When your doorstep, car and city are buried under 2 feet of snow, the situation calls for a very specific meal:

Something warm, filling and maybe even a little spicy to melt the chill away from snow-shoveling husbands returning home from their seasonal duties.

Something satisfying but not too high-calorie to compensate for the lethargic laze of a snow day spent mostly on the sofa.

Something cooked from scratch that draws heavily on one’s deep pantry and requires minimal fresh ingredients (it’s not exactly good weather for running out to the store, you know?)

For me, today that meal was a nice big pot of Mulligatawny (literally: “pepper water”): a heavily-seasoned Indian soup that commonly (but not always) features lentils.

I love this recipe, which I’ve adapted over the years from one served in the now-defunct “Daily Soup” restaurant chain and published in their eponymous cookbook, for lots of reasons.  First, it takes advantage of my beloved spice collection, calling for a laundry list of Indian seasonings that I’ve collected over years of dabbling in South Asian cookery.  Second, the prep effort is minimal: just one onion to chop and some ginger and garlic to mince.  Everything else is just opening cans or measuring spices.  Third, it fills the house with an intoxicating perfume… a nice touch when you’re likely to be stuck indoors until the Spring thaw.  Oh, and lastly: it’s insanely delicious.  Sort of like a spicy Indian chili of sorts.

If your pantry is extra-well-stocked and you happen to have a package of pappadum laying around, fire up the gas range and toast a few of them on the open flame using a pair of tongs. (See photos below).  Pappadum are those round crackery snacks served at Indian restaurants and made from lentil flour; they’re gluten-free and are sold in shelf-stable packages at Indian groceries.  Pick up a package next time you run into them; they’ll last an eternity in your cupboard and add a restaurant-quality flair to your next Indian-style meal.

Recipe: Mulligatawny

Adapted from The Daily Soup Cookbook, makes ~12 cups or serves ~8 people

1 TBSP minced ginger2 garlic cloves, minced

2 TBSP canola oil

1 large onion, chopped

1/4 cup black mustard seeds

1 TBSP garam masala

2 tsp tandoori spice mix (OR, can use 1 tsp cumin + 1/2 tsp ground coriander + 1/2 tsp turmeric instead)

2 tsp curry powder

2 tsp kosher salt

1 tsp ground cardamom

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper (leave this out if you don’t tolerate spicy!)

1 28 oz can OR 2 14-oz cans diced tomatoes

5 cups cold water

1 lb brown lentils, rinsed and picked over to remove debris

1 cup lite coconut milk

Optional: 1 10 oz bag spinach  (great if you happen to have it; if not, can leave it out)

1 TBSP lemon juice

Optional garnishes: 1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro (or anything green you have on hand; fresh mint or chives work well) and/or plain fat-free greek yogurt (to tame the heat if desired)

1. Heat oil in a large stockpot
2. Add ginger, garlic and onion.  Saute about 4 minutes until soft and golden.
3. Add mustard seeds and cook until they start to pop
4. Add: garam masala, tandoori spice mix, curry, salt, caradmom, cayenne.  Stir to coat vegetables.
5. Add tomatoes (with their liquid), stir well to combine, and simmer for 5 minutes,
6. Add water and lentils and bring mixture to boil.  Reduce heat, partially cover, simmer for 1 hour until lentils are tender.
7. Stir in coconut milk and simmer 2 minutes.
8. Remove from heat and stir in spinach (if desired) and lemon juice.
9. Serve garnished with cilantro and/or plain yogurt as desired

Approximate nutritional info per serving (assumes recipe serves 8 and includes spinach.  Does not include yogurt garnish):  ~310 calories, 44g carbohydrate (of which 19 enormous grams are fiber!  That’s almost a full day’s worth for women!  That amount of fiber means this portion has a net of 25g of carbohydrate, or about 2 diabetic exchanges), 16g protein, 8g fat.  It also has about 6mg iron (30% of the daily value for women).

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I’ve written previously about lactose-free and soy-free yogurt options for those among us with uncooperative digestive systems.

The yogurt which established a new Greek Empire in your supermarket

But the google-searches for lactose-free yogurts continue unabated, and since I posted that initial article, the only brand of dairy yogurt on the market that used lactose-free milk (True Yogurt) has become unavailable due to the loss of their production facilities.

Despair not, my fellow lactards.  There is another yogurt option that your intestines may find tolerable: European Style yogurt.

