Swedabilly Kitchen

This was a pretty successful experimental loaf. I had been considering making more pseudo-rye for a while, and also had a spare bottle of some random gluten free beer that I picked up to try out of curiosity. So, an attempt at beer “rye” suggested itself!

This is the highest ABV available outside the state-run liquor store here, and the bottle I drank did come across very much like I remember from something like Coors Light. I’ve never been a huge fan of lagers (or beer in general) anyway. But, it can work well as an ingredient in other things–so, may as well turn the remaining bottle into bread.

In the past, I have made a couple of pretty successful “rye” loaves, using buckwheat and other wholegrain flours to approximate the color and flavor of rye. It’s not exactly the same, but it scratches a very similar itch. The first attempt was a US-style “pumpernickel” which actually came out more like what I understand the local kavring to be like. Also good enough that I should try and repeat it! (No exact recipe anymore, but a photo.)

The second take worked off the recipe that I tracked down again for this version: Gluten-Free Rye Bread. Only made with a slightly different mix of flours, a cider yeast starter, buttermilk, some fermented pickle juice for that extra rye-like twang, and dill seeds. I always used to be a fan of the lighter style of dill rye available back home, and was trying for an effect more similar to that.

Also delicious, if even denser because I did hew pretty closely to the extremely high proportion of whole grains called for in the original recipe. But, enough about “rye” mimics past!

For this new batch using the beer, I had this delicious (if not very tangy) quasi-sourdough starter begun off homemade sake lees, which originally used a Riesling wine yeast strain. Most recently, it’s been fed with about 50:50 sorghum and very dark millet/ragi flours. It’s not quite at peak here, but as you can see it was very active and bubbly.

This also seemed like an excellent place to use more of that ragi flour, partly to take advantage of its color. This loaf is made without the added cocoa, with all the color coming from the grains. (And a very little from the low amount of syrup or molasses.)

Also, I had a new toy to play with, after finally buying a Pullman pan to hopefully help with higher rise on loose GF bread doughs.

Amusingly, they’re often sold as “rye bread pans” here, since actual rye doughs benefit from the extra support from the higher, straighter sides in the same way. (This time, I decided to forego the lid, so didn’t bother unbagging and washing it until later.) But, what better inauguration for the new “rye bread pan” than this pseudo-rye loaf?

For this loaf, I also drew some inspiration from Glutenfria Godsaker’s (“Gluten-Free Goodies”) recipe for a vaguely similar buckwheat and teff bread. Her Glutenfri formfranska med havre, a sandwich type loaf involving oatmeal has turned into one of my main go-to base recipes the past few years. I should probably post a take on that, the next time I make some.

At any rate, for this recipe I decided to try including a rather popular local ingredient, which you don’t really see used outside the Nordic countries: potato fiber. (And using that buckwheat and teff recipe as a rough guideline for how to best use it alongside the usual psyllium.)

This is a pretty popular GF baking ingredient here to help keep things moist and flexible, and it also gets used in low carb baking a good bit. It’s supposed to be useful in flatbreads for the moistness and flexibility. The potato fiber seems to be just be what’s left after they grind up potatoes and settle out the starch industrially, powdered and sold separately. And potato starch is (thankfully!) the go-to inexpensive starchy ingredient used in so many foods here. The Pofiber does seem pretty useful for a byproduct, and I’d much rather see it get good use than be wasted.

My verdict here? I think I would have preferred the texture if I had either used less potato fiber, or just all psyllium as usual. There was a noticeable roughness from the amount used here, which I wasn’t sure enhanced the bread. But, it was well worth a try–and definitely calls for more experimentation in future!

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Gluten Free Sourdough Beer “Rye” Bread

A gluten free approximation of a rye sandwich loaf. This is heavy on the whole grains, and comes out with a pleasant dense chewiness similar to some darker rye breads.

Prep Time20 minutes mins

Active Time50 minutes mins

Rising Time1 hour hr 20 minutes mins

Total Time2 hours hrs 30 minutes mins

Course: Baking, Bread

Cuisine: American

Keyword: Baking, Basics, Gluten free, Yeast dough

Yield: 1 loaf

Materials

Wet Starting Mix

• 200 g wholegrain sourdough starter half ragi/dark millet, half sorghum – (scant 200ml or ⅔ cup)
• 250 ml gluten free beer just finger warm (1 cup – this was a light lager)
• 2 tbsp molasses dark treacle, or mörk sirap
• 75 g sauerkraut juice room temperature (75ml or ¼ cup – what I had left in a jar)
• 1 tbsp oil
• 100 ml dry flour mix (½ cup) see below
• 11 g psyllium powder (2½ tsp) – 20-25g if not using the potato fiber
• 1 tsp dry yeast

