Gluten free cooking sauces from Table B'hote

I love it when people send me gluten free foods to test - I mean, what a perk :-)

Malt vinegar in a 'gluten free' cooking sauce?

It was a bit of a disappointment when I received these Table B'hote cooking sauces (I know, odd name, but it's apparently targetted at the boating market). I noticed that one of the sauces contained malt vinegar, which as we all know, isn't gluten free.

I got back to the owner of the company who told me that the products hadn't been tested for gluten and that she was relying on the word of her supplier. You can imagine I wasn't best pleased. I mean, it's not as bad as sending me Anthrax in the post but then again...

After being poisoned a couple of times in the last few months by chefs who think 'a little bit of gluten' is the same as 'gluten free', my tolerance for people who don't take coeliac disease seriously has evaporated.

Happily, Linda Berry of Table D'Hote was not one such eejit, and promptly sent her sauces off to be tested. They all tested as containing less than 3ppm gluten. Since the allowed limit for 'gluten free' labelling is now 20ppm, the sauces are truly gluten free.

(Wee aside: If I were you though Linda, I'd substitute a wine vinegar for malt vinegar if you want to sell to coeliacs. Many will have a similar reaction to me when they see that in your ingredients list.)

So, onto the sauces themselves...

Gluten free cooking sauce 1: Classic Bolognaise

Ingredients: Chopped Tomatoes, Tomato puree, Onion, Modified starch, Basil, Salt, Sugar, Oregano, Ground Pepper, Onion Powder, Garlic, Wine Vinegar

On opening the jar, you're immediately struck by the aroma of oregano and the 'proper' thick, chunky sauce. From the jar, it's extremely flavoursome. I can't tell how much of that is from added salt as there's no nutritional information on the label, but first impressions are good. What I have just noticed is that the Table B'hote website says the sauces have no added sugar - nice!

But hold on, there's sugar in the ingredient listing above - ahhh... it's the Google listing (see below) that says 'no added sugar' but when you look on the website, it's actually only the chilli sauces that are no added sugar. Some clarification needed there perhaps.



In true no effort style, I just fried up some mince I had in the fridge - turkey mince actually - and poured the sauce on. Then I simmered it for 45 minutes (the longer the lower the better I always think) and then it stood for half a day - again, sauces always do better with a rest).

How did it taste?

We're possibly not the best family to be testing ready-made cooking sauces as we never buy them, so can only compare them to homemade. And so you can tell immediately it comes from a jar (probably the salt and sugar levels), but then that's probably not surprising. We reckoned that compared to the Lloyd Grossman sauces we used to use in the dim distant past this was tastier and less salty.

Compared to home cooking: 6/10
Compared to other jars: 8/10 (probably)

Gluten free cooking sauce 2: Freshly Made Chilli Sauce
Ingredients: Diced tomato, onions, diced peppers, tomato puree, mushrooms, vegetable oil, water, kidney beans, ground cumin, paprika, salt, sugar, wine vinegar, worcester sauce, diced chillis, garlic, black pepper.

Well now I am confused. There's sugar in this listing too! And it definitely says these are no-added-sugar sauces... oh I don't know.

How did it taste?

The chilli sauce is acceptable. There is a nice belt of cumin in it, and the medium chilli is nicely spicy. But again, for me anyway, it's too sweet.

Compared to home cooking: 5/10
Compared to other jars: 6/10

Gluten free cooking sauce 3: Classic Sweet n Sour

Ingredients: Sugar, Tomato, Water, Diced Peppers, Onions, Malt Vinegar, Red Pepper Puree, Pineapple, Bamboo Shoots, Water Chestnuts, Maize Starch, Spirit Vinegar, Salt, Spices

The first thing I noticed here is that the first thing on the ingredient list is sugar. Which is a bit worrying. It's not that I'm a sugar-phobe, but a sauce with sugar as the main ingredient just wouldn't make it into my shopping basket.

The next thing is that on pouring the sauce out of the jar, it's extremely thick and gloopy, which I can only put down to the maize starch. We'll see how the texture goes after cooking.

So the gluten free Sweet and Sour sauce is now bubbling away on the stove with 1/2 lb of diced pork in it. The recipe calls for 10 minutes of simmering, but I'm going to give it an hour on a very low heat to give my cheap casserole pork time to tenderize a bit.

How did it taste?

Oh, now this isn't good I'm afraid. We just had sweet pork, not sweet and sour pork. There is so much sugar in the sauce that if when you eat some, you initially taste the peppers and tomato but it's soon swamped by sugar, and the aftertaste is all sugar. It actually made my teeth sore (sugar does that too them - weird, I know).