You may have noticed the European invasion in your local dairy aisle: there’s a veritable Greek Empire led by brands like Fage, Oikos, Chobani, The Greek Gods, Trader Joe’s Greek Style yogurt and Brown Cow Greek yogurt; then there are the Icelandic Skyrs (Siggi’s), and the continentally-inspired “European-style yogurts” (Cultural Revolution).  What these products all have in common is that they’re strained to remove a large amount of the lactose-containing liquid (whey) found in your typical American-style yogurt, so they’re a) very thick; b) naturally higher in protein; c) naturally lower in carbohydrate.  Now: since all of the carbohydrate naturally found in yogurt is lactose (milk sugar), a lower carbohydrate yogurt means a lower-lactose yogurt. For some people who can tolerate small amounts of lactose but still have trouble with conventional American-style yogurt, these products may be perfect for you.

How low-lactose are European-style yogurts?

Ounce for ounce, your typical European-style yogurt will have about half or less of the amount of lactose as a standard American-style yogurt.  (This is also very good news for people with diabetes, as plain European style yogurts are very low-carb.)

Let’s start with a standard American-style product for comparisons’ sake: a 6oz container of plain, Dannon low fat yogurt, which contains 11g of naturally-occurring sugar, all of which is lactose (milk sugar).  All conventional yogurts will contain roughly this same amount of lactose, which means any additional sugar listed on the label beyond 11g is added sugar for flavor.  (As a sidebar: if you’d like to read more about how much added sugar is too much added sugar when it comes to yogurt, read this response to a reader who asked that very same question.)

By way of comparison, a standard 5.3oz container of Greek-style yogurt contains 6g lactose (or about 7g for brands sold in a 6oz container), which amounts to 45% less lactose than American-style yogurt.

If that doesn’t excite you, there are thicker, more strained versions out there with even LESS lactose.  A standard 6oz container of Siggi’s Icelandic-style yogurt contains a mere 4g of lactose, or 64% less lactose than American-style yogurt.  (It also has 16-17g of protein and 20% of your daily calcium needs.)

If their labels don't lie, 2% fat Cultural Revolution yogurt has the least amount of lactose (2g) you can find in a milk-based yogurt

And finally, there is Cultural Revolution yogurt, whose low-fat version (2%) is an unimaginably low-lactose product: Just 2g of lactose in a standard 6oz container. That’s 82% less lactose than a conventional American style yogurt.  (Note that the whole milk version (5%) has more lactose: 5g per 6oz container.)

One last–and important–lactose-related factoid when it comes to yogurt is this: the live, active cultures (bacteria) in your yogurt will have predigested some of its lactose before you even eat it, which is why yogurts (and cheeses) are often better-tolerated than straight liquid milk in people with some degree of lactose intolerance.

To put this in mathematical terms: a very low lactose yogurt + some lactose pre-digested by the yogurt cultures= a very good chance people with some (but not complete) lactose intolerance will be able to enjoy yogurt again.

Ready to give real yogurt a try again?

My recommendation is always to choose plain (unflavored) European or Greek-style yogurt if you like how it tastes–or if its convenient for you to doctor it up with a touch of your own sweetener or favorite add-in (I’m partial to almonds + 1 tsp honey, or just a sprinkle of granola).

Virtually all flavored yogurts are loaded with added sugar–often over 3 tsp worth in a teensy little container.  (As a rule of thumb, 6 tsp added sugar per day is a good limit for most women.)  Flavored Greek Yogurts are no exception, and all sugar listed on the label beyond the lactose content detailed above is straight up added sugar.  (In fact, I’ve seen many Greek yogurt products with an unheard-of 30g+ of sugar per container!  I won’t name names, but you know who you are, you sugar-pushing bullies…)  Note: if you’re concerned about lactose, you may want to avoid Cabot’s Greek Style Yogurt: their yogurts contain added whey protein concentrate, which contains lactose.  As a result, their Greek Yogurt has the same amount of lactose as your standard, American-style version.

You make a mean Skyr, Siggi.

If your tastebuds simply won’t adapt to the flavor of plain, then there are some brands that have less added sugar than others.  When I’m not buying plain, here’s what I’d buy:

• Siggi’s Icelandic style yogurt in Vanilla, Grapefruit, Blueberry or Orange-Ginger  (These flavors have 10g total sugar, or 1.5tsp added sugar.  So does the Acai flavor, but I think it tastes kinda weird.  Sorry, Siggi.)  Plus, its made with milk from hormone-free, grass-fed cows.
• Cultural Revolution yogurt in Vanilla, Strawberry, Peach or Raspberry.  These flavors have 10g-11g total sugar in the whole milk variety, which is ~1.5tsp added sugar; and only 8g total sugar in the 2% (lowfat) variety.  And bonus, its made from organic milk.
• Stonyfield Farm’s Oikos Greek-style yogurt in Vanilla only (has 11g total sugar per container, and it’s made with organic milk.)  The other flavors have way too much sugar added for me to recommend them.
• In a pinch, Brown Cow Vanilla Greek Yogurt isn’t egregious at 12g sugar per container… but it’s pushing the limits.

