Written in 2010 - In India ... Food is one of the major triggers for Geri's mast cells and kicks off many a mast cell party, so I am constantly on a quest for nutritious and trigger free recipes. When we are living in western countries it can be easier to source ready made; but often less than nutritious, food. Consequently, the need to make from scratch isn't as pressing, and I haven't been as motivated to experiment and search for alternatives as I perhaps should have been.
Now that we are in Gurgaon the range of available and 'safe' food is limited so I have been forced to pull finger and find some solutions which has resulted in a rash of the development and testing of new recipes. The biggest hurdle; apart from finding ingredients has been the lack of an oven. This problem has now been resolved ...see my post entitled 'Appliance Adventures'.
As one of Geri's staples is crackers (bread often triggers her) I decided that that was a good place to start in my kitchen experimental 'lab' ...
My first attempt was some Atta; an Indian wholemeal flour - very finely ground and rather nice, Besam; Chickpea flour, and fennel seed crackers. These were an abysmal failure - although they tasted great, they were just a crumbling mess.
Next up I tried this recipe.
Rich, Wholegrain Crackers
Now these have a fair amount of butter in them, so I think that with the next batch I will reduce the butter and increase the yoghurt. Butter in cracker recipes is hard to avoid altogether as crackers are essentially pastry...
The recipe calls for the mixture to be left/soaked somewhere warm for 12-24 hours. I left it out on the bench for the day; roughly 12 hours, but put it into the fridge overnight because the temperature in the kitchen stays in the mid 30s through the night and I didn't want to risk the dough going off.
The other benefit in chilling really well here in Gurgaon of course, is that when the ambient kitchen temperature is in the mid-high 30s rolling out pastry is a trifle tricky and gets sticky very quickly! The dough was very cold the next morning and wasn't a problem to handle as long as I moved fast.
Rolled, cut and ready to bake.
I baked according to the recipe and the result was ok but both Geri and I felt they would be better if they were on the crispier side of things.
After first baking
So, once the crackers had cooled a little and were easier to handle I simply loaded the whole lot onto the tray (the rack would have worked to, now that I think about it) not worrying too much about keeping them in a single layer. I reduced the oven temp to 180c and baked the crackers again for about 10 mins. This made a big difference to them.
After the second baking = YUMMY!!!
Next time, I'll experiment with rolling them out very thinly to see if that negates the need to double bake - although, in the heat this will make them pretty tricky to handle before they are cooked... so I shall have to see.... I'll also substitute some of the Atta for Besam and experiment with adding seeds into the mix as well as on top.
Next up is a test for a recipe that is lower in fat, but first I have to try to find some Linseed.... and so the quest continues.
Now that we are in Gurgaon the range of available and 'safe' food is limited so I have been forced to pull finger and find some solutions which has resulted in a rash of the development and testing of new recipes. The biggest hurdle; apart from finding ingredients has been the lack of an oven. This problem has now been resolved ...see my post entitled 'Appliance Adventures'.
As one of Geri's staples is crackers (bread often triggers her) I decided that that was a good place to start in my kitchen experimental 'lab' ...
My first attempt was some Atta; an Indian wholemeal flour - very finely ground and rather nice, Besam; Chickpea flour, and fennel seed crackers. These were an abysmal failure - although they tasted great, they were just a crumbling mess.
Next up I tried this recipe.
Rich, Wholegrain Crackers
Now these have a fair amount of butter in them, so I think that with the next batch I will reduce the butter and increase the yoghurt. Butter in cracker recipes is hard to avoid altogether as crackers are essentially pastry...
The recipe calls for the mixture to be left/soaked somewhere warm for 12-24 hours. I left it out on the bench for the day; roughly 12 hours, but put it into the fridge overnight because the temperature in the kitchen stays in the mid 30s through the night and I didn't want to risk the dough going off.
The other benefit in chilling really well here in Gurgaon of course, is that when the ambient kitchen temperature is in the mid-high 30s rolling out pastry is a trifle tricky and gets sticky very quickly! The dough was very cold the next morning and wasn't a problem to handle as long as I moved fast.
Rolled, cut and ready to bake.
I baked according to the recipe and the result was ok but both Geri and I felt they would be better if they were on the crispier side of things.
After first baking
So, once the crackers had cooled a little and were easier to handle I simply loaded the whole lot onto the tray (the rack would have worked to, now that I think about it) not worrying too much about keeping them in a single layer. I reduced the oven temp to 180c and baked the crackers again for about 10 mins. This made a big difference to them.
After the second baking = YUMMY!!!
Next time, I'll experiment with rolling them out very thinly to see if that negates the need to double bake - although, in the heat this will make them pretty tricky to handle before they are cooked... so I shall have to see.... I'll also substitute some of the Atta for Besam and experiment with adding seeds into the mix as well as on top.
Next up is a test for a recipe that is lower in fat, but first I have to try to find some Linseed.... and so the quest continues.
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