Korea, rice and shine!

After my posts about the best aspects of Korean cuisine (here, here and here), I promised I'd tell you what the absolute best thing we ate during our trip was.

Well, here it is. The best thing we ate was... rice. 

Bear with me. 

Rice was ubiquitous in Korea and we certainly ate a lot of it. It was available with every meal, served every way imaginable. You could have it hot, cold, fried, steamed, in a weird savoury slop, and even in different colours (but watch out for purple barley). There were certainly plenty of options - if you like rice, that is. 

And because it was everywhere, rice became a bit of a gluten-free, low-FODMAP lifesaver for us. 

At our hotel in Busan, for example, there wasn't much I could eat for breakfast. Just black coffee, orange segments, and - you guessed it - rice. I also can't have too much fructose so I couldn't go crazy on the oranges, either.

So... rice. 

Me going wild at the breakfast buffet.

It was a simple, staple necessity. 

Yet humble old rice surprised us in its gourmet applications, too. 

The best rice we had we discovered on our last day in Korea. We were in the Busan suburb of Gwangan-Dong when we found it.

It being the rice bakery. Should I say that again for emphasis? The rice bakery. 

Apparently there is also one of these marvellous inventions in Seoul, but we didn't stumble across it (it is a city of 10 million people, after all). In Busan, all we had to do was take the train to Geumnyeonsan, walk towards the water, turn right at Starbucks, then wander along the beach path - there it was.  

And, trust me, we didn't want to leave. 

Happy bread!

The only way to describe the goods at the rice bakery were, well, "normal". Like they were filled with delicious, gluteny goodness, coated in sugar, and made with love. And don't worry, we triple checked to make sure it was for real - we couldn't believe it either.

They had everything. Pastries that actually flaked. Cakes that were moist. Bread that was actually doughy. Fruit loaves that were - actually I'm not quite sure what people see in these, but they were there aplenty.  

Childhood treats you can only dream of (before the nightmares of gluten-induced stomach pains give you cold sweats).

This is Ross's custard cream pie. 

Happy place.

And here's my soft, squishy cream donut. 

This delicacy was a happy reminder that gluten-free living shouldn't mean deprivation from sugar-induced food comas. 

Cream donut.

Food this amazing should not be so far away. 

And so we finished our trip with a dilemma. 

Do we cancel our trip home and relocate to Busan? (Hmmm possibly a tad extreme.)

Or should we just eat the next week's worth of food all at once? (I know, I know, donuts are a sometimes food.)

Perhaps we could try and smuggle them into New Zealand and hope that it isn't stale in four days time? (The customs fine can't be that bad, right?)

Or - achievable goals - maybe we should just aspire for more in our gluten-free cooking? 

Korea manages to produce better gluten-free baked goods than I have ever seen, and it's not even a "thing" there!

Maybe we just need to get creative. There must be more that can be done sans gluten. Using ingredients like, I don't know, rice.

So we left Korea with a new appreciation for rice, inspired by the endless possibilities.

Oh, and with full bellies too.   

Bye, Korea. It's been a blast.

Madonna biscuits

Gluten-free baking can be a challenge. And, in my experience, no form of gluten-free baking is more challenging than the humble biscuit. 

Gluten-free biscuits either turn into buttery pancakes or gritty sanding blocks. Or, if you're particularly lucky, some weird combination of both. 

I've tried countless recipes for gluten-free biscuits with little success. I thought maybe it was just me. Perhaps I just had biscuit-cooking incompetence to go with my intolerances? 

But my mother has assured me that is not the case. My Mother's garden statue, Madonna, has been lovingly doused with baking on a number of occasions after ill-fated attempts at making gluten-free biscuits - and Mum's a baking guru.   

So, in the end, I have given up and decided to make up my own biscuit recipes. 

These are my super easy peanut brownies. They are gluten-free, low in FODMAPs, and low in sugar. Plus they are pretty tasty. Sorry, birds - none for you today!

They also make use of Healtheries ground LSA (linseed, sunflower, and almond mix), my favourite new addition to our kitchen. Add a tablespoon to brown rice porridge for a delicious, wholesome breakfast.

Enjoy!

Madonna biscuits.

Madonna biscuits 

Ingredients 

25g butter 

1/2 cup of oil

1/2 cup of crunchy peanut butter

1/3 cup of golden syrup

1/2 cup of desiccated coconut*

1/2 cup of ground LSA (linseed, sunflower, and almond mix)* 

2 cups of gluten-free flour blend (Edmonds is good)

1/2 cup of dark chocolate chips* 

2 tsp vanilla 

1 egg 

Method

Preheat oven to 180'C. Gently heat butter, oil, peanut butter, and golden syrup in a pot until a smooth consistency. Set aside to cool for a few minutes. In the meantime, grease your oven tray. Then mix together coconut, LSA mix, and flour blend in a bowl. Add vanilla, chocolate chips and egg to the wet mix and stir. Combine wet mix to the dry ingredients and stir to combine. Roll into balls and place on the oven tray (2-3 teaspoons of batter per biscuit). Flatten biscuits slightly with a wet fork. Bake for 12 minutes. Makes 20-24 biscuits.

Note: I don't like my biscuits too sugary, but you could add a couple of tablespoons of brown sugar to the pot if you want some more sweetness in your life. And, if you can tolerate it, these would be amazing with melted chocolate drizzled on top. 

* These quantities are such that a 2 biscuit serving is low in FODMAPs. Larger quantities can be high in FODMAPs, so eating the whole batch in one sitting should probably be avoided if you have IBS.

  

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