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This year, Valentine’s Day coincides with the Chinese New Year, providing a welcome distraction to those who would rather avoid a world that seems to have vomited up roses and expensive prix-fixe dinners at every corner.  On February 14, celebrate the beginning of the Chinese Year of the Tiger!

In its favor, Chinese cuisine hosts some of the most nutritious, calcium-rich veggies one can eat: Chinese mustard greens (aka Gai Choy: one cup chopped has the same amount of bioavailable calcium as a cup of milk!), bok choy and Chinese broccoli (aka Gai Lan) are among the highlights.  Alas, Chinese can also be among the trickiest cuisines to navigate for those of us who must avoid wheat and gluten.  Wontons and dumplings are wrapped in lovely little wheat-flour dough pockets… Lo mein noodles are made from wheat… fried dishes are battered in flour-based coatings…and the savory sauces and condiments used to prepare most every dish almost always contain wheat or a derivative thereof.

But do not despair.  As Confucius didn’t say but surely meant to: where there’s a will to partake in Chinese food, there’s a way to partake in Chinese food.  As such, I offer you my personal guide to Chinese food for those with rebellious intestines:

Gluten-Free Chinese Food: Eating in

It won’t come as a surprise to hear that cooking at home is the best chance you have at enjoying Chinese food without worry of wheat.

Build your gluten-free condiment pantry

A large (and growing) number of the staple condiments in Chinese cooking are available in GF versions.  After years of label-reading and searching, I am pleased to offer the following list of gluten-free condiments, many of which I stock in my own pantry for when the Chinese cravings hit.  Many of them are available for purchase online, and all of them are MSG-free.

• Soy sauce: Look for (reduced-sodium) wheat-free Tamari sauce by San-J, Eden Foods or Premier Japan.  La Choy soy sauce is gluten-free, too, but I don’t think it tastes very good.
• Dark soy sauce: There is no commercially-available GF version I’m aware of.  You can jerry-rig a passable version by mixing equal parts GF soy sauce (or wheat free Tamari) with molasses, and simmering over low heat until the molasses is dissolved.
• Oyster sauce: Lee Kum Kee Panda Brand Green Label Oyster-Flavored Sauce  (note: only the “green label” product is wheat-free and MSG-free.  The red label product contains both wheat and MSG); Ka Me Oyster Sauce
• Hot Bean Sauce: Lan Chi Black Bean Sauce with Chili
• Chili Garlic Sauce: Most brands will be gluten-free, but check labels to be sure.  Some sure bets: Lan Chi Chili Paste with Garlic, and Lee Kum Kee Chili Garlic
• Hoisin sauce: Premier Japan’s Wheat-free Hoisin sauce (its also organic, which means no GMO soybeans were used in its production); Y&Y brand Hoisin sauce; Ka Me Hoisin sauce
• Plum Sauce: Lee Kum Kee Gold Label Plum Sauce, Y&Y brand Plum Sauce

All brands of sherry, cooking wine, rice vinegar, chili sauce, sesame oil, chili oil should be naturally gluten-free.

Also, most home-recipes call for naturally-GF cornstarch to thicken soups and sauces, so you should be good to go on that front, too.

Plan a menu

• Our go-to Chinese cookbook is Dorothy Huang’s Chinese Cuisine Made Simple. My husband had the good fortune to take a class with Dorothy at a Whole Foods in NYC last year, and he claims she made the best Chinese Food he’s ever tasted in his life. Her

  

  If you can't find Chinese broccoli (pictured), substitute broccoli raab/rapini or broccolini

  recipes are authentic, simple, incredibly flavorful and way more healthful than anything you’d get at a restaurant.  If you’ve stocked your pantry with the GF staples above, you’ll be able to make a surprising number of her recipes gluten-free.  The cookbook has chapters dedicated to vegetables, tofu dishes and seafood for those of you who aren’t big into meat-eating, but her book, like Chinese cuisine, is chock full of meat dishes as well.
  

• Don’t forget the greens!  In this respect, Martha is a good place to start.  Chinese she is not.  But when it comes to recipes for healthful, Chinese vegetable side dishes, she delivers.  Try her recipes for Broccoli with Oyster Sauce, fiery Stir-Fried Green Beans, or Lily’s Baby Bok Choy with Dipping Sauce. (You’ll need those GF condiments for some of these if you’re making the gluten-free version…).  Beyond Martha, Epicurious offers this simple recipe for sauteed Chinese Broccoli.

