beef – Chemical Free Chemist

Staple Beef Pasta Sauce

Serves 6
Time: 1 hr
~ low FODMAP ~ failsafe ~ low salicylate ~ low amine ~ dairy free ~ gluten free ~

Ingredients

500 g fresh beef mince (a)
35 g dark green tips of leek (b)
80 g celery (c)
650 g / 2 large white potatoes (d)
250 g swede
1 tin brown lentils
150 g green beans (e)
250 g green cabbage (f)
500 mL homemade chicken stock
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp citric acid
1 tbsp maple syrup
1 tbsp canola oil (g)
400 g / 6 serves of low FODMAP, failsafe, dairy free, wheat free pasta or spaghetti (h)
250 g / 1 large carrot – moderate salicylate option

Foodnotes

(a) Ensure very fresh meat (as instructed by dietician)
(b) Dark green tops of leeks are low FODMAP. They are also slightly higher in salicylates than the white part although suitable for failsafe elimination. Tip: re-grow the leeks.
(c) Celery is low FODMAP at 75 g (FODMAP Friendly App, 2018)
(d) Use white brushed, coliban, sebago or kennebec potatoes, or other large white potatoes with white flesh. Check the colour before buying brushed potatoes because they can come in yellow.
(e) Green beans are low FODMAP at 14 beans (75 g, FODMAP Friendly App, 2018). Frozen green beans can be substituted for fresh green beans and used in the same way.
(f) Green drumhead cabbage is low FODMAP at 1 cup (94 g, The Monash University Low FODMAP Diet App, 2018)
(g) Use canola oil that has no antioxidants (no 310-312, 319-321)
(h) My prefered pasta is Ceres Organics gluten free Quinoa Rice Spaghetti, Fusilli or Penne. See comments on pasta here

Instructions

1. Rinse dark green tips of leek, celery, potato, green beans and green cabbage
2. Thickly peel potatoes and swede, and chop into small cubes
3. For a moderate salicylate option, peel the carrot and chop into thin slices
4. Finely chop celery and green tips of leek, keeping them separate
5. Top and tail green beans and then coarsely chop
6. Coarsely chop the green cabbage
7. Drain canned lentils and rinse well
8. Heat 1 tbsp of canola oil on high heat in a large pot
9. Add celery, 1/4 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp citric acid and carrot (moderate salicylate option) to the pot and cook until celery starts to go clear, about 5 mins
10. Add green tips of leek to the pot and cook until they soften, about 2 mins
11. Turn the heat down to moderate-high and add the beef mince. Continually stir until the beef mince is no longer pink, adding a small amount of water if the mince starts to stick to the bottom of the pan
12. Add lentils, potato, swede and chicken stock to the pot
13. Add extra water until all the vegetables and meat are covered
14. Bring the sauce to the boil and then simmer with the lid on until the potato and swede are soft, about 20 mins
15. Remove the lid and add green beans to the sauce
16. Around this time, cook the pasta according to packet instructions
17. Simmer the sauce until the water level is just below the vegetables and meat, about 10 mins
18. Add the green cabbage, maple syrup and 1/4 tsp salt to the pot
19. Cook for another 5 mins until green cabbage is soft
20. Serve immediately with low FODMAP, failsafe pasta, or freeze immediately to avoid amine build-up

Personal Notes

The long awaited pasta sauce is here! Or maybe it is not long awaited, but I’ve definitely refered to it several times. It has been one of my staples – easy to make in large batches and it freezes well.

I have been working on this recipe for a while, tweaking ingredients so that it tastes good and making sure there is no FODMAP stacking going on. I think I finally have it right! As I cooked this sauce I was speaking to a good friend on the phone and I realised that although I call this my staple pasta sauce, it can also go by different names, and they would call it “nutrition mush”. Slightly less appealing, but rather accurate – vegetables, meat and carbohydrates all in one. If the sauce seems to be a bit watery, it can be thickened with gluten free cornstarch, or you can add some rice early on to soak up the water. If adding rice, it can really be eaten as a meal on its own without the pasta.

Just to prove that I really have been working on this recipe for a while, here is a photo of the same pasta sauce but back in February and with buckwheat pasta rather than quinoa and rice spaghetti. Alas, although the sauce tastes better now, the lighting is not as good at my new place.

