If you need to follow a wheat, gluten or dairy free diet one thing for sure is that you will have to start cooking for yourself since there are few ready meals available that will be suitable for your restricted diet. But where do you start? And will anyone else be willing to eat with you?The answer to these questions lies in Antoinette Savill’s latest book Learn to cook wheat, gluten and dairy free. Antoinette takes her reader on a culinary journey through preparing smart, modern international food using alternatives to wheat, milk and cheese. She starts by encouraging her student cook to learn the basic skills such as making stocks, soups, pancakes, pastries, gravies and sauces.
Attention is drawn to cooking dishes that are naturally wheat and dairy free such as the delicious Salmon fishcakes, Scallop and prawn rice noodles with lime, Macaroons and, Lime and apple jellies.
But the hub of Antoinette’s book introduces the reader to a range of good quality ingredients that can be substituted for wheat and dairy products.
She recommends dairy free Feta, mozzarella, cheddar and Parmazano, a grated hard cheese replacer for dishes such as Gnocchi with caper berries, her Vegetarian lasagne and Pizza.
Her favourite Frosted carrot cake is made with Tofutti cream and Alpro soya cream is used for her luxury Wicked chocolate cake.
Perhaps the biggest challenge for a person who is sensitive to wheat is how to include pasta, bread and pastry in their diet. Antoinette has some good ideas here too. She has included a range of popular pasta recipes including Fusilli with roasted vegetables and olives and Spaghetti with mussels with recommendations for her favourite gluten free pasta brands. It is a big help to readers that Antoinette gives a list of all the suppliers she uses to source ingredients included in the book.
More inspiration follows in the bread section with a Greek style loaf made with caraway and almonds, a Simple white seed loaf and Mini rosemary and orange muffins. These recipes are easy enough for a novice cook to make.
Thought is given to special occasions too. A beautiful Panna cotta with raspberry puree would be just the thing for a summer dinner party and there is a lovely Christmas come birthday cake recipe.
The photographer Michelle Garrett has done a superb job making the recipes look delicious. The photographs are colourful, close up shots of well prepared dishes which show the cook what to aim for.
As for whether friends and family will want to eat wheat, gluten and milk free too, the recipes and photographs convince me they would. The recipes will hold their own amongst Jamie’s Gordon’s, Delia’s and Nigella’s. This is a fine book and if you are sensitive to wheat or milk and you are only going to buy one book, this should be it.