Free from dishes and even whole free from menus are growing in demand all the time, not only because of the allergen labelling laws but because of changing lifestyles and greater interest in ‘clean’ living. Finding the ingredients that meet the criteria and perform in the way you want them to means they can be difficult to deliver.

With an expected 45% of the population having a food intolerance and 1 in every 100 people suffering with coeliac disease, having gluten-free food options, or at least adaptable menus to cater for dietary requirements, is imperative.

Knowing the difficulty in coming up with gluten-free meal ideas whether that be for pubs, restaurants or across the education and healthcare sectors , we caught up with Steve Walpole, a food development chef for major food retailers and manufacturers. Having worked across a variety of sectors, Steve is a convert to McCain Chef Solutions Simply Mash having used it to create indulgent desserts and street food inspired free-from dishes.

In Chef Solutions Simply Mash, Steve thinks he has found a surprising solution. Watch Steve cook with Simply and explain how it could help your business here.

Using Chef Solutions Simply Mash in Your Free From Menu

“Mash is not the first thing that comes to mind when thinking of indulgent or exciting dessert or street food ingredients. Using a pre-prepared mash is even less likely to be front of mind for chefs when they’re looking for recipe inspiration or an ingredient for free-from menus. It certainly wasn’t for me, but how wrong I was.

“After being encouraged to try Chef Solutions Simply Mash as a way of delivering greater consistency and guaranteed quality for clients, many of which need to replicate a high standard end product across multiple sites, I was amazed, but in hindsight perhaps I shouldn’t have been.

“Great mash requires great potatoes and McCain have that covered. They choose the perfect potato variety and only the very best of the crop, harvesting it when it is at its best. Then all they do is peel it, chop it and blanch it before freezing. It should be good shouldn’t it? And it is.

“Making perfect mash from scratch is a science but with Simply you know what you’re going to get and light, fluffy, smooth mash is easy to deliver in minutes. The quality and cost doesn’t differ through the season either, and there is no waste to account for, which is a massive help for me, particularly when I’m trying to budget for the development of food products on a large scale.

“Importantly, it’s also a bit of a secret ingredient when trying to deliver free-from menus. It can be easy to get caught up trying to source obscure substitute ingredients to achieve free-from status but the answer is often right in front of you.

“Mash is a great substitute for wheat flour as it provides a lot of structure. I’ve used it with polenta to create some fantastic nut and gluten free chocolate brownies and served with a chocolate orange sauce. Potato is also a fantastic vehicle to get flavour into so I’ve used it as the base for street food style spicy potato balls in a gram flour crust with onion seed crust and an Asian style salad. It’s hard to comprehend the results until you’ve tried it for yourself. Hopefully it will surprise you!”

To find out more about how cooking with Chef Solutions Simply Mash could help your business, visit chef-solutions-simply-mash/