Beef Burgers

Makes 16 patties, Serves 8
Time 30 mins
~ low FODMAP ~ failsafe ~ low salicylate ~ low amine ~ dairy free ~ gluten free ~

Ingredients – Beef Patties

560 g fresh beef mince (a)
130 g tinned chickpeas (b)
2 eggs
1/2 cup Orgran plain gluten free flour
10 g / 8 dark green spring onion tips (c)
1/2 + 2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp dried chives
Approximately 1 cup of quinoa flakes or rice crumbs

Ingredients – For Each Burger

Low FODMAP, failsafe bread roll (d)
Nuttelex Original
Iceburg lettuce
Red cabbage (e)
Fried egg
Peeled, grated carrot (moderate salicylate option)

Foodnotes

(a) Ensure very fresh meat (as instructed by dietician)
(b) Tinned chickpeas, well rinsed, are low FODMAP at 1/4 cup (42 g, The Monash University Low FODMAP Diet App, 2018)
(c) Tip: re-grow spring onions
(d) Low FODMAP, failsafe bread rolls can be made from Well and Good Crusty Bread Mix, warm water, canola oil and rice flour. Preparation of the rolls takes 1 h 30 min in total. The bread mix is available online from Gluten Free Direct – Order here.
(e) Red drumhead cabbage is low FODMAP at 1 cup (89 g, The Monash University Low FODMAP Diet App, 2018)

Instructions

1. Drain and rinse tinned chickpeas well
2. Place the chickpeas in a large bowl and mash them with a fork
3. Rinse the dark green tips of spring onions and chop finely
4. To the chickpeas add beef mince, 2 eggs, spring onion tips, 1/2 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp dried chives. Mix well
5. To the meat mixture, add flour slowly, mixing well. The resulting mixture should stay together when rolled in balls
6. Prepare a bowl filled with rice crumbs or quinoa flakes. Prepare a plate for the uncooked beef patties
7. Take a small handful of beef mixture, about 1/3 cup in volume, and roll into a ball, then squash until it is only 1 cm thick. Place the pattie in the bowl of quinoa flakes or rice crumbs and coat well. Place the uncooked pattie on the prepared plate
8. Beef patties can be cooked one of two ways. If you have the use of a BBQ, beef patties can be cooked on te BBQ using non-stick BBQ liners to minimise meat browning. Seal on each side and be careful not to brown the meat but cook it through. Cooking on a BBQ takes about 10 min
9. If you do not have the use of a BBQ, beef patties can be cooked in a frying pan on the stove. Heat the frying pan to medium-high heat and sprinkle 1/2 tsp on salt into the pan. Place the patties in the frying pan, cook for 3 mins on each side, shaking the pan to redistribute the salt when flipping. Cook for up to another minute on each side or until the beef patty is no longer pink when cut.
10. While the patties are cooking, rinse the lettuce and red cabbage and tear into small pieces.
11. In the hot pan or on the BBQ after cooking the beef patties, fry the eggs for the burgers
12. Assemble the burgers immediately before eating. Butter the bread roll and put beef pattie, iceburg lettuce, red cabbage and fried egg in the burger. Any burgers not eated immediately should be frozen immediately as they contain meat and eggs. Eggs should be fried fresh if the defrosted burger is eaten on another day.
Personal Notes

Firstly, thanks for being patient in waiting for my latest post. I moved house and life got a bit crazy, so I reverted to my staples of schnitzel and roast vegetables, basic pasta sauce and chicken stir-fry or beef stir-fry and didn’t try any new recipes, or take the time to weigh ingredients. My PhD is also pretty full-on at the moment, lots of nights where I don’t start cooking until late.

Unfortunately, cooking late with other things on your mind can lead to mistakes! Before Easter I badly burnt myself on the oven, and tonight I forgot to add canola oil to the bread mix – which I realised as soon as I took the rolls and loaves out of the oven and saw that they were small and looked strange! You can see in the photo below the rolls look different to the ones at the top of the page. Oops! I guess we all make mistakes, and luckily the burgers tasted good anyway, and that’s what matters.

I prefer to make these burgers with rice crumbs and use the BBQ, but as a result of moving house, I don’t have either of these two on hand. The image at the top of the page is of the same burgers that I made at my old place using the BBQ and rice crumbs. Tonight I used the frying pan, which also worked well as it is a bit easier to keep an eye on them and make sure they don’t go dry (see photo below). Using a pan can slow down the cooking process depending on how many patties you can fit in the one pan – in my case it took 3 batches to cook all the patties. The rice crumbs provide a better coating to prevent meat browning, but the quinoa flakes also seemed to work fine.

