I had a friend coming for lunch who was gluten intolerant. After a previous disastrous lunch where I tried to make gluten free bread, I decided to take a different approach today.
Today's lunch was a rotisserie chicken (not based in soy sauce because even that has gluten in it!), salads and a baked layered potato dish (I used sliced fennel in the layers which was nice but not a strong flavour).
We tried something new with the chicken and soaked it in brine (salty water), lemon on herbs for a day, then dried it out in the fridge overnight. I then just based with olive oil and garlic salt when it was cooking. It turned out beautifully. It looks burned in the picture but it was more smokey charred. It's a really good and easy way to cook it.
This was followed by a Middle Eastern Orange cake that was made using ground almond meal rather than flour. The really interesting part of the cake was that the recipe starts with 2 whole oranges simmered for 2 hours in water. This is not something I had come across before. They came out really soft, but not mushy...almost like cutting through butter.
The cake gets added to the 'make again' list. It was a cross between a cake and a pudding and despite having almond meal instead of flour, still had a reasonably light consistency. It looked quite dry before I cut into it but was wonderfully moist.
I served it with greek yoghurt made in the yoghurt maker and peeled orange segments.
Middle Eastern Orange Cake
Ingredients
Serves: 10
- 5 large oranges
- 6 eggs, beaten
- 2¼ cups ground almonds
- 1¼ cups caster sugar
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 cup plain low-fat yoghurt
Preparation method
Prep: 30 minutes | Cook: 3 hours
1.
Wash 2 of the oranges and place in a saucepan with water to cover. Bring to the boil, cover and simmer for 2 hours. Allow the oranges to cool, then cut open, remove the pips and roughly chop the flesh.
2.
Preheat the oven to 190°C. Grease and flour a 22-cm springform tin. Process the cooked oranges, eggs, ground almonds, sugar and baking powder in a food processor.
3.
Pour the batter into the prepared tin. Bake for 1 hour or until the centre is firm (note that this is a very moist cake). Cool in the tin before gently turning out.
4.
Peel the remaining oranges with a small paring knife. Separate the orange segments from the membranes. Serve the cake with the fresh orange segments and some yoghurt on the side.
Just pointing out the other gluten free pile on your plate - Quinoa and Asparagus Salad with Smoked Paprika Yoghurt Dressing :) Eating leftovers for tea as I type.
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