Del-icious!

Low carb bread and salmon burgers

Eating low carb has many difficulties that have to be endured or overcome to succeed, depending on your level of enjoyment of carbohydrates. Pasta, I can easily live without, (except Japanese and Chinese noodle dishes which I really miss), potatoes I miss, rice I mourn and bread I can usually take or leave. Except, sometimes, when nothing else will possibly fit the bill for a particular dish, such as burgers.

Usually, when I dine out, I order a chicken burger without the bun and have cheese, bacon, mushrooms, hot sauce etc. on top. Or, if I order a steak sandwich, I simply discard the bread for a pile of garlicky, savoury mushrooms on top. But, yesterday, when defrosting my hand-made, hand-gutted salmon burgers, I knew that for them to have the decent accompaniments they required, I would have to make bread, in lieu of the floury, airy Portuguese buns they so desperately deserved.

Making low carb bread is much easier in process than regular bread, there being no kneading required, but the variety and acquirement of the necessary ingredients can be challenging, not to mention costly.

Vital wheat gluten, stone-ground wholewheat flour, soy protein powder and almond meal to name but a few. Luckily, I have a good, organic, health-food shop close by so I can easily find these products.

The loaf I chose was onion and dill 'white' bread, requiring dried onion flakes and lots of dried dill, which I didn't have, so I used dried oregano instead and the dried onion flakes were extremely potent when I opened the package!

The process is easy, mixing the dry ingredients together in a bowl to await a mixture of water and butter, warmed in the microwave, then yeast added, to be dumped into it and mixed well. That's about it. The loaf is put into a loaf tin and rises for 30 minutes before being baked for 25 minutes.

The taste is pretty good, as close as you can imagine, but it's the texture that is different. Much denser and grittier than normal bread, don't expect any fluffy, light dream of a loaf. Toasted, however, it makes a good alternative. I don't make this often, this being the second loaf for about 6 months and perhaps my body is no longer used to wheat, but I had terrible stomach pains for about 2 hours later in the evening! Now, I am scared to eat any more!

Salmon burgers were served with red onions sliced and soaked in apple cider vinegar for 1 hour and mayonnaise mixed with lime juice, saffron and mixed herbs.