Finally, choko chutney is a nice addition to the beef burger, especially if you have the burger without the egg as the egg yolk acts like a sauce. Once chokos are back in season, I will publish a recipe for choko chutney.

Shepherd’s Pie

Serves 6
Time 1 hr
~ low FODMAP ~ failsafe ~ low salicylate ~ low amine ~ dairy free ~ gluten free ~

Ingredients

500 g fresh beef mince (a)
80 g / 3 sticks celery (b)
50 g green leek tips (1 leek) (c)
120 g green beans (d)
150 g snake beans
1 tin of lentils (e)
1/2 cup homemade chicken stock
4 large white potatoes (f)
1/4 cup SoGood Soymilk
2 tbsp Nuttelex Original
1 tsp salt
water
Canola oil (g)
Canola oil or rice bran oil spray (h)

Moderate salicylate optional additions

1 large carrot

Foodnotes

(a) Ensure very fresh meat (as instructed by dietician)
(b) Celery is low FODMAP at 75 g (FODMAP Friendly App, 2018)
(c) Dark green tops of leeks are low FODMAP. They are also slightly higher in salicylates than the white part although suitable for failsafe elimination. Tip: re-grow the leeks.
(d) Green beans are low FODMAP at 14 beans (75 g, FODMAP Friendly App, 2018). Frozen green beans can be substituted for fresh green beans and used in the same way.
(e) Tinned lentils, well rinsed, are low FODMAP at 1/2 cup (46 g, The Monash University Low FODMAP Diet App, 2018)
(f) Use white brushed, coliban, sebago or kennebec potatoes, or other large white potatoes with white flesh. Check the colour before buying brushed potatoes because they can come in yellow.
(g) Use canola oil that has no antioxidants (no 310-312, 319-321).
(h) Canola or rice bran oil spray should have no antioxidants (no 310-312, 319-321) or soy lecithin (moderate amines). Propellants such as propane, butane, isobutane are fine.

Instructions

Thickly (double) peel potatoes and cut into small cubes
Boil the cubed potatoes in water until soft. In the meantime begin the meat and vegetable layer
To make the mashed potato layer, drain potatoes once they are soft, and mash with SoGood, Nuttelex Original and 1/2 tsp salt
Rinse, top and tail and chop green beans and snake beans into 1 cm pieces
Rinse and chop up dark green tips of leek, celery and green drumhead cabbage
Drain tinned lentils and rinse well
Thickly peel and dice carrot into 1 cm cubes (moderate salicylate option)
Preheat the oven to 180 deg C
Heat 1 tbsp canola oil in a large saucepan on medium-high heat
Fry the celery in the saucepan until it begins to brown
Add the green tips of leek and cook until leek begins to go soft
Add the fresh beef mince and stir continously until mince is no longer pink. If the mince begins to stick to the bottom of the pan, add water
Add green beans, snake beans, lentils, carrot (moderate salicylate) and 1/2 tsp salt
Cover the meat and vegetables with water, cover and simmer for 20 mins.
After 10 mins, remove the lid
In the last 5 mins add the chicken stock and green cabbage.
Pour the meat and vegetable mixture into a large baking dish or deep tray, spreading evenly
Using a fork, evenly spead the mash potato on top of the meat and vegetable layer.
Spray the mash potato layer with oil
Cook Shepherd’s Pie for 20 mins at 180 deg C
Serve immediately, or freeze immediately as the meal contains meat

Personal Notes

I have made Shepherd’s Pie a few times, but this one using both green beans and snake beans as well as Chicken Stock is my favourite so far. You can substitute the green beans for more snake beans, but do not increase the number of green beans. Snake beans are lower in FODMAPs than green beans. Although this recipe serves 6, it is a safe FODMAP serve if only divided into 5 serves – so if you are really hungry, go for it! I have cooked it to freeze and have meals on hand this week while I am moving house.

Another shameless plug for my cousin’s company Dreamfarm (although they are not sponsoring me!) – the potato masher I use is really efficient and you don’t get the layer of unmashed potato at the bottom. It is called a Smood from Dreamfarm, and you can find one here

Shepherd’s Pie before the mash potato layer

The mashed potato layer with a Smood potato masher from Dreamfarm

Edit: I recently re-read the RPAH charts and discovered that the emulsifier soy lecithin that is often used in canola oil spray is actually moderate in amines. I have since switched to using rice bran oil without soy lecithin.

