Welcome to the first in what (I hope) will become a series of posts on cooking in hostels, gluten free.
DISCLAIMER these are recipes for minimal equipment, budget and space. This is not haute cuisine! Although I personally really enjoy all these recipes, I am always limited by time, space and money. Most of the things I cook I try to choose only one pot, as normally I’m competing for hobs with 6 other hungry people! That being said, I would happily “pretty up” these dishes and eat them when we return, just maybe not as often!
Polenta is widely and more importantly cheaply available across Argentina and Brazil. It’s a bit harder to get in Chile but if you try looking for chuchoca in the baking section of the supermarket, and not polenta, you’re off to a better start than me! It will set you back around 30p, maximum £1, for a big bag of the cheapest brand.
I’ve found it to be very useful for speedy (and less speedy) cooking here in South America. Here are some of my favourite hostel-kitchen-friendly recipes.
Corn porridge
This is one I discovered by chance, having run out of anything else whilst on a farm, in the middle of nowhere I tried polenta for breakfast. Being lazy I cooked it in a pan I had been making jam in, and voila! Perfect, easy gf breakfast. And it was a pleasing pink colour (cherry jam).
Ingredients
Half a cup polenta
Lots of boiling water
Jam – almost always included in that hostel breakfast you can’t eat. If they give you individual sachets save them and use for all sorts of other things!
Butter (optional)
Milk (optional)/ cream (positively indulgent)
Method
Boil some water using the stove kettle (no one has an electric kettle here, be patient). Put around two cups into a saucepan with one tablespoon or so of jam and stir until dissolved. Sprinkle the polenta in (like rain) and stir. If it’s a bit thick add more water, too thin add more polenta- very simple. Don’t let it catch and stick, you have to wash that pan before you can go eat! Add a splash of milk or knob or butter for a more creamy flavour. I finish with another teaspoon of jam swirled through the middle and then enjoy.
Polenta chips
These are for when you have a bit of time on your hands, stranded by rain or bus times maybe? The polenta is cooked, set, then sliced and fried. Delicious.
Ingredients
Half cup polenta per person
Boiling water
Gf stock cubes (easy to find in Argentina)
Any other herbs or spices the hostel has lying around that you think might be nice
Half a butternut squash (optional)
Method
Boil the water and then add to a saucepan with the stock cubes (follow the packets for quantity, varies with each brand I find). Add herbs if you are luckly enough to have some. When the polenta has thickened (4 mins maybe) remove from heat, pop into some receptacle (preferably rectanglular, we use our Tupperware box) and once at room temperature stick it on the fridge until firm. The longer the better, a minimum of an hour, up to 2 days! (This works well for leftovers). To cheat you can pop it in the freezer, just don’t let it freeze. Then remove, slice into chip shapes and fry in a reasonable amount of oil until starting to turn golden. Drain on kitchen towel if you have it and if not just eat them! For a healthier option they can be baked but they crisp up less and many hostels have no oven.
Using the squash
This is for a really luxurious testing chip, and only if your hostel kitchen is equipped with a blender (a surprising number are!) and oven.
Peel, remove seeds and slice into one cm half moon shapes. Lay on a baking tray with some cloves of garlic and drizzle with oil. Bake until soft, around 30 mins depending on oven. Blend in batches until you have a smooth delicious puree. Now mix this with your cooked polenta, place into your receptacle and follow the recipe as above. There’s a bit more work here but they are so good!
Polenta casserole
Now this is a really cheap, easy, filling recipe. And it tastes good. But it neither looks, nor sounds pretty. So no judging, please.
Ingredients
Polenta one cup per person
Gf stock cubes
Boiling water
Veggies of choice ( including onion, obviously)
1/4 Tin of corned beef (or other meat if you find this appalling/can’t find any)
My favourite thing about this is how easy it is. First, chop all the vegetables and fry the onion until soft. Add the veggies and very for a couple of minutes. Season and sprinkle on stock. Pour on boiling water and then sprinkle in polenta until you are happy with the consistency, (seriously, this can be done with 1 tablespoon or one cup depending on my mood and hunger), stir constantly. Turn down heat, add in chunks of corned beef and enjoy simple comfort food.
So I hope you found this useful, for me it had been trial and error. Any other suggestions, let me know and I’ll give it a go!
Gluten free backpacker 