One of my favorite restaurants after a day paddling on the lake was a Trini restaurant/bar. They had plenty of veggie offerings. There were, though, some things I couldn’t get because of the gluten issue. I have long wanted to figure out gluten-free doubles. Maybe I will manage it this quarter!
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I’ll check my cookbooks, too.
There’s also a dish called Pholourie which is a deep fried yeasted fritter made of chickpea or lentil flour, probably with wheat flour, and served with tamarind sauce. I will find a recipe to check if it contains wheat flour. Very addictive.
Here is a gluten-free recipe I have not tried.
Thanks for that. I have recipes for pholourie, but they all have wheat flour. I will check this out.
The fulaurie / fuluri (pakodas) they’re derived from are almost always gram flour (besan) or soaked and ground dals, so it should easy to do GF.
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Here’s a recipe for the tamarind chutney .
The Bara in the double is a yeasted puri / bhatura - I made a lot of GF indian breads during the pandemic — puri, paratha, roti, etc.
Once you have a base dough that rolls without breaking, variations become easier. I liked rice flour with tapioca, or a mix of flours (cassava was a good addition).
It was pretty shocking that rotis puffed up just like normal, as did puris. The second-order challenge after rolling and puffing was texture.
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Adding links for a couple recipes
I’ve used other recipes by Natasha, who posts through her FB page
Was the cou-cou slimy at the end? Or was the okra water to help it bind?
Looks great!
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Fascinating! I’m a little curious if the okra is really necessary given that’s not used in (what seems like) somewhat similar applications like polenta or Burmese tofu. Regardless, it seems like a good way to both de-slime okra and use the resulting hydrocolloid.
Also would like to know the answer to this, please!
Okra is part of the traditional preparation.
It’s a real comfort food for Bajans.
I was thinking I’d use the mix I use for pizza, which is brown rice, tapioca, and besan. Sometimes I include some millet in place of some of the rice flour, which makes it lighter and puffier. I include psyllium husk in my yeasted doughs. I see the cracked edges in the dough that Phoenikia linked to, and that is a red flag for me. I can get a workable dough that won’t do that, and will stay flexible after cooking. I’m going to take a guess that the dough in that recipe will not bend without breaking. EDIT: I just looked at the video and apparently they do come out soft. So I’ll have to think about this.
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I don’t like besan in my Indian doughs unless I am specifically looking for that flavor. (It does also dry out the bread after - someone made us besan rotis once and they were just awful.)
Brown rice is great if you can get a very fine grind, otherwise the texture is different than what I expect from roti/puri/etc. Adding fine white rice flour helps.
Agree on psyllium for workability; if you add tapioca, the benefit is that you can cut some of the psyllium (I can detect psyllium in mouthfeel).
(I’ll try to find some pics of the pandemic puris and chapatis.)
Last edit: I looked at the recipe and saw it uses potato in the dough. This was a trick I used early on for rice flour chapatis, before I had psyllium or tapioca or cassava. Helps with softness, but use a ricer to make sure there are absolutely no lumps or it’s annoying to roll out (and impedes puffing up).
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I wouldn’t say it was slimy, but I do think it made a difference in the texture. This is hard for me to judge because I am not bothered by okra slime. It probably did help bind it, to some degree. I would say that I don’t think anyone would be put off by the texture the way some people are with okra. I’m having a hard time coming up with the right words here. Compared to a super thick polenta, I would say this had a slightly “slick” feeling to it on the tongue. Sorry to be so vague!
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I’ve got it fine-tuned. My rice flour is from Authentic foods and is a very fine grind. The amount of besan is low (1/5 of total flour), so the taste is hardly noticeable. This is a blend I’ve spent many years refining. I would definitely love to see your pandemic breads. I, like many, spent the time working on sourdough.
I’ve always worried cou-cou would be stodgy.
Sure, I get that but I’m just curious what the okra slime contributes to the cou cou. Does it actually change the resulting texture or could you do the same thing with water…?
Not at all, that’s very helpful! I’m also not bothered by okra slime and this is such an unusual use it’s cool to read the resulting texture.
To be fair, it’s hard to impartially describe something that’s almost always referred to as “slimy”.
I haven’t made Cou Cou, or ordered it, but I’m under the impression it isn’t quite the same texture-wise or taste-wise as as grits or polenta.
Once I have enough okra in my garden, I’ll make it and report back.
I spent a week in Barbados, and enjoyed a lot of home cooking where I stayed, but didn’t have cou cou while I was there. It’s one of my friend’s mom’s favourite dishes.
Re: slime
I cook okra the Greek way a lot, and I guess nonGreeks might call it slimy, but I don’t refer to it or think of it that way.
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