Although I dearly love a good cookbook as late-night reading fodder, I am not a great user of recipes whilst on KP duty. The exceptions, of course, are when I am attempting to fabricate rations that for their success require exact measurements, depend upon correct orders of operation, or possess particularly problematic procedures.
Since my enlistment into the gluten-free brigade I have collected in my Moleskine notebooks a plethora of new recipes, many of which fall into the culinary categories where the war on wheat has taken its greatest toll. It is easy to come up with gluten-free entrees, for example, once one has accepted that great piles of pasta are well and truly Off the Menu. Sides dishes and desserts are more problematic, however, often requiring (in my case, anyway) unfamiliar ingredients and arcane methods.
As an aide-memoire for myself as much as a gift to posterity, I have recorded many of my greatest revelations here. Some recipes are of my own invention, the results of extensive experimentation and taste-testing. Others I have cheerfully adapted from other sources. Still others are copied wholesale, without apology but with grateful attribution, from battle-hardened veterans. The only thing these dishes have in common is their origin in issues arising from my induction into the corps.
Plus their ability to power a gluten freedom-fighter to certain victory.
SWEET RECIPES
Gluten-free cakes and fillings: all-in-one-sponge, banana bread; banana and date cake; carrot cake; cheesecake with fresh chevre; dacquoise; frangipane, gingerbread with applesauce; orange and almond cake; orange polenta cake; pumpkin cake; buttercream; lemon curd
Gluten-free small cakes and petites fours: chestnut brownies; chestnut madeleines; financiers; madeleines; macarons
Pastry: gluten-free pate a choux
General desserts and confections: bread pudding; caramelized white chocolate panna cotta; chilled zabaglione; dried fruit compote; goat cheese panna cotta; hasty pudding; pumpkin mousse; Russian fudge for the Kid Squid; white chocolate and Amarula mousse; world's best toffee
Home-made ice cream: cherry sorbet; elemental chocolate; great pumpkin; 1001 Nights' pistachio; very vanilla bean
Jams and Preserves: see All Bottled Up
SAVOURY RECIPES
Side dishes and curiosities: apple sauce; crunchy roast potatoes; deviled eggs; falernum; gluten-free cornbread; gluten-free Yorkshire pudding; hominy with beans and Peppadews; Hungarian wine soup; johnnycakes; Modernist poached eggs; Namibian oats; quinoa [Annapurna] pilaf; pear and parsnip puree; pulao rice; roasted [Down-with-the-Tyrant] butternut squash; stovies
Rice cookery and accompanying stocks: butternut [and sage advice] risotto; clarified beef stock; lobster stock; risotto aragosta; sushi gohan
Home-made cheeses: see Hot Off the Press
Chutneys: see All Bottled Up