Ring in The Holidays With Gluten Free Oven-Fried Onion Rings.

 
   I'm sitting here at my kitchen island with a pot of vegetable chowder simmering on the stove, rain pinging the skylights and an almost December chill in the air. Every year after Thanksgiving I feel as though someone fired off the Holiday Cannon and we're off to the races. Around our house we're dealing with Christmas, Hanukkah, New Years, New Years Eve, Alans' birthday, and our anniversary. That's a lot. Add to that, a new house and all the other medical stuff this year has brought, I've got a full plate and I haven't even made my way to the chocolate fountain at the end of the buffet.

   This is the time of year of tempting treats, forbidden foods. The time when we go big or go home. One of the big requests around here once the weather gets chilly are onion rings. Onion Rings always make me think of Dinah's Restaurant in LA. Dinah's is one of our favorite places and we've spent many happy late night hours there. Even if you've never been to Dinahs, chances are you've seen it plenty, as it's been in a million films.



Here Lingonberry Pancakes are being ordered among the many mistakes this crew made, the least of which is not ordering Dinah's famous onion rings.

   Now, onion rings are a pretty straightforward thing to make, no trick there, but if you're gluten free, there's the rub. What do you coat them in if you can't eat gluten, and then there's the frying guilt. Yes, fried tastes great but if you truly want a guilt-free experience, try oven frying. Done right it works great! Since I have a lot of friends who can't eat gluten, I do a lot of gluten free cooking and I'm always looking for things to use that most people haven't heard of. To do that, it's always good to go to cuisines that have a lot of naturally gluten-free dishes. Indian cuisine is one of the best for this purpose and one item works great for gluten free breading and that is Poha aka Flattened Rice.

Think of it as the Eastern version of bread crumbs. It's available in most Asian and Indian Markets and is one of my kitchen staples. Frying, breading whatever... I grab the poha. It just made sense when I was making onion rings the other day to bread them with poha even though no one at lunch was gluten free, I wanted to show an alternative.
  
   These oven fried onion rings are easy to make but do take a bit of planning. They taste better of the onions are tenderized by soaking them in buttermilk for a few hours before cooking. Overnight is even better. So if you have onions and buttermilk give this a whirl, and if you're gluten free, break out the poha!

Oven Fried Onion Rings

Here's What You Need:
2 large onions cut into thick rings
1 qt. buttermilk
4 egg whites
2/3 cup  gluten free sorghum flour
2/3 cup of gluten free corn meal
1 cup of poha
3/4 tsp salt
pepper
any other seasonings you wish to taste, I used Kashmiri chili

Here's What To Do:
Slice onions evenly and thickly and put them into a baking dish filled with buttermilk.

Put them into the fridge to chill for a few hours or overnight.
When you're ready to make your rings,  preheat the oven to 425 degrees.
Line a couple of cookie sheets with parchment paper or silicone mats.
Separate 4 egg whites.

Put them into a small bowl and lightly beat. set them aside.
In another bowl mix together the sorghum flour...

...and the corn meal.

Take 1 cup of poha.

Pour it in a bit of warm water and let it soak for five minutes. This softens it up.

After 5 minutes drain the poha.

Gently press the excess water out of it.

Add the drained poha to the bowl containing the sorghum and corn meal flour.
Add salt...

...and seasonings to the flour poha mixture.

Mix the flours and poha all together.

Dip your buttermilk soaked onion rings into the eggwhite.

Then dip them into the flour poha mixture.

Lay them on the cookie sheets.
When the rings are all ready, brush them with a bit of vegetable oil and pop them into the oven.

Let them bake for about 15 minutes, them take them out and flip them over and brush the other side with a bit of oil. Put them back into the oven.

Give them another 15 minutes.
When they're brown and crispy, they're done!
Serve them up and enjoy!

Gluten free and guilt free!

Coming up next, visions of mawa cakes dance in my head and I gotta have 'em!
Follow along on Twitter @kathygori

Guys And Dals! Three, Three, Three Dals in One. Fast, Easy, Vegan and Gluten Free!

 

    
   Because of everything that's been going on around here I haven't had a full on Indian dinner since we moved into our new house. Well, I'm back at it and done, and last week I put the new kitchen to the test. I cooked a multi-course Indian feast as a thank you to friends who loaned us their place in San Francisco so that Alan could stay there while I was in the hospital at UCSF. I got to play with all my new toys and see just how a kitchen that we designed ourselves worked out. It was amazing! No more screaming and swearing, I wasn't a rushed sweaty mess when our guests showed up. For once I had enough ovens, warmers and counter space to greet my guests civilly when they arrived. What a pleasure.
 
   Cooking up the first meal on the new place, I decided to stick with the way I've been eating since earlier this year (when I had food poisoning) and feature a vegan meal. This of course is not hard to do with Indian food. Vegan, vegetarian, gluten free all fit very comfortably under the Indian cuisine umbrella without changing or adapting a thing. There are a lot of foods of various countries that work really well with varied diets that one doesn't need to go out of the way  or bend over backwards to prepare. One of these is Trevti dal.
 
   Trevti dal is a Gujarati dish and it features a combo of three dals cooked together with spices and vegetables. Recipes for it are found all over the place, and there are various little twists people add, but one of the best recipes for it that I've found is from my friend Sanjana at K.O. Rasoi. So I used her recipe for Trevti dal as the centerpiece of the meal I prepared to  thank our friends Ed and Heikki for their generosity. It turned out to be an ideal dish for the cold Sonoma nights we've been having, and no matter what sort of meal you're preparing, there's always room for a warm spicy dal dish.

