Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Food allergen and intolerance fact sheet

If you are ever cooking for someone with a food allergy then this fact sheet this is worth reading.  It's aimed at food businesses but is written in plain english and includes examples for things to watch out for and even has a section on cross-contamination.

Allergen and intolerance - Fact sheet for food businesses

This is just one of the documents put out by the Victorian Department of Health, there is heaps of other information under the Food section of their web site.

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Fructose Friendly Gado-gado

This one is always popular, healthy and works well for large groups since everything is cooked separately and combined at the end.  Having the sauce over the top of steamed potatos and a salad was shown to me by a Tasmanian friend's dutch mother who lived in Indonesia for many years, she didn't give up her sauce secrets but I reckon this one is pretty good!

Recipe: Fructose Friendly Gado-gado (peanut sauce)
Special Needs Categories: gluten free, fructose free, (vegan variation possible)
Special Needs Translated: no gluten, no onion, (no fish or egg)

Sauce ingredients:
  • peanut butter (I like crunchy) (check if gluten free)
  • gluten free soy sauce
  • chili
  • garlic
  • fish sauce (don't use for vegetarian/vegan)
  • chinese five spice (Check if gluten free)
  • coriander (dried)
  • water
Method:
Really simple, combine all ingredients together in a saucepan over low heat.  I usually microwave the peanut butter to soften it a little and help get it out of the jar, then heat it a little on it's own before adding other ingredients.  When you add the water it usually doesn't look like it will mix in but just keep stirring.  Add the water till you get your desired consistency.  Make sure there's plenty of flavour in there as this is what really makes the dish.  (If I wasn't making this fructose friendly I'd have onion in the sauce too, semi-fine chopped and fried a little before you add the other ingredients.)

now the rest of the dish...

Ingredients:
  • steamed rice
  • steamed potato (& sweet potato if you like)
  • chinese cabbage
  • cucumber
  • bean sprouts
  • snow peas
  • other assorted salad ingredients
  • hard boiled egg (not for vegan dish)
  • fresh coriander
 simply combine on a plate (rice then potato then salad with eggs on the side) and pour over the gado-gado sauce!  You can make a salad with the fresh ingredients or just allow people to pick and choose.