• Eat like a local!  Fish dishes are traditional on Chinese New Year, like this recipe for Whole Black Bass with Ginger and Scallions.  (Worry not: wild, U.S. black bass is currently listed as a “good alternative” by the Monterrey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch from a sustainability standpoint.)  The vegetarian dish called Buddha’s Delight is also a common New Year’s offering.  Mandarin oranges are a healthy way to finish off the meal (in season now!).

Make your own Potstickers!

Feeling ambitious?  Glutenfreeda.com offers an online won ton tutorial where you can learn how to make your very own GF Pot Stickers from scratch.  The trick, of course, is that you need a pasta machine to do so (not exactly a staple in GF homes, and even if you do have one, there’s a risk of cross-contamination if it’s been used for wheat-based pasta previously.)  But if you’ve managed to overcome those two obstacles and have an afternoon to spare, I think this would be a worthwhile and terribly fun way to celebrate the Chinese New Year!  If you get really good at it, consider selling them to potsticker-less, lazy folks like me who would pay a pretty penny to partake of an authentic potsticker again someday…

Gluten-free Chinese Food: Eating Out

If you’re going to brave the restaurant scene, it’s best to be prepared.  Here are some options:

• In NYC, visit Lilli and Loo or Lili’s 57, two Chinese restaurants with  gluten-free menus.  Nationally, P.F. Chang’s offers a gluten-free menu, as does Pei Wei Asian Diner, though I refuse to vouch for the healthfulness of their offerings or appropriateness of their portion sizes.  P.F. Chang’s also offers gluten-free soy sauce for your table on request.  To find a Chinese restaurant near you that has GF offerings, you can scour one of the various national restaurant registries at this link.

• BYOS.  That’s Bring-Your-Own-Soy sauce.  Mini packets of GF soy sauce are available from a company called Kari Out.  You can order them online from glutenfree.com.

• Download the free “Gluten Free Restaurant Cards” app onto your iPhone. It explains your dietary restrictions and in both Mandarin and Cantonese Chinese dialects (and close to 40 other languages), which you can show to your server in hopes that they will help you navigate the menu appropriately.  Still, be very skeptical of saucy and savory stir-fried dishes, because it may not be apparent from the menu card’s translation that even soy sauce is going to be off-limits for you.
  

• If you’re willing to spend a few bucks ($19), Triumph Dining cards offers wallet-sized, cuisine-specific lists of off-limit foods that contain hidden gluten so you can more effectively interrogate your server.  The cards are written in Chinese and can be handed to the server and chef to help ensure your needs are clear.

• For a $7 investment, you can arm yourself with the Chinese Gluten-Free Passport to take with you on your next trip to a Chinese restaurant.  According to the marketer, it identifies the safest soup options, entree choices (chicken, vegetable and seafood) and dessert selections, as well as a list of questions to ask your waiter to determine whether a food is safe for you to eat.

• If good communication is not an option, stick to some of these ordering guidelines to help avoid the most common sources of Chinese restaurant gluten:
  • Among soups, there’s a good chance that Egg Drop soup will be safe (but try to double-check that it’s thickened with cornstarch, not flour.  It should be).  Ditto for Chicken and Corn soup.
  • Steamed seafood and vegetable dishes are usually your safest bet.  (Not terribly exciting, but who needs the kind of excitement than an accidental gluten ingestion entails, really?)
  • White sauce is the most likely to be safe, but again, double-check that they use cornstarch to thicken it rather than wheat flour (they probably will).  Other sauces (e.g., brown, black bean) are not going to be gluten-free.
  • Mei Fun and Chow Fun are rice-noodle pastas, which makes them safe if they’re not cooked with any gluten-containing condiments such as soy sauce.  Fried rice dishes can easily be made safe if you ask the kitchen to prepare them without soy sauce or oyster sauce.  (You can season them yourself with the little GF soy sauce packets you brought along…)
  • Avoid imitation (”vegetarian”) meat and seafood ingredients (including imitation crab or surimi).  These are always made with gluten.
  • Avoid anything deep fried (the batter and the cross-contamination in the fryer are a double-whammy).

Happy Year of the Tiger to you!

