All you need to know about The Gluten-Free Cookbook

Wander through the world, wheat-free, via the first-ever global guide to preparing and enjoying 350 gluten-free recipes

For Cristian Broglia, sometimes you get more with less. The Italian chef, educator and author of The Gluten-Free Cookbook understands how, by introducing one simple restriction into a diet, you can open up a world of possibilities.

In the introduction to his new book– the first-ever global guide to preparing and enjoying 350 gluten-free recipes – Broglia describes gluten, or the protein present in many cereals, such as wheat, oats, spelt, barley and rye. These crops have been cultivated by civilisations around the world, to greater and lesser degrees. However, there are also plenty of places across the planet where gluten-free alternatives, including rice, maize, millet, buckwheat,  quinoa, sorghum, teff, and amaranth have long been favoured.

Steak with Chimichurri Sauce. Photography by Infraordinario Studio for Dalcò Edizioni S.r.l.

Broglia is fully aware of the many gluten-free versions of wheat dishes, such as gluten-free pasta and pastries. However, he chose to avoid these imitations of wheat dishes when drawing up the book, opting instead for recipes that were naturally gluten-free, such as rice noodles, potato hash browns, Ethiopian injera pancakes and cornbread.

Divided into ten simple chapters (breakfast, starters, soups, bread and wraps, rice and noodles, salads, vegetables and legumes, fish and shellfish, meat and poultry, desserts and sweet treats), The Gluten-Free Cookbook offers inexperienced cooks plenty of simple dishes, such as grilled plantain with palm sugar sauce, or jacket potatoes with cheese, sour cream, scallions and crispy bacon. Yet there are also plenty of choices to challenge more accomplished domestic chefs, including Cambodian steamed-fish curry, home-made German sauerkraut, and Bangladeshi-style black lentil papadums.

Pavlova. Photography by Infraordinario Studio for Dalcò Edizioni S.r.l.

The book’s international outlook suits its author. Broglia began his career as a chef in Parma, Italy, mastering traditional, Italian cookery techniques before going on to work throughout Europe and the Caribbean. He later returned to Parma, to become an executive chef and a cooking teacher, but never lost his wanderlust, and continues to travel the world, gathering culinary knowledge.

Shakshuka. Photography by Infraordinario Studio for Dalcò Edizioni S.r.l.

Though this new book is well-suited to readers, families and cooks with an intolerance to gluten, Broglia also encourages us to see an avoidance of gluten as a good way to explore different cuisines. As he writes “excluding gluten from our diet is an increasingly common practice. The reasons for this are many: food allergies or intolerances, desire to change one’s diet, or the interest in experimenting with new eating styles. This book is for those who cannot eat gluten, but it is also for those seeking new and interesting dishes from around the world.”

The Gluten-Free Cookbook author, Cristian Broglia

Whichever motive you harbour, there are ways to make The Gluten Free Cookbook work for you. Each recipe is annotated to indicate whether the dish is also dairy-free, nut-free, vegan, vegetarian, can be made in 30 minutes or fewer, or contains  5 ingredients or fewer.

The book also notes the geography of each dish, with a simple country or origin label beside every entry, as well as explanatory introductions, detailing, for example, how Bolivians like to prepare their yuca roots, or the regional variations commonly found in a breakfast fry-up around the UK.

The Gluten-Free Cookbook also has a highly detailed index, beautiful, clear, specially commissioned colour photographs of many of the dishes, and gorgeous original illustrations which open every chapter.

The Gluten-Free Cookbook

For many of us, that wheaty protein is a part of everyday life, but The Gluten-Free Cookbook proves it needn’t be and, in avoiding gluten, you could actually enrich your enjoyment of food. To find out more and order your copy of The Gluten-Free Cookbook go here.