Dry Flour Mix

• 185 g Multipurpose Flour Blend (300ml or 1¼ cup)
• 40 g potato starch (50ml, or 3 tbsp plus 1 tsp)
• 65 g buckwheat flour (125ml or ½ cup)
• 85 g ragi/dark millet flour (125ml or ½ cup)
• 22 g Pofiber (100ml or ⅓ cup) – see the end of the introduction
• 6 g fine salt (1 tsp table salt)
• 1½-2 tsp caraway or dill seeds

Additional Adjustment

• 100 ml lukewarm water as needed (⅓ cup)
• buckwheat flour as needed to adjust dough consistency

Instructions

• Combine the dry ingredients listed under "Dry Flour Mix" in a container, and mix well.
• Heat the beer to just where it feels slightly warm to the touch.

  Probably the easiest method is to set the container into a pan or bowl of warm water for a few minutes. Be smarter than I was, and make sure to open it first! Otherwise, the carbonation might erupt when you do pop it open.

  Also warm the sauerkraut juice the same way, if you need to.
  
• Combine your starter with the wet ingredients in your stand mixer bowl. If you're not using a sourdough/yeast starter, add an extra 100ml (⅓ cup) of water and use a whole package (around 7g) of dry yeast.

  Whisk in the psyllium, and around 100ml (⅓-½ cup) of the flour mixture, along with the yeast. If you prefer, omit the additional yeast; I was just going for a quicker rise with some sourdough flavor here.
  
• Cover and let sit for 20 minutes or so, to let the yeast wake up and the psyllium gel up.
  
• Move to the stand mixer, and start gradually working the dry mixture into the gloop at a low speed setting.
  
• Once all the flour is incorporated, turn off the mixer and let the dough sit and rest to slurp up liquid for 10-15 minutes. An especially important step if you are including the potato fiber.
• Once the moisture has equalized some you'll be in a better position to watch the mixer work the dough, and do any consistency fine tuning.

  Scrape things down with a spatula as needed.
• Let the dough work for a couple of minutes at lower speed, then turn it up more toward medium for 5-10 minutes.
• This is roughly the dough consistency you're aiming for near the end of mixing. Add little bits of lukewarm water and/or flour as needed to get it that way.
• We're looking for something on the wet and sticky side, but not a complete batter. It should come away from the sides of the mixing bowl.

  With the potato fiber, it actually held a clear imprint of the dough roller–but didn't leave bits stuck onto it as it was removed. I would expect more minor sticking with an all-psyllium dough.
  
• In fact, I could nudge it loose from the bowl fairly cleanly with a spatula. Still plenty of moisture, but not nearly as gooey as I would normally expect.
  
• The bowl itself, after turning the dough out.
  
• Grease a pan well.

  This is one place where I really like to use squeeze margarine. This variety includes around 30% butter oil for flavor.
  
• The dough came out to 1200g total, not including the pan. (1.8L capacity Pullman, as shown earlier.)
  

Proofing and Baking

• Smooth out/grease your dough on top, so it's fairly smooth and even. There is no shaping this loaf otherwise. Also oiling your hands to pat it out into the pan is probably going to be your best strategy.
  
• Cover and let sit in a warm place for about 30 minutes.

  If your oven has a light, I would suggest setting it in there with the light turned on for a little extra warmth.

  This is a good time to at least start the mixing bowl and dough attachments soaking.
  
• After 30 minutes, there's some decent rise. Now is a good time to start the oven preheating to 375℉ / 190℃.

  The dough can finish rising on top of the stove while that happens.
  
• Preferably, have a baking stone or steel ready near the bottom of the oven. I picked this up for pan breads from The Loopy Whisk, and it really does seem to be very effective for preventing that sad heavy glump of dough at the very bottom of the loaf that even some commercially baked GF breads tend to come with.

  With the stone or steel, it's best to give the oven at least 45 minutes to preheat everything thoroughly.
• When the oven is ready and the dough looks roughly doubled, put it in to bake for 40 minutes starting out.
  
• If you're using a stone or steel, you'll want to set the loaf pan directly on that.
  
• Evaluate for doneness after the 40 minutes. I carefully thump on the top crust and listen/feel for the "right" hollowness, to go along with fairly even browning on the crust. Wish I could give better advice than that!