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An inviting citrus display recently spotted at Dean & Deluca

On the eve of the Super Bowl, I’ve got the Citrus Bowl on my mind.  Only in my world, the Citrus Bowl actually refers to a huge platter on my kitchen counter piled high with mounds of sunny, spherical fruit.  (Sorry football fans; I don’t even know who’s playing tonight…)  You see, I’ve been on a major citrus bender recently.  The available offerings this year seem even more plentiful than usual, with amazingly sweet mandarins, dramatic blood oranges and exotic pomelos playing wingman to winter standbys like navel oranges, tangelos and pink grapefruits.  It’s enough to make a girl forget about her beloved Clementines, whose season has pretty much passed.

Much Ado About Citrus

Diets higher in citrus fruits have been associated with a decreased risk of stroke. A large, prospective study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association back in 1999 quantified the protective effect as follows: each additional serving of citrus fruits (including juices) in the diet was associated with a 19% reduced risk of stroke (the effect size was even greater for women than for men).  High citrus fruit consumption in the diet has also been shown to correlate more closely with a reduced cancer risk than high Vitamin C consumption, indicating that there’s something protective going on in those citrus fruits beyond just the Vitamin C.

As the above suggests, citrus fruits are a prime example of a whole food being greater than the sum of its parts, nutritionally speaking.

California Mandarins--stems, leaves and all--are in stores now. They're astonishingly delicious.

The membranes of a citrus fruit, for example (those white and translucent skins and stringy bits that surround the fruit segments) are loaded with several phytonutrients called flavonoids.  Examples of such flavonoids found in oranges, for example, include limonoids and hesperidin; both compounds which are currently being investigated for their cholesterol-lowering and blood pressure-lowering effects.  And according to the research scientists at the USDA whom I grilled recently, while it’s true that these compounds do make it into citrus juice, levels tend to be higher in fresh-picked, unprocessed fruits (or fruit juices squeezed at home from fresh fruits)–particularly when you eat the membranes too.  And while we’re on the topic of squeezing your own juice, here’s a fun little citrus fact I picked up from my buddies at the USDA: there’s a compound that occurs naturally in mandarins/satsumas called synephrine, which is the same ingredient you’ll find in many popular cold and allergy  medications (like Sudafed).  So loading up on some mandarins or squeezing yourself some mandarin juice if you find yourself under the weather this cold season is a scientifically-based, natural way to get some relief while getting some fiber and meeting your Vitamin C requirements for the day. Take that, Sudafed!  (Note that synephrine is also the same compound that replaced ephedra in many diet pills under the code name Citrus Aurantium, although there’s no compelling data to suggest it actually helps people lose weight.)

A Caveat about Grapefruit

You may have heard that you should avoid grapefruit or grapefruit juice if you’re taking certain medications, including certain calcium channel blockers (for high blood pressure), statins (for high cholesterol), immunosuppressants and antidepressants.  Not only is this true, but the interaction also occurs with grapefruit-related citrus fruits such as Pomelos and Seville Oranges (otherwise known as Sour Oranges or Bitter Oranges; they’re popular in Hispanic cuisine). There are multiple culprits in these fruits that are responsible for the interaction, including the flavonoid called naringin, which competes with these drugs for the same metabolic pathway in the liver.  Grapefruit wins the competition, which means the drug circulates for longer in the body before being broken down.  This results in potentially dangerous blood levels of the drug and a high risk of adverse effects.

Citrus Salads, Sweet & Savory

There are so many awesome citrus flavor combinations:  Orange and mint.  Grapefruit and fennel.  Orange and beets.  Grapefruit and vanilla.  Orange and almond. It’s really hard to go wrong.  But just to get you started, here are a few of my favorite ways to work through the mounds of wintry citrus love on my kitchen counter:

• Mark Bittman’s easy and visually-arresting Winter Citrus Salad

• Fennel Grapefruit Salad from the queen of content, Oprah.  (You can use gluten-free croutons from Gillian’s or Gluten Free Pantry if you so desire)

• Mâche salad with blood orange, pistachio and pomegranate from Bon Apetit.  (Use arugula if you can’t find mache).

• Grapefruit Vanilla Salad (serves 4):  Combine 2 cups water + 3/4 cup sugar + 1 vanilla bean, split in half lengthwise, in a saucepan.  (Don’t worry, you’re not actually going to be eating all of this sugar…)  Stir over low heat until the sugar dissolves.  Once its dissolved, stop stirring, turn up the heat and boil the syrup for 1 minute.  Turn off the heat and let cool completely.  Remove the vanilla bean and either discard or reserve for garnish.  Pour the syrup in a bowl with 3 lbs of sliced pink grapefruit, mix well, and let marinate in the fridge for at least an hour.  Serve with a slotted spoon.    A great brunch dish.  Works beautifully with a sprinkle of fresh, chopped mint leaves, too.

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