talkhealth Blog

It is intensely frustrating following the Low FODMAP diet and visiting the supermarket and looking for an easy sauce or dry powder spice mix when lots of the sauces and spice mixes contain onion and garlic powder. How on earth are you to make a flavoursome dish with gut friendly ingredients? Make your own perhaps! The following recipe is a masala mix for tandoori food. For a tasty spice mix use the following recipe – it makes about 140g of mix that can be stored for up to six months in an airtight container. Some tips on shopping for spices before we start with the recipe – check out your local asian supermarket and purchase spices in large packets, this is much more cost-effective than buying small jars. If you are following a completely gluten-free diet check all spices for gluten including your asafoetida (some spices can be adulterated by addition of fillers such as wheat flour.) It might be better to purchase spices from suppliers that do label their mixes with allergens and suppliers that understand that even small amounts of gluten can be problematic for coeliac, for example.

Choose sweet paprika if your gut is sensitive to spicy food and you may want to use a mild heat chili powder too, or omit it all together. Use smaller amounts of the powder in your recipe, if you find that spices tend to increase your IBS symptoms.

Ingredients for the dry masala

40 g Coriander

30g Cumin

20g Paprika

20g Ginger

15g Dried Mint

5g Asafoetida

10g Chilli powder

Mix the dry ingredients together and store in an airtight tin.

Tandoori Chicken

Two dessert spoons of dry masala powder (above)

Juice of 1/2 lime

150g zero fat greek yoghurt

4 skinless chicken breasts

Salt & pepper to taste

Weight out the yoghurt and squeeze half a lime into the yoghurt and mix well.

Dry fry the spice mix till the aroma is released, cool and add the powder to the yoghurt.

If you want to have the authentic indian restaurant colour you can add red food colouring the mix (as I did.) Ensure that the food colouring is not based on beetroot powder, this is a fodmap.

Don’t be tempted to try the uncooked mix – it really needs cooking to bring out all the flavour, it doesn’t taste nice raw – believe me!

Spread the yoghurt onto both sides of the chicken breasts and leave to marinade in the refrigerator for a few hours or at the very best overnight.

Now time for cooking………

Scrape off excess yoghurt from the chicken breasts and place in a hot oven and cook for 30 minutes till cooked through. Serve with boiled rice (add some turmeric and cassia bark to your boiling rice to add colour and flavour) and Low FODMAP salad.

A low-fat tasty dish that is not too hard on your digestive tract, just the ticket for a Saturday night meal.

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Julie

I am a state registered dietitian and advisor to The IBS Network, the UK charity for people with irritable bowel syndrome. My specialty is dietary treatment of gut disorders such as irritable bowel syndrome, crohns disease, ulcerative colitis, coeliac disease, lactose & fructose malabsorption and complex food intolerances. I also have experience in dietetic treatment of people who have bariatric surgery and weight management.