  My loaf took 50-55 minutes to finish. It may vary with yours.
• When the bread is done, let it cool for 15-20 minutes before turning it out of the pan. I also lightly buttered the top crust.

  Cool on a rack until it's only mildly warm, if that, before cutting in.
  
• Enjoy!

  I couldn't resist grabbing a slice to eat with just some butter, as soon as it had cooled down enough to cut.
  

Notes

If you don’t have potato fiber or prefer not to use it, I would suggest instead using more psyllium. A total of 20-25g of powdered psyllium should be good for a loaf like this. You may also need to add a little extra flour to adjust the consistency.

This soup idea was lightly adapted from another older recipe that I ran across on Reddit and squirreled away in my saved posts. This time, in the comments on an r/soup post requesting some sauerkraut soup recipes. HauntedMeow was kind enough to contribute this variation that they snagged from a church cookbook.

The flavor combination sounded intriguing, and like something which should be right up our alley. So, I had to save it to my digital Try Pile.

Sauerkraut soup is another thing that I did grow up eating sometimes at home. Like with my adaptation that turned into the Pork and Root Vegetable Stew with Miso a while back? I’m guessing my family’s style was pretty heavy on the migrated “Pennsylvania Dutch” influences. My mom’s take used more fresh pork and potato/carrot/etc., but no cream and simpler seasonings. Another dish that leans hard on the flavors of the stewed pork and vegetables. Good quality meat and kraut make the dish.

This version also uses simple ingredients, but the combination of cured meat, sour cream, and dill really does set it apart. And sounded very much worth a try!

We happened to have just the right amount of open sauerkraut and crème fraiche in the refrigerator, and some aging potatoes perfect for a soup or stew. So I picked up a pack of thin Polish-style smoked sausages, and decided to go ahead and give it a go.

This is a very easy meal to put together. I actually complicated the original recipe in several ways, trying to cook it the way I thought would give the best results to my own taste. (As is really par for the course around here!) I did follow the original ingredient list, other than the addition of some carrots and the bit of vegetable bouillon for a little umami flavor boost.

The soup turned out absolutely delicious, and I will definitely need to cook it again. These sausages worked well in there, but I would also be tempted to try some different smoky cured meat next time. The little hint of caraway flavor worked unexpectedly well in here, underneath the fresh dill pop that helped pull everything together. I also very much enjoyed the thicker, creamy broth and its contrast with the sharp kraut cutting through the richness.

If you’re into hearty soups and tart flavors, this is an excellent meal to try.

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Creamy Sausage and Sauerkraut Soup

This warm and hearty gluten free soup delivers a lot of flavor from simple ingredients. Perfect for cold weather.

Prep Time15 minutes mins

Active Time45 minutes mins

Total Time1 hour hr

Course: Main Course, Soup

Cuisine: American

Keyword: Comfort Food, Gluten free, Preserved vegetables, Sauerkraut, Sausage, Soups, Winter

Yield: 6 servings

Materials

• 250 g precooked smoked sausage of your choice (8 oz.) sliced
• 1 tbsp neutral oil of choice, or butter (optional) for browning the sausage and onion if needed

Vegetables

• 1 medium onion chopped
• 1-3 medium carrots sliced
• 4 medium firm boiling potatoes (or equivalent) cut bite-sized
• 450 g sauerkraut (16 oz., or 1 can) drained, with liquid reserved

Other major ingredients

• 1¼ liter water (5 cups)
• 250 ml sour cream/crème fraiche/gräddfil (1 cup) full fat is best
• 1 tbsp potato starch can substitute corn or another starch; use 2 tsp if you want the soup less thick

Seasonings

• ¼ tsp caraway seed
• 1.5 vegetable bouillon cubes enough to make 750ml/3 cups total
• 1 large bay leaf
• coarsely ground pepper to taste
• ½ tsp garlic powder or use fresh
• 1 tbsp fresh or frozen dill chopped
• salt to taste
• sugar small amount to taste, if the sauerkraut is extremely tart
• sprinkles of chopped dill or parsley, and pepper to garnish the top

Instructions

• Peel the potatoes if you prefer, and chop them into bite-sized pieces. Hold to the side, covered with cool water. We had rather small potatoes today, so I used 8 of those.
  
• Peel and slice carrots, and chop the onion. Hold to the side separately.
• Slice the sausage into bite-sized pieces. These were a thin version of a Swedish take on soft Polish kabanosy. Kielbasa or pretty much any other smoked sausage you prefer should be good.
  
