The four of us finished almost all but two of the thin strips, which means four people ate 3.5 pounds of fish. I’m making a note here: huge success!

Bean Soup

Here is a post from Dad, we are playing with googledocs, it was really easy to cut and paste it into a blog post. I wish I were there to dig into this amazing bowl of bean soup, I would even bring over a loaf of warm bread for sopping up all the yummy broth. I can almost smell the crock pot bubbling with all that deliciousness inside, and it would be perfect to make here toady with this pending snow storm. This recipe has some of our favorite family ingredients Bacon from a local Butcher/smokehouse, and Bobs Redmill 13 Bean soup mix, feel free to alter it with things that are local to you. Hmmm... I'm thinking right now this would be nice with a little bit of fresh kale wilted in the last couple of minutes to make a one pot meal. Guess I know what I'm making for dinner next week.

Bean Soup

3 cups mixed Dry Beans (“Bobs Redmill 13 Bean” is excellent)
1 16oz can of chicken broth
6 Stalks celery (fine chopped)
1 cup carrots (fine chopped)
½  Onion chopped
2 cloves garlic minced
2 teaspoons GF Soy sauce

2 teaspoons  Kitchen Bouquet
1 Tablespoon Ham Base
Meat  (Use What you have available , If you use beef, exchange ham base for beef)
  6 strips bacon chopped (Vogets Preferably)
  Ham Hock if desired
  Ham cubed as desired
  Sausage as desired



Soak Beans overnight. Drain and Rinse

Brown bacon in Fry pan,  Add onion, carrots, Celery ,garlic, ½ of soy sauce, and ½ of kitchen bouquet, Saute till mostly tender.


Add all ingredients into large Crock Pot, add water to cover Beans, Cook till done
(about 5 hours on high)

Gluten Free Chicken and Dumplings

Chicken and dumplings with mixed veggies

I'm so proud to say that starting this blog has created a fantastic dialogue between my parents and I!  A few weeks ago my mom emailed me a recipe from their dinner, but no picture with it.  Of course this means one thing, I need to make the dinner myself and take pictures!  Yumm!  This was a fabulous way to use up leftover rotisserie chicken, but I think it might be a nice candidate for leftover turkey too.  I'll let you know how that goes.  I also added a huge amount of frozen mixed veggies to make it a one pot meal, it was a little more like a chicken pot pie, but it was amazingly delicious!  The gravy is velvety smooth, and the biscuits on top just make a perfect topping to the dish.  I also used about 3/4 of a roasted chicken instead of the 2 cups Mom used.  This is definitely one of those dinners that you can play with and add all sorts of things and make changes just to see what happens.  And DO NOT open the lid on the pot once the biscuits are in!  Like Ceci says "NO peeking!"


Here is Mom's email to me, I thought it made a nice sort of guest post so I left it unedited.  

Hi Sweetie,

Thought I would share my quick cook Chicken and Dumplings with you.  It took about an hour to put together but could be shorter depending on your stove.  There is no substitute for Little Grandmas or Sue Arndt's versions but it is pretty close considering how fast it went together and I didn't have to man the stove all day while the chicken cooked in the pot.  Your dad loved it!   XOXO Mom

Biscuit/Dumplings

1 C GF Bisquick mix

3 T shortening

1/3 C milk

1  Egg

Cut shortening into mix, using a fork or dough blender till particles are the size of small peas. Stir in remaining ingredients until soft dough forms.  Set aside and start gravy.

Biscuits ready and waiting

Broth/Gravy

4 C water

4 T cornstarch

1 T chicken base "Better Than Bouillon"  (a product I love and get from Costco)

2 C cut up cooked chicken (I used leftover Costco chicken)
3 C frozen mixed veggies

Salt and pepper to taste

Chicken and veggies ready for biscuit topping

Dissolve cornstarch in the water and pour in large deep frying pan as the water is heating stir in the chicken base.  Continue to stir and as the broth thickens add the chicken, and veggies and heat through.

As broth is hot and bubbly take biscuit dough and form into balls and then gently flatten before you lay them on top of your broth/gravy.  Once you have used all the dough cover the pan and let the heat and steam cook the dumplings, about 20 min.  You can tell if they are done by taking a fork and scraping the top of a dumpling and it is no longer doughy inside. 

Finished product in the pot, with a few portions out already

Pasta Sauce, with hidden vegetables

Ceci enjoying one of her favorite meals, at The Old Spaghetti Factory, this kid LOVES pasta and sauce!

I've mentioned this before, but my darling sweet daughter Ceci, refuses to eat vegetables.  I'm lucky if I can get her to willingly eat 1/8 of a baby carrot per day, so I have to get creative and hide veggies in foods that she is willing to eat without noticing.  One of her most favorite meals is noodles with sauce, she will eat it until she explodes, and then have another bowl.  She also refuses to eat beef, I don't force it on her at all, most days we give her some sort of chicken if we are eating beef, but apparently pasta sauce is an acceptable way to consume beef in her opinion.

