Ever since Christian had some health problems 5 years ago we’ve been cooking and baking gluten-free. In the beginning that was quite a challenge: I googled recipes and dismissed most because we couldn’t get the ingredients for them out here. I experimented a lot and found a few basic rules for gluten-free flour:
- corn starch (available in minimarkets around the world) makes doughs hard and stable
- rice flour (available in bigger supermarkets) makes things crispy (ideal for batters, flatbread, pizzas)
- tapioca flour (available in basically all minimarkets in the Pacific area) makes doughs gooey and glues things together (great in crepes)
- buckwheat flour (available only in Tahiti in the French Poly area) lets doughs rise (ideal for bread)
- almond flour (available only in Tahiti in the Fr. Poly area) is great for quiche and pie bottoms
We stock up on luxury items like gluten-free cake mixes, lasagna sheets, spaghetti, etc. and of course lots and lots of buckwheat flour whenever we are in Tahiti. In remoter areas there’s a wide variety of local veg to cook gluten-free meals:
Breadfruit, maniok, iams, sweet potatoes and taro are great in traditional (ask locals!) preparations, but also in fusion-food style dishes (breadfruit lasagna, gnocchi made from breadfruit dough, taro gratin, sweet potato goulash–there are no limits for creative cooking!)