White and Green Stir Fry

Serves 4
Time 30 mins
~ low FODMAP ~ failsafe ~ low salicylate ~ low amine ~ dairy free ~ gluten free ~

Ingredients

400 g fresh beef strips (a)
2 sticks / 60 g celery (b)
100 g green beans (c)
200 g green drumhead cabbage (d)
120 g (1/2 can) tinned chickpeas (e)
200 g bean sprouts
20 g / 12 dark green tips of spring onions (f)
3 tbsp canola oil (g)
1/2 tsp salt, plus to taste
1/4 tsp citric acid
1 tbsp golden syrup (h)
1 1/3 cups of uncooked white or brown rice (i)
water

Foodnotes

(a) Ensure very fresh meat (as instructed by dietician)
(b) Celery is low FODMAP at 75 g (FODMAP Friendly App, 2018)
(c) Green beans are low FODMAP at 14 beans (75 g, FODMAP Friendly App, 2018). Frozen green beans can be substituted for fresh green beans and used in the same way.
(d) Green drumhead cabbage is low FODMAP at 1 cup (96 g, The Monash University Low FODMAP Diet App, 2018). The dense white part of the cabbage works well for this recipe.
(e) Tinned chickpeas, well rinsed, are low FODMAP at 1/4 cup (42 g, The Monash University Low FODMAP Diet App, 2018)
(f) Tip: re-grow spring onions
(g) Use canola oil that has no antioxidants (no 310-312, 319-321)
(h) Golden syrup is low FODMAP at 1/2 tbsp (7g, The Monash University Low FODMAP Diet App, 2018)
(i) Avoid basmati, jasmine or wild rice which are moderate in salicylates (RPAH Elimination Handbook, 2011). Medium or long grain is best for this recipe.

Instructions

Rinse rice and cook according to packet instructions.
Rinse celery and spring onions and chop finely, keeping them separate.
Rinse green beans, top and tail and cut into small chunks.
Rinse tinned chickpeas throughly.
Heat 1 tbsp canola oil on high heat in a large wok.
Add the celery to the wok and cook for ~ 3 mins until it starts going soft. Remove celery from the wok.
Turn down the heat to medium, add more canola oil and add the beef strips.
Continually stir the beef strips until they are sealed. If the meat starts to stick the the bottom of the wok or brown, add a small amount of water.
Add celery back to the wok along with chickpeas, salt, citric acid and golden syrup and turn heat up to medium-high.
Stir fry for 5 mins and then add the green beans.
Stir fry for another few minutes until beef strips are cooked through, then add cabbage, bean sprouts, dark green spring onion tips and 2 tbsp water. Stir the fresh greens through the mixture and then cover for 5 mins.
Serve stir fry on rice and eat immediately or freeze immediately to avoid amine build-up.

Personal Notes

This stir fry is carefully balanced to be low FODMAP despite containing quite a few ingredients that would be high FODMAP in larger amounts – be careful if you adjust the quantities in the recipe. If you would like the stir fry to be sweeter, I recommend adding maple syrup rather than more golden syrup. A nice addition to the stir fry is sprouted mung beans, if you can find them – I find them quite elusive in shops and markets. Sprouted mung beans contain GOS if eaten in large amounts (95 g is low FODMAP but 200 g is high in GOS, The Monash University Low FODMAP Diet App, 2018), so if you include sprouted mung beans, reduce the amount of chickpeas.

Bamboo shoots can be added to the stir fry in any quantity, but personally I am not a big fan. An experiment went wrong; I had an empty fridge and made a creamy pasta sauce with bamboo shoots as the only vegetable and ever since I couldn’t stomach the taste. Chicken can also be used instead of beef strips. This recipe works equally well with rice noodles (only ingredients should be rice) rather than on a bed of rice.

This stir fry leaves you with half a can of chickpeas. They can be added in small amounts in salads or turned into low FODMAP, failsafe hummus such as can be found here on Everyday Nutrition‘s website. Use canola oil instead of olive oil as suggested and leave out the garlic and infused olive oil garnish. Still tastes delicious! Serve with plain sakatas or other rice crackers (check ingredients), celery sticks, (moderate salicylate) peeled carrot sticks and (moderate salicylate) peeled cucumber sticks.