Trevti Dal

Here's What You Need:
1/2 cup moong dal
1/2 cup urad dal
1/2 cup chana dal
 5 1/4 cups hot water
1 onion chopped
3 large shallots or garlic cloves minced
1 inch piece of ginger minced
2 serrano chilies seeded and chopped
1 Tbs coconut oil
2 star anise
1 cinnamon stick
6 curry leaves frozen or fresh
1 tsp mustard seeds
A pinch of hing (asafoetida)
A 16 oz can of chopped tomatoes
1/2 tsp of turmeric
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro
salt to taste

Here's What to do:
Mix the three dals together.

Wash and rinse them.

Put the cleaned dal into a pot and add in 5 1/4 cups of hot water.

Boil the dal until it's tender. Skim off any scum that may rise to the surface.

It doesn't take too long to boil the dal into tenderness; about 45 minutes or so . Many people use pressure cookers, but I don't own one and have been cooking dal for 25 years without one. The way I do it is to bring things to a rapid boil then turn down the heat and let the dal bubble along gently until it's ready. If you start to run out of water and your dal isn't tender yet, just add in a bit more water.

When the dal is done, set it aside.
Chop up your spices.

Mince the shallots or garlic.

Chop the chilies.

Get everything ready to go.

In a large pan or kadhai, heat the coconut or vegetable oil.

When the oil is hot add in the brown mustard seeds.
When the mustard seeds start to pop, add the onion, garlic or shallots, chilies, asafoetida, curry leaves tar anise , and cinnamon.

Cook everything down until the onions, shallot or garlic are translucent, and things are aromatic.

Add the tomatoes and turmeric to the spice mix.

Cook it gently until everything is blended and tender.

Add it to the cooked dal mixture.

Simmer it all together for about 5 minutes.
Sprinkle the chopped fresh cilantro over the dal and mix it in.

Season it with salt to taste.

Then serve it up to hungry guests.
Cheers!

Toasting our friends Ed and Heikki!
 
   This dal dish is a great example of how a lovely vegan, gluten free entree can be whipped up without having to change anything! I love stuff like this!!

   
Coming up next, really firing up the kitchen for Indian treats and holiday partying!! Let's take this baby on the road and see how she shakes out. Follow along on Twitter @kathygori

Pumpkin/Butternut Squash and Coconut. The Perfect Fall Vegetable Dish.

 
   I love Fall, I always have. Not for me the long slow Summer nights where it's light til 9:00 o'clock. Give me early darkness, a roaring fire, and all those root vegetables. big gourds, and weird squashes. On chilly Fall nights, the neighbors dog, Smokey barks and howls at whatever's living in that massive redwood tree out back and it makes me want to put something comforting on the stove. Something that screams "The Year's Ending!!! Soon!"
  
   One of the best things about this time of year is pumpkins. I love them and always stock up on them, because it seems that once Halloween is past it's hard to find them. It's as though as long as you can carve a face in it it's cool to keep a pumpkin around, but after that ...forget about it. I beg to differ. Now I'm not saying that every pumpkin dish has to be made with pumpkin, because as I found out a while back not every pumpkin is good eating. Some pumpkins are not meaty or flavorful enough. If you're lucky enough to find a good one great, but this recipe also works beautifully with squash. Butternut squash to be exact. Butternut squash is actually what passes in a can for pumpkin here in the US, so even though there's a cute little pumpkin in the background of the shot above, what's chunked up in the bowl is actually butternut squash.
 
   This recipe is really easy to make, and while traditionally it is aSouth Indian dish called a Mathanga Thoran (pumpkin curry) it would serve very well on anyone's Thanksgiving table. So grab your squash and get cooking.

Pumpkin/Butternut Squash Coconut Curry

Here's What You Need:
2 and 1/2 cups of peeled cubed butternut squash
1/2 cup of fresh grated or dried grated unsweetened coconut
8 shallots
2 or 3 large serrano chiles, seeded and chopped
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
1/2 tsp urad dal
1/4 tsp turmeric powder
8 curry leaves fresh or frozen
1 dried red chili
1 Tbs coconut oil

Here's What To Do:
Peel and cube the butternut squash.
Put it into a pot or kadhai.

Add in 1/4 tsp turmeric.

Add in a bit of salt for starters.

Add in about 2 cups of water. Enough to cover the squash. Bring things to a boil.

Boil the squash until it's tender. This should take about 15 minutes or so.
Meanwhile chop the shallots and chilies.

If you've got onion or chili goggles, use them.

Put the shallots, chilies and cumin seeds into a grinder.

Whirl everything into a paste.

Drain the cooked squash.

Place 1 Tbs of coconut oil in a hot skillet or kadhai.

When the oil is hot, toss in the mustard seeds and urad dal.
When the mustard seeds start top sputter, add in the curry leaves and dried red chili halves.
stir it around for a couple of seconds then add in the shallot chili paste.

Let it cook and sizzle, stirring it around, then adding the dried or fresh coconut.

Cook it for another few minutes.
Add in the cooked squash/pumpkin pieces.

Mix everything together well.
Check the dish for salt. If it needs more, add some.
When you're ready serve it up!

   Sweet, hot and savory all at once, this is a great dish for the holiday table no matter what you're celebrating. It's gluten free, vegan and vegetarian so no matter whoever you're trying to please, they're guaranteed to be happy with this one! By the way it's also make ahead and reheats well the next day without losing any quality, so there's that!  In fact like most Indian food it only benefits being left to mellow a bit, something we can't alas say about many things.

   I busted out the new kitchen Saturday night and cooked my first full on Indian dinner. What fun.
  Coming up next, Guys and Dals. 4 Guys, 3 Dals what could possibly go wrong??? Follow along on Twitter @kathygori