• NOTE: This next part is best done in a fairly heavy-bottomed pot that you're planning to cook the soup in. I did this differently because I initially misjudged the size of pot this soup would need. I had hoped to simmer it all together in the potato pot shown above.

  For this size of batch, you will want at least 3 L/quarts of cooking capacity with room to stir. 4L would be better. Soups and stews do have such a talent for outgrowing their pans!
• Fry the sausage over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until it's starting to brown. (Add the little oil or butter to keep things from sticking if your sausage is leaner.) Then add the onions.
  
• Continue frying it around for a few minutes until the onion just starts picking up a little color around the edges. We aren't looking to cook it soft or deeply brown the sausage, just work up a little extra flavor.
  
• When that's looking about ready, add in the caraway seeds and fry them around too for another minute or so. If you want to use fresh minced garlic, this is the time to add that too.
• When that's ready, combine the sausage mixture in your soup pot with the potatoes, carrots, and water. Add in the bouillon, bay leaf, and pepper.

  Bring to a boil, then turn down the heat to simmer it covered for 20 minutes or until the potato and carrot is just fork tender.
  
• When the root vegetables are cooked, it's time to add in the sauerkraut and garlic powder. The veggies are unlikely to get much softer once the kraut acidity goes in.
  
• The original recipe I was working off specified to add the kraut undrained. This is up to your taste and the kraut you're using. I would suggest draining off most of the liquid and keeping it to add to taste later if you want it.

  The half a big jar I had to use up was sour enough that I just forked the cabbage out of the brine, and sort of wished I had drained it better. So, this remaining brine went back in the fridge.
  
• Bring back to the boil, and simmer covered for another 15-20 minutes, or until it's wilted down and softened to your taste. Turn down to the lowest heat.
  
• Place the sour cream in a heatproof container, and stir in the starch. Mix together until very smooth.

  Note: Potato starch will hold up better to the kraut acidity than corn. Tapioca starch is also good for that.

  This step is partly intended to help keep the cream from curdling or "splitting" in the hot soup. It's probably unnecessary with the 32% crème fraiche I was using, which can boil–but it will also serve to thicken the soup a little more.
  
• Dip out some of the hot broth, and gradually stir about a cup/250ml into the sour cream mixture to temper it.

  This is also intended to keep the cream from curdling, besides the starch glumping up together when it hits the hot broth.
  
• Our runny tempered sour cream mixture is ready to go into the soup! It should look very smooth.
  
• Carefully stir this through the soup. Since we used potato starch here, it thickened the soup as soon as it was mixed in. If you're using another starch or your soup has cooled down more, you may need to gently heat it some more before it will fully thicken.
• Adjust seasoning to your taste. This batch turned out just sour enough from that particular kraut that I needed to add around a teaspoon of sugar to help balance the flavors just a tad. The simmering and creaminess were not quite enough to mellow the edge off it. With less aggressively sauerkraut, this addition shouldn't be necessary.

  Add the dill. Stir in well, then let the soup sit off the heat for 5-10 minutes to let al the flavors blend.l
  
• Soups's on! This would be good served with some crusty bread, and maybe a green salad. But, it felt like enough of a meal on its own that we just ate big bowls for supper.
  

Today, I was in the mood for something warm, filling, and low effort. It’s been a low energy day, and my musculoskeletal system is protesting the weather.

Some type of one pot noodle dish seemed just about perfect. And the Instant Pot makes these much easier.

Prepared meatballs were also a very tempting protein source. They’re tasty, versatile, and pretty well dump-and-go for a quick meal. Especially now that we’re living in Sweden, I always try to keep a meatball supply ready in the freezer. Probably the majority of prepared meatballs here are gluten free by default, using potato products for the little bit of binder–but, it does always pay to read the ingredients carefully before you buy.

My first thought today was a basic tomato-based Italian themed meatball pasta, which I will also post the next time I throw some together. But, that would mean that I needed to grate some Parmesan, and also come up with some sort of side salad or other vegetable for a rounded meal.

So, then my mind turned to more Asian style noodles, including a good bit of vegetables alongside the protein for a complete one-dish meal.

Considering that I wanted to use the meatballs, a short pasta shape made more sense than long noodles. I’ve also found that they are easier to manage in a one pot dish. It may not be traditional, but frankly nothing about this is! It’ll still be delicious.

The vegetables we’ll need. This did require a little onion and cabbage cutting, but I opted to use a chunky frozen vegetable blend for the rest to add some color and variety. I didn’t end up chopping this neat twinned green onion tonight, because I realized we already had some leftover sliced in a jar.