Last week I made a huge pot of Pasta sauce for dinners, we don't mind left overs here and try to get a few dinners out of each meal to ease our schedule.  I managed to hide a zucchini and a half and several baby carrots shredded and ground up in the sauce, and Ceci was none the wiser, and happy to have her favorite meal for several days in a row.  I was happy to have something that she would gladly eat, and to not have to cook multiple nights in a row.  The fact that she got some veggies in her just made it that much better.

I can't say that it was a very remarkable Pasta sauce, but it tasted good, was filling, and had extra healthy stuff in it.  Can't go wrong with that combination.  Here's how I did it, and you should read this more as a guide than a true recipe, feel free to add in different veggies or spices.

Pasta Sauce with Hidden Vegetables

2   lbs of Ground Beef
1   large Onion, chopped
1-2 small-medium Zucchini, shredded
15  Baby carrots, shredded
2   22 oz cans Crushed Tomatoes
2  tsp Kosher Salt
2  tsp Pepper
1   tsp Dried Oregano
1   tsp Dried Basil
1  Beef Bullion Cube

Directions:

Delicious veggie mush!

In a large stock pot, brown ground beef, if using low fat beef, add a tablespoon or two of oil to prevent burning.  When the beef is cooked, remove it from the pan and set aside.  Place Onion, Zucchini and Carrots into pot and saute until softened.

Place cooked veggies into food processor and grind up to a thick slurry, this will allow it to blend into the sauce better and be less perceptible to picky eaters.  If you don't mind the shreds and chunks of veggies, you can skip the food processor.

Return the veggie mix to the pot along with the ground beef, and pour in the cans of crushed tomatoes, and stir to combine.  Add in the herbs and spices, stir and let simmer.  Use a clean teaspoon and taste, add more seasoning to taste.  I tend to be very light handed with the seasoning while my husband Tim is very heavy handed, some how we find a balance.  You will have to taste because some canned tomatoes are pre-seasoned while others are plain.

Boil Gluten Free noodles according to package, and drain off water.  If Pasta sauce seems to thick you can add some pasta water to thin it down.  Then pour a heaping ladle full of sauce over a bowl of pasta, and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese.  You can also serve with garlic toast if you like, I'm lazy and toast a slice of bread, butter it, and sprinkle with garlic salt.  Definitely a favorite meal for all in this family, I hope your family enjoys it too.

Gluten Free Grilled Pizza

You may have noticed I love to eat pizza, I think I must be making up for all the pizza I missed growing up, which was a lot.  Needless to say I have a good amount of catching up to do.  This weekend at our friends the Lockhart's house, Walt mentioned they had seen gluten free frozen pizza dough at the store and if he had time he would have made grilled pizza for us.  I realized I had that exact dough in the freezer and had been waiting to use it, for what I don't know, but now I knew.  Walt explained the basic details of how-to for grilling a pizza while my husband and I both started thinking, me about the ingredients I had in the house and what I would need to add to the grocery list to make this work.  And Tim was thinking about how to make all this happen, tools, grill temperature and such.  

Upon arriving home, I opened the freezer to find it was a package of Gillian's Foods Frozen Pizza crust, the instructions were pretty simple, defrost in the fridge over night and roll out on a floured surface.  Seemed pretty simple to me, and with Walt's instructions and the back up of a few online recipes we were ready to go.  I had picked up some mozzarella at the store to go with the tomato paste and pepperoni slices I had waiting in the fridge, we figured keep the toppings simple on the first time through the process to decrease the chance of failure.  

I used a mixture of cornmeal and tapioca starch to kneed and roll out the dough on my tupperware pastry mat (I love that thing!)  We transferred the dough to a cookie sheet for transport to the grill, and prepped cheese and pepperoni.  I put a few tablespoons worth of tomato paste into a bowl for Tim to season as he saw fit, I can tell you salt, pepper, dried oregano and dried basil went into it.  Tim grabbed his heavy duty griddle to use on the grill so that we wouldn't end up with a fire scorched slab of dough.  He used olive oil to grease the griddle before we put the dough on, and let it heat through until it started to bubble up.  At that point he oiled the uncooked side and we flipped the dough, which came out gorgeous!  Beautiful grill marks and it just looked crispy.  We then got to work spreading a thin coating of the tomato paste over the entire dough and I quickly placed the cheese and pepperoni on top.  After that Tim closed the lid on the grill to allow the toppings to heat up and melt a bit.  It was probably all of 10 minutes from the time it went on the grill to the time it came off, including oiling, and flipping.  

It was DELICIOUS!  The crust was perfectly crunchy and tender at the same time.  As I said earlier, the toppings were simple and reliable, nothing terribly notable there.  But the crust was fantastic, the grill was a perfect was to heat this up nicely, no more oven for us.  I may even forgo a few of my take out pizzas to have more grilled pizzas.  Now we just have to dream up some more exotic toppings for our next attempt.  Which if my pizza appetite continues it won't be long now.  I just have to remember where I got that crust from.....hmmmm.....  I'll let you know when I find it again.