flour

I don't have to pay a lot for white flour but a 5 pound bag of whole wheat flour costs 3 or 4 dollars at supermarkets near me that have it and none of them have rye flour. There are also a few other kinds of flour at even higher rates at a large supermarket whose name I won't disclose but which I like to refer to as "Yuppie Heaven". I'd like to find alternatives that are cheaper and which offer more diversity.

One possibility is to order flour on the web. I only found one place that does that so far and it specializes in Indian products. Another possibility is to grind my own flour in some way. Here are a few examples that come to mind: (1) N.Thornton recommended rice flour for certain purposes. Can I make my own rice flour by the following procedure? Take a coffee grinder (e.g. those little Braun devices for grinding coffee beans) and first grind a little bread in it to clean any coffee residue from it. Then fill it with ordinary grains of rice and grind them to a powder. (2) Similarly, I could grind barley, although I would probably want to wash the talc off them and dry them first. (3) I vaguely remember that one can make flour out of acorns, but one needs to do something first to leach some unpleasant chemical out of them. (4) I suppose one can do the same with chestnuts, but I'm not sure that all varieties of chestnuts one finds on the ground are suitable. I have an even vaguer recollection of there being two main kinds of chestnut in France and that they are not both suitable, but my memory could be misleading me on that point. (5) According to the book, Unmentionable Cuisine, one can grind up dried grasshoppers and locusts to make a kind of flour. I don't know how one uses that kind of flour differently from flour made from grains. (6) In a similar spirit, I've heard of fish flour. I've seen dried fish on sale in the supermarket, probably cod. I don't know if one simply grinds it up or if there is something else one has to do first. I think I've also seen dried shrimp and maybe one can grind it to. I think that the batter is deep fried and used in some Chinese restaurants to make a kind of chip for a snack. (7) There are all kinds of dried foods. Can one grind up practically any of them to make a kind of flour? Dried mushrooms, dried squid, dried beans, etc. or is there some quality that a powder has to have to count as a "flour"?

Ignorantly, Allan Adler snipped-for-privacy@zurich.ai.mit.edu

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Reply to
Allan Adler
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Reply to
Israel Goldshmid

sounds pricey

yup, done that. There are 2 grades with rice: powdered rice and rice flour. Powdered rice is not as fine, and is fine for bread and cakes, but not for sauces, which need the finer rice flour.

When using the coffee grinder you'll find that what looks like good rice flour isnt, its just powdered rice. It needs a second long grind before you have rice flour as opposed to the coarser version.

Yes, and buckwheat, dried out cooked soya beans, and other beans - beans must be properly cooked though.

acorns contain a lot of tannin, makes them bitter. Pouring boiling water over them mashed leeches this out. There is also a type of oak that produces acorns that dont need leaching.

Bear in mind when gathering things from unknown sources that there are chemicals that can make things unsuitable for eating for a matter of weeks. This is especially true with some of the professional growwers chemicals, some of which are serious stuff, lead arsenate being the most famous one.

That I dont know. I have used chestnut paste before, I would think chestnut would be too fatty to use as flour, as well as too strong tasting. Perhaps just a little added for flavour.

yes, you could - not sure I would though, you dont know where they've been, or what they've picked up. And even if I did know I wouldnt want to eat them! Insects give you something closer to mince meat, more burger material I think.

I presume it would not keep, the fats would quickly oxidise. Perhaps used for mixing in with potato to make cheap fish substitute. Cetrainly not for bread!

You can also fake fish cakes by putting a certain type of japanese seaweed in with potato - I forget the name but it tastes just like fish.

flours are high starch powders, so mushrooms and squid would not make bread.

Also wheat flour contains gluten, which is a springy gluey protein that holds bread together. Most other flours dont have gluten, which makes them difficult to make bread with. For example Soya bread can be made with a mix of soya and wheat, or it can be 100% soya. When all soya, it is hard, inflexible and brittle.

Buckwheat has a strong flavour, can be added in small amounts to white flour to improve it, though I never recommend eating white flour.

Soya is cetrainly differnet, and high in protein. Soya bread should be lightly cooked, with no attempt at browning. Unlike wheat, any browned material just tasted bad.

Buckwheat should be kept as a low percentage, as it is just too strong tasting otherwise.

Same is true of millet, it has a somewhat bitter taste, add some sweetness to remedy this.

Rye is strong tasting too, but more acceptable than the above two in high concentrations.

Oats are good in bread too. ISTR using pancake mix of just oats, rice, soya and what was it, buckwheat or millet I think. No egg required. One advantage with oats is their softness, one can put them in the mix whole and rely on a food processor to mix and mash in one go.

For pastry, wheat is the only thing I've seen work. Glutinous rice exists, so I guess that could also be used.

Potato can also be included, as can carrots, which give a pleasant sweetness.

Breads and cakes without gluten generally need something to glue them together: mashed fruit works to an extent, as does egg, gels that go solid work, such as agar gel.

However if cost is your goal, nothing beats plain old wheat, except perhaps wheat and potato.

Regards, NT

Reply to
N. Thornton

I don't have to pay a lot for white flour but a 5 pound bag of whole wheat flour costs 3 or 4 dollars at supermarkets near me that have it and none of them have rye flour. There are also a few other kinds of flour at even higher rates at a large supermarket whose name I won't disclose but which I like to refer to as "Yuppie Heaven". I'd like to find alternatives that are cheaper and which offer more diversity.

One possibility is to order flour on the web. I only found one place that Both of these below have a large variety of flours and grains to order. They are both great to deal with too.

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Reply to
Anne E Angle

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