The vegetables will cook pretty tender with this cooking method, but I’m fine with that tonight. If you prefer a more tender-crisp texture, you could also cook them on the side and add them in at the end once the seasoned pasta is cooked.

The ingredients otherwise are pretty simple. We have meatballs, pasta, and some seasonings. This particular size batch will only need half each of the pasta and meatballs.

Tonight I opted for bowties, because they hold up well for one pot cooking and don’t want to poke up out of the liquid nearly as much as something like penne. More important when you don’t want a very saucy dish and won’t be stirring it during the cooking! But, any short shape will work fine, you’re just likely to need more liquid to submerge it properly. You could also totally use spaghetti or linguine, broken in half to fit down inside the pot.

As for the seasoning sauce, we’re going for a rather international mix of ingredients. The Shaoxing rice wine used in so much Chinese cooking is unfortunately made with wheat, but substituting sake will give you a good flavor. And while we’re reaching for the sake, we might as well grab the mirin too for its distinctive sweet flavor which combines so well with sake. You can substitute a teaspoon of sugar if you don’t have mirin. Right now I have a bottle of Thai oyster sauce going, but generally I would buy Lee Kum Kee’s GF version. This brand is a little sweeter, but still pretty good.

Since we’re using beef-and-pork meatballs, I am going for a cow version of the local liquid equivalent of Better Than Bouillon tonight. You can use any broth component that you like, for the equivalent of 2 cups / 500ml of liquid. And since we’re going lazy and not frying any aromatics, I’m just opting for garlic powder rather than fresh.

Once you have the little bit of prep done and the seasoning sauce mixed and ready to go, this meal goes together in no time. And it definitely hit the spot tonight!

Gluten Free Lo Mein-Themed Meatball Pasta in the Pressure Cooker

An easy one-pot pasta meal with meatballs and plenty of veggies, cooked simply in the Instant Pot.

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Prep Time 10 minutes mins

Cook Time 20 minutes mins

Total Time 30 minutes mins

Servings: 4 servings

Course: Main Course, One Dish

Cuisine: American, Chinese, East Asian-inspired

Ingredients Method

Ingredients

  

• 1 small onion sliced
• 3-4 cups white cabbage (750ml-1L) shredded fairly thickly
• ¼ tsp salt mixed in to season the cabbage
• 200-300 g chunky frozen vegetable mix of your choice (just around ½ lb.)
• 1 large green onion Chopped, with the whites and green top separated
• 300 g frozen meatballs (just around ½ lb.)
• 200-250 g short dry pasta shape of choice (just around ½ lb.)
• 500-600 ml broth (2-2½ cups)
• OR water plus enough Better than Bouillon or crushed cubes to make 500ml/2 cups of broth

Seasoning Sauce

• 2 tbsp GF soy sauce
• 1 tbsp sake
• 1 tbsp mirin
• OR 1 tsp. sugar
• 1 tbsp GF oyster sauce
• ½ tsp garlic powder
• ¼ tsp ground white pepper can use black

At the End

• salt and white pepper to taste
• 1 tsp toasted sesame oil
• sliced green onion green tops, to garnish

Method

 

1. After assembling your ingredients as detailed above, it's time for some simple layering.

   Start with your onions, the white part of the green onion (if using), and frozen meatballs.
   
2. Distribute the dry pasta over the top.
   
3. Pour over about half the liquid, and pour the seasoning sauce over the top.

   Rinse out the bowl with the rest of the liquid, and pour that in too.
   
4. This is roughly the liquid level we're going for: just barely up to the top of the dry pasta. No need to stir, just poke any pieces of pasta that are sticking up down into the liquid.

   We're aiming for most of the liquid to be absorbed, and the vegetables will contribute a little more as they cook.
   
5. Add the lightly salted cabbage, and then the frozen veggies to steam on the very top.
   
6. Cook on "Manual – High" for 5-7 minutes depending on your pasta. I know these Garofalo bowties need 7 to my taste.
7. Let the pressure natural release for 10 minutes before opening the valve.
8. Stir together, and evaluate pasta doneness and the remaining liquid level. If it's too watery and your pasta is not quite there, simmer uncovered for a few minutes until it's good.

   Also adjust the seasoning as required. I added a little more salt and pepper, but did not need to simmer.

   NOTE: the pasta will absorb a little more liquid as it rests.
9. Remove from the base, stir in the sesame oil, and let sit covered for 10 minutes before serving.

   Serve with the green onion tops, and whatever other garnishes you prefer. Enjoy!