Friday, May 8, 2009

Flour Power

Where can you buy all this weird flour in Ireland???

When I started researching this diet I couldn't figure out what flour could be bought where. unfortunately we're not in a place yet where you can just walk into a supermarket and pick up rice, gram, maize, sorghum etc.







So here's what I have found so far.

  • The most common GF flour in Ireland is from Odlumns and is called Tritamyl. Unfortunately this flour IS NOT soy free.

  • Health stores carry a lot of these flours, but in small quantities and at a hefty price.

  • Ethnic stores carry many of them at a great price.

  • Many of these flours can be known by different names. And depending on your cookbook you might need to know all of the synonyms.

  • Flour & Starch seems to be used interchangeably, but I'm pretty sure they're different things.

Stores
In Dublin city there are several Oriental Supermarkets (There is one virtually on each side of the Deorges Street arcade and there one opposite the Jervis street centre at the Luas stop) which carry:
  • Rice flour (* see flour mix below)
  • Potoato flour (* see flour mix below)
  • Tapioca flour (* see flour mix below)
  • Gram flour
  • Cornflour (really a thickener, the flour of corn seems to be called maize flour)
  • Gelatinous Rice Flour
In Afro Caribbean stores you can get
  • Sorghum flour
  • Yam Flour (I have no idea what you can use this for, I just saw it there)
  • Bean Flour (Likewise I have no idea what you can use this for, I just saw it there)
  • Maize Flour
  • Tapioca Flour
In Health Stores you can get
  • Rice flour
  • Potato Flour
  • Maize Flour (I haven't found maize anywhere else)
In Tesco and Superquinn you can get Doves Rice Flour.

Flour Mix

The easiest and most universal Wheat Flour replacement I have found so for is from Marilyn Le Breton's excellent Diet Intervention and Autism. You can cook every recipe in her book with just this mix:
  • 4 parts rice flour
  • 1 part potato flour
  • 1 part tapioca flour
Synonyms


Gram Flour aka Garbanzo Bean, Chickpea or Besan Flour
Tapioca Flour aka Cassava, Manioc or Gari Flour
Potato Flour aka Farina
Corn Flour as sold in Ireland is a thickener, not a flour
Maize flour is corn flour (I think)
Gelatinous Rice Flour aka Sweet Rice Flour




Don't be afraid to go into those ethnic shops! The folks in there are really nice and they'll really help you if you ask. Stumble Delicious

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for doing this post! I'm doing gluten free research so that I can bake some goodies for my neighbours daughter who's just been diagnosed with Coeliacs, the one flour that pops up in a lot of American recipes is Sorghum flour. I've managed to find the other types I need on www.ecodirect.ie and at various health stores, but have been trying to source Sorghum & Sweet Rice flour.

    Ironically, Sweet Rice Flour/Gelatinous Rice Flour is also known as Glutinous Flour, to add to your list of synonyms :)

    More synonyms for Sorghum: juwar/jowari/jowar flour

    I have been told to be careful about sorghum flour due to cross contamination, and if the packaging doesn't guarantee it to be gluten free, rather to replace it with potato starch or millet flour.

    Maize = Corn.
    In South Africa, we call corn flour Maizena (it's the brand name, but most Saffers will refer to corn flour as Maizena)

    I've moved to Ireland recently and am still getting to know my way around and where to find things, so this post was great, thanks again :)
    MandyM

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  2. Don't know if you've discovered this already, but cornflour (the thickener) is not gluten-free, since "corn" in Ireland used to be a generic term for "grain". Corn flour is maize flour.

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