I have called this stir fry the ‘White and Green’ stir fry because when I started failsafe + low FODMAP, and when I was really strict on salicylates, it felt like all of my food was white, green or brown. That was before I discovered red cabbage (low salicylate) which definitely makes a stir fry seem more appealing.

Colourful Stir Fry

serves 5
Time ~ 35 mins
~ low FODMAP ~ failsafe ~ low salicylate ~ low amine ~ dairy free ~ gluten free ~

Ingredients

300 g diced chicken, or 3 skinless thigh fillets (a)
75 g or 2 sticks celery (b)
150 g green beans (c)
170 g bean shoots
150 g red drumhead cabbage (d)
150 g green drumhead cabbage (d)
9 dark green tips of spring onions (e)
2 tbsp canola oil (f)
1 tbsp homemade cashew paste (g)
1 tbsp pure maple syrup
½ tsp salt
¼ tsp citric acid
200 g thick rice noodles (h)
Water

Moderate salicylate optional additions

1 carrot

Foodnotes

(a) Ensure very fresh meat (as instructed by dietician)
(b) Celery is low FODMAP at 75 g (FODMAP Friendly App, 2018)
(c) Green beans are low FODMAP at 14 beans (75 g, FODMAP Friendly App, 2018). Frozen green beans can be substituted for fresh green beans and used in the same way.
(d) Red and green drumhead cabbage are low FODMAP at 1 cup (~90 g, The Monash University Low FODMAP Diet App, 2018)
(e) Tip: re-grow spring onions
(f) Use canola oil that has no antioxidants (no 310-312, 319-321)
(g) Cashew paste (100% cashew) is low FODMAP at 2 tsp (10 g, FODMAP Friendly App). Commerical cashew pastes with lightly roasted cashews are moderate in amines.
(h) Only ingredient in rice noodles should be rice

Instructions

Rinse celery and chop finely
If using carrot (moderate salicylate), double peel and slice into thin strips
Top and tail green beans if using fresh beans, and chop into small pieces
Cut out hard stems of cabbage and chop finely
Dice chicken
Heat a wok with 1 tbsp canola oil on moderate-high heat.
Add celery, carrot (moderate salicylate) and ¼ tsp salt. Cook for about 4 minutes until carrot and celery soften. Remove from wok.
Heat 1 tbsp canola oil in wok, still on moderate-high heat. Cook chicken until sealed, about 4 minutes. If chicken is browning or sticking to the bottom of the wok, add a small amount of water.
Return celery and carrot to the wok, along with green beans, cashew paste, maple syrup, citric acid, ¼ tsp salt. Stir until cashew paste is well distributed, then add 3 tbsp water.
After a few minutes, add bean sprouts. Put the wok cover on and heat until water is simmering. Turn down heat and allow to steam until chicken is cooked through.
Cook rice noodles according to packet instructions
Rinse and chop or cut green tops of spring onions
When chicken is cooked through, add red and green cabbage and green spring onions to the wok. Stir through and then steam for 5 minutes. Add additional water if necessary to stop stir fry sticking to the bottom of the wok
Using scissors, cut rice noodles into small pieces, then drain and add to the wok and stir through
As this meal contains meat, serve immediately or freeze immediately

Variations

Beef strips instead of chicken
Bamboo shoots (add at the same time as green beans)
Sprouted mung beans (add at the same time as cabbage), limit to 50 g
Peeled choko (add at the same time as celery), limit to 100 g
Serve with long-grain or medium-grain white or brown rice instead of mixing in rice noodles
Moderate amine: firm tofu instead of chicken or in addition to chicken
Moderate amine: commercial cashew paste (100 % lightly roasted cashews)
Moderate salicylate: peeled zucchini (add at the same time as green beans)

Personal notes

Stir fry is one of my favourite meals – relatively quick and always delicious. There are also so many variations depending on what is available at the shop/markets in a particular week. This recipe originally had chickpeas as well (as seen in the photo), but the GOS in chickpeas stacks with the GOS in cashew paste, so I have moved the chickpeas to a new recipe (White and Green Stir Fry). As there are so many vegetables that can be included, this stir fry can also be made vegetarian very easily – I have done this before and it works well. The recipe above (with carrot) is my favourite combination so far.