I have a friend coming to supper with her family, which includes a son who has been diagnosed with coeliac disease. They also keep kosher, which for a vegetarian household is nothing to worry about.
We’re not going to mix meat and milk accidentally and if they’re willing to eat at our house, the lack of involvement of a Jewish hand in the cooking process is not going to worry them too much, or can easily be assuaged by them helping transport the food to the table.
But being coeliac and unable to eat gluten from wheat products does cause some issues.
Obviously bread and bread products are out of the running, along with pasta and pastry and that makes a meal centre piece a bit harder to achieve. You could go with something like a risotto (rice is fine) or even a rice filled aubergine loaf and it’s something we’ve given them before.
I’ve decided to go with a table of curries and related dishes, with rice as an accompaniment and some convenient poppadums that turn out to be gluten free. I’m not going to bother with naan bread etc because gluten free substitutes are rarely as good as you’d like.
But I’m not going to be too didactic about it. There is a surprising overlap between Indian dishes and Arab or even S American dishes when it comes to spice. I’ll have to be a bit careful about the latter because a couple of people around the table have incredibly bland palates. The trick will probably be to include a reasonable numbers of side dishes or relishes.
- Aloo Papri Chaat – using something gluten free and snack like for the texture on top*
- Vegetable Jalfrezi with paneer cheese**
- Spinach with Coconut – part of the continuing and seemingly endless campaign to use up the desiccated coconut**
- Dhal – probably with red split lentils**
- Chilli Roast Butternut Squash with lentils**
- Cucumber salad*
- Mango Chutney*
- Yoghurt Raita*
- Curry Puffs – based on a Brazilian Cheese puff recipe made with tapioca (potato) flour
- Basmati rice
& I’m going to think about either minted pineapple for desert or a carrot halva**.
Making so many separate dishes means a fair bit of work, but a lot can be done in advance, or substantially in advance*
A couple will just need warming through last minute**
And the rice plus curry puffs will need to be made fresh, though the rice is forgiving enough.
It’s a plan.