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Throwing a Gluten-Free Party
We’ve talked before about how to throw a gluten-free party, but nothing is quite like trying to do so when you’ve got multiple, conflicting dietary restrictions and a lot less space to cook than you’re used to. Not to mention, the challenge of finding all the ingredients you might need.
Summer 2019 Cohort
This past July, I took on a cooking challenge that I hadn’t before: throwing a gluten-free party for 15 people. As I mentioned in our brief update a few weeks ago, I spent two months this summer in the small town of Indiana, PA to work on my PhD. During that time away, I really started to miss cooking. I had no one to cook for, and I didn’t have any of my kitchen gadgets at my disposal.
So why did I do it?
Aside from just really wanting to cook, I had a few other motivating factors. For one, Indiana is a great town for studying, but I didn’t have as many food options as I would have liked. About a couple of weeks before I threw my gluten-free party, a few of us also got food poisoning at a restaurant in town.
On top of this, I was not the only person with food allergies or dietary restrictions in the group. While I had been able to find some options at restaurants that met my needs, not everyone in my cohort did.
Aside from these, another thing about the kind of PhD program I’m in is that it’s very condensed. We completed 4 courses in 2 months. So, Thursday nights (the end of our week of classes) were out time to actually let loose a little and not work for a night. This was also the last Thursday night we had together for the summer and no one was traveling until the next week, so it was good timing.
What foods did I make?
For my gluten-free party, I made Korean fried chicken and cabbage fried rice, but with a few modifications. These turned out to be good party foods because they required just a plate and a fork to eat them. They also both taste really, really good and I’d made the chicken many times before.
Allergy-friendly Korean fried chicken
Setbacks
As I mentioned, I wasn’t the only one with food allergies or dietary restrictions in my cohort. On top of that, we didn’t all have the same food allergies, and I also had to make sure I had a vegetarian/vegan option.
I also had some issues with getting the right ingredients. The only gluten-free flour that everyone in the group could eat was rice flour or coconut flour, and there was no rice flour at the grocery store in town. I had never worked with coconut flour before, but I quickly learned that it was not particularly good as a breading for fried chicken because it didn’t stick to the meat, and it burned super fast once it hit the oil – which seems to be a common problem. It also made my oil disappear FAST.
The other issue was finding a ketchup that everyone could eat. Because I can’t have white vinegar or corn syrup I like the Hellman’s ketchup, but the wine vinegar was an issue for one member of my cohort.
The other issue was that I didn’t have my normal kitchen to work with. I had flown up to Indiana, PA from the Central Florida area, so I brought just one pot, one pan, one bowl, one plate, and a handful of utensils. With such a large group and with different variations of the same dish, this meant that I would need additional resources.
How I Actually Pulled Off a Gluten-Free Party
Adapting what I could, separating what I couldn’t
One of the things that I realized when I was putting together my menu for my gluten-free party was that I wouldn’t be able to create a dish that worked for everyone. I could get most dietary needs covered with my Korean fried chicken and cabbage fried rice recipes, but I couldn’t do it all in only two dishes. So, I did the best that I could to make the dishes allergy-included, and made alternative versions of the same dishes for specific people.
For example, I made a cauliflower fried “chicken” to accommodate my vegetarian/vegan crowd. I also made versions of the fried rice and fried chicken with and without sesame and separated them out. I just made sure to cook the non-sesame foods first, and I cooked the cauliflower fried “chicken” before the actual fried chicken.
As for my ketchup dilemma, I found a tomato sauce that was safe for everyone and made the ketchup from scratch. Because I was then making it into a Korean BBQ sauce, it actually turned out pretty well.
When it came to the coconut flour issue, I actually had to borrow some high-heat-safe olive oil from someone in my cohort. Otherwise, the flour had soaked up so much oil when it burned that I was going to be out of oil for cooking the chicken.
Teamwork
The most important part of what made this gluten-free party work was that I had a lot of help from my cohort. Many of us lived in the same building (on the same floor) for the summer, so it was easy to borrow chairs and kitchenware. I also didn’t have a car with me (because I flew), but luckily I was able to get a ride to the grocery store.
I did manage to make the meal on a budget, but it also helped that people contributed what they could to my gluten-free party. Someone brought disposable plates, cups, and utensils, another person brought bottled water, and someone else contributed chicken when I realized that I needed to pick up some more. My program director also brought fruit for dessert, which really helped out.
Basically, what made this gluten-free party actually come together is that I checked in with everyone about what they could eat, I asked for help when I needed it, and I was lucky enough to have people who were willing to help me out.