Ewww... Again, you have to take this against the background that we only usually eat homecooked food, but we do make our own sweet and sour pork fairly regularly, and it does have sugar in it. Just not that much.

Compared to home cooking: 2/10
Compared to other jars: 3/10

So in summary, the bolognese was good, but the rest not so. These aren't a patch on the 'Look What we Found' gluten free ready meals we reviewed recently. Sorry Linda.

New gluten free restaurant review site

I've just had an email from Kate who has started the new gluten free (and other food allergen) restaurant review site LeaveItOut.

This is really good news in my opinion, as the other competitor in this space is woeful. GlutenFreeOnTheGo.com was started by CoeliacUK and then handed over to someone else to run.

GFOTG is difficult to navigate (nigh on impossible on a mobile device, which is when you most need it), there's no space for user reviews (which as a coeliac is what you really want to hear anyway) and the inclusion criteria seem something like "Yeah, we can do gluten free, no worries".

So I for one am really happy to see LeaveItOut appear on the scene and I'll be watching it closely. If you know of good gluten free restaurants near you, why not hop on over, do a review and help them get the ball rolling?

(Quick plug: Don't forget your free gluten free restaurant cards - they're always handy to ensure the kitchen really understand the gravity of the coeliac situation).

How to test if your 'gluten free' food is really gluten free

MD of gluten test company reveals high levels of gluten in 'gluten free' products

I don't know about you, but there have been many times where I know I've been glutened, but I can't work out where it came from. And if it happens repeatedly, it can drive you nuts! (actually, it was nuts once, where flour had been used as a flow agent, but I digress).

The other day I was chatting to the MD of a company who makes the gluten home test kit I use to see if I could offer the test for sale through my site. They make gluten testers for industry and had tested a range of off-the-shelf gluten free items.

Except that a lot of these items turned out not to be gluten free at all. This ties in with my own experience - I have tested 'gluten free' food on several occasions only to find it contained over the new allowed level of gluten (20ppm).

Happily, I can now tell you that you can get the gluten test kits through my site at the link below. There's a way to order test kits in the US there too. Happy testing!

You can buy gluten home test kits here

Gluten free haggis

My gluten free haggis hunt is over!

Oh how I wailed when I was diagnosed coeliac - no more haggis! I have to admit, I love haggis. I would eat it every week if I could. And now maybe I can!

Because, just in time for Burns' night, I've found and ordered gluten free haggis from Findlays of Portobello.

I'll let you know what it tastes like when I get it, but I thought I'd better let you know in time for Burns' night, so you can get some ordered too!

Here you go: Gluten free haggis

Update: Feb 21, 2010

Well this has been a bit of a tale. Where to begin...

As you read, I got half a dozen gluten free haggis in for Burns night last month. They arrived in time, were taken to the table with appropriate pomp and poetry, and were split asunder as tradition demands.

The 8 adults and 5 kids were served their haggis, neeps and tatties and we all tucked in and it was immediately agreed that Findlay's award winning haggis thoroughly deserved its award.

The gluten free haggis filler should have been quinoa

Then one eagle-eyed food aware friend said "is that really quinoa?" (that being the filler that the haggis label said was used instead of oats). It didn't look like it, but I was too far gone and finished my plate.

The next day provided the answer to the question - I was feeling pretty ropey, and closer examination of some leftovers, and a couple of Google searches confirmed that the 'gluten free' haggis did indeed contain pinhead oats. Groan.

Findlay's agreed the haggis was not gluten free

It looked like the gluten free haggis was actually normal haggis in gluten free packaging. And although Mr Findlay was adamant this couldn't have happened on the phone the next day, when I send him a sample he agreed that it had indeed.

My main concern was to check whether Findlay's were taking the gluten free thing seriously (there's nothing angers me more than firms thinking it's a lifestyle choice and being lax about it).

A simple mistake

As it turned out, they take it very seriously indeed. They prepare and pack all their gluten free haggis, sausages etc first thing in the morning, before the prep areas can be contaminated with gluten. What had happened to me was a simple mistake, probably due to the frenzy of haggis making in the run up to Burns' night.

Adequate compensation

A couple of days ago I received a dozen truly gluten free haggii as compensation, and I can now confirm they really are gluten free, and tasty too. Eating the real thing has spoiled me somewhat as the gluten free version doesn't quite have the right texture, and tastes just a little 'quinoaey'. But that's just nitpicking.

Findlay's gluten free haggis are great, and they are a company who takes gluten free products very seriously indeed. This was just one unfortunate mistake. I'll be getting more haggis on a regular basis and trying their wide range of gluten free sausages too.

Related: Gluten free black pudding