My First Gluten-Free Cookbook

I’m so happy to have discovered Elana Amsterdam’s “The Gluten-Free and Almond Flour Cookbook,” (click here for her website). I have just recently started doing some research on gluten-free cooking, because a couple of friends and relatives are highly allergic to gluten and I wanted to look for some recipes that I could share with them.

Elana’s cookbook is a treasure trove of information, and her recipes are simple enough for home cooks to follow. However, as is the case in most specialty food preparations, you need special ingredients, most of which are
readily available in supermarkets but some of them may be a bit difficult to find.

For example, her recipes in this cookbook invariably call for super-fine almond flour, which I could not find anywhere near where I live in Northern Virginia (I had to order them from Amazon, of all places). Elana says the Red Mill brand of almond flour, which is readily available, is coarser than the super-fine one and would not work in her recipes. I have the Red Mill brand in my pantry, and I plan to test it in one of Elena’s recipes to see how the results would differ.

Elana prefers blanched almond flour to “almond meal,” which contains whole, ground almonds that still have the skin on them. Also, an important point is that unblanched almond flour or almond meal will not work in her recipes. The almond flour should also be refrigerated in a tightly sealed glass container (no plastics for her).

Another ingredient which is hard to find is arrowroot powder, an ingredient that Elana uses in almost all her bread recipes – Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, regular supermarkets, and even Oriental stores in my area do not carry it, so I will have to turn to Amazon again, which is an annoyance because you have the added shipping expense and waiting time. This is also delaying my testing of the bread recipes from her cookbook!

Elana provides a lot of good advice regarding the ingredients, like buying grapeseed oil, or any other oils, in “glass containers because plastic contains endocrine-disrupting chemicals that are exacerbated when they come into contact with oil.” I don’t have the time to research this right now, but it makes sense to me. Grapeseed oil is an ideal replacement for butter in baked goods, which is good news for people on a dairy-free diet; it is also low in cholesterol, and has a neutral flavor.

Instead of using regular sugar, which has a high glycemic index (I need more detailed information on this), she recommends light-colored agave nectar (the nectar of the agave plant) as opposed to the dark, or amber, version; the former has a more neutral flavor and resembles sugar most closely in taste when used in baking.

Elena specifies Celtic Sea Salt as her preferred salt, but I wish she had explained why, and how it compares to other fine-quality sea salts (I have been using a couple of other brands, both coarse and fine).

The book also includes helpful information about coconut oil, vanilla extract, chocolate, agar flakes, fruit spreads, yacon syrup, a gluten-free spice blend (Spice Hunter brand) that she uses for her savory dishes, and even the exact size of her loaf pans (7.5 by 3.5 by 2.25 inches).

I have tested two of the recipes in the book:  the Salmon Dill Burgers (page 51), which were delicious and very easy to make. It is also a recipe that needs only a few ingredients, so even an inexperienced home cook will be able to make this dish successfully.

The Zucchini Bread also came out well—moist, delicious, and quite filling. I had to improvise on the size of the loaf pans though, as I did not have the one recommended in the book, but I’m happy that it worked.

I will be testing more of Elana’s recipes, and will post the results in this blog.