Bumpy Chicken – egg-free, dairy-free, gluten-free

When my daughter was little we were staying at my parents’ house and my mum was cooking fried chicken. My dad came home and asked her what we were having for dinner and my daughter’s response was, ‘Bumpy chicken’, so we’ve always called fried chicken ‘bumpy chicken’. I’ve been wanting to make a nice bumpy chicken recipe for a while and on the Thermomix Recipe Community site is a recipe for Krispy Fried Chicken. It’s not gluten-free or egg-free. I decided to have a go at making it without wheat flour and eggs and in the process changed the proportions of ingredients to suit our taste so I’ll put my version here. I’m sorry there is no picture. Hopefully I can add one later:

Ingredients

1 tablespoon (4 teaspoons) salt

3 teaspoons black peppercorns

1 tablespoon dried rosemary

2 teaspoons dried basil

2 teaspoons dried oregano

2 teaspoons dried thyme

1 teaspoon dried tarragon

1 teaspoon yellow mustard seeds

175 g white rice flour

2 teaspoons garlic powder

2 teaspoons onion powder

1 teaspoon paprika

Method

1. Put all of the ingredients except the rice flour, garlic and onion powder and paprika into a mini-chopper or thermocooker (I use a Bellini Intelli Kitchen Master). I put my Bellini on speed 9 for 10 seconds then repeat it. I don’t like the herbs too finely ground, but if you want them finer just repeat until it is to your taste.
2. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix on speed 6 for about 10 seconds (or mix together well in a bowl).
3. I use half of this mixture at a time. I just coat the chicken by placing the mix on a plate and then dipping chicken breast pieces in it. You could also use a bag and shake all of the pieces together.
4. Fry in a layer of oil of choice until cooked and crispy.

Gluten-free and Egg-free Quiche with Dairy-free option

I saw this vegan egg substitute product on Facebook a little while back and couldn’t wait to make an eggless quiche with it. I picked some of the product up at the Gluten Free Show in Brisbane two weeks ago and last week gave it a try. I have found that the recipes put out by the company on their website and Facebook video seem to vary in the quantity of ingredients used, so I tried my own and have published it here so you know that the quantities work well. Their version had mushrooms which I don’t like so I left them out. As I’m not vegan (I have an egg allergy) I included bacon and cheese in this quiche, but I really think that it would taste just as good without. Here’s the recipe:

Ingredients

1 gluten-free and vegan puff pastry sheet defrosted (I use the ones from the Gluten Free Bakery)

1 tablespoon olive oil

A few rashers of bacon (leave out for vegan)

1 small onion, finely chopped

1 medium zucchini, grated roughly

1 small carrot, grated roughly

1 tomato, sliced

50 g Orgran Vegan Easy Egg

1 teaspoon gluten-free plain flour

a handful of grated cheese (omit for vegan)

290 g water

Method

1. Place the pastry into a pie dish and cook at 160 C fan forced (180 C conventional) oven for 10 minutes.
2. Heat oil and add the bacon and onion and fry for a few minutes. Add the zucchini and carrot and cook a further few minutes. Remove from heat.
3. In bowl, mix the Easy Egg powder, plain flour and water together until smooth.
4. Add the bacon, onion and vegetable mixture and mix well.
5. Place into the pastry shell and top with cheese (if using) and then slices of tomato.
6. Bake in the oven for about 15 minutes.

 

 

Product Review: Melinda’s Pancake and Seed Cracker Mixes

Recently Melinda from Melinda’s Gluten Free Goodies has produced these new packet mixes and asked for taste testers and feedback so I signed up. I’m always willing to try new products so here are my comments:

 

Lower Carb Pancake Mix

I made these according to the packet directions except that I used egg replacer (Orgran No Egg powder and water) and also added a little vinegar to the milk (as per packet suggestion). I used dairy milk as I can have dairy. They can be made vegan with a dairy alternative. I cooked them with my pancake maker and found that they cooked up just like my regular pancake mix I have published here. The result was a yummy pancake that we ate with maple syrup. All here liked them, but noted that the pancake itself didn’t have added sugar/sugar substitute which meant that they could be used as a savoury pancake in place of a burger bun, for example. If you prefer a sweeter pancake, it would be easy enough to add sugar to the mix before adding the liquids. Note that they are not suitable for people with nut allergies, as they contain almonds. We recommend them! Here’s what they looked like:

Seed Cracker Mix

Next I tried the seed cracker mix. This was really easy to make and I just followed the packet directions exactly. I cooked them for an hour and they look exactly like they should. They taste nice, although the only negative comment I could make was that they were lacking in salt. I’m not a huge salt fan, but these ones needed some salt sprinkled over the top of them before eating. At the Gluten-Free Show in Brisbane two weeks ago I saw Melinda and made this comment and she said that a number of people had complained of either too much salt or too little salt. She thinks that, in the batch produced for taste testing, that the salt sank to the bottom of the mix so that some came out with hardly any salt and some had way too much. I don’t know anything about the production process but there is probably a way to fix the problem. Here’s what they look like: