Salmon with home-made tartare sauce and crushed new potatoes with a "honey" and mustard dressing

This is a really simple and tasty fish dish to make, only slightly adjusted for the low-FODMAP diet. The honey in the honey and mustard dressing has been replaced with maple syrup, but while experimenting I found that maple syrup was much sweeter than honey, so much less of it is needed. Obviously adjust to your taste, but I found only about a teaspoon was needed. I use creme fraiche as my low-FODMAP guidelines allow it, but again if you are particularly sensitive to lactose then maybe subsitute it for soya yoghurt or something similar.

Serves 4

Ingredients

• 4 salmon fillets
• 250g bag spinach
• 2 tbsp crème frache
• juice of half a lemon
• 1 tsp capers
• 1-2 tsps chopped fresh or dried parsley

For the Potatoes and Dressing

• 500-600g baby potatoes
• 1-2 tbsp wholegrain mustard (adjust to your taste)
• 1-2 tsps maple syrup (adjust to your taste)

Method

• Preheat oven to 180 degrees/Gas Mark 4
• Boil the potatoes for 20 minutes until tender. Drain and set aside with the lid on to keep warm.
• Put the salmon fillets in the pre-heated oven for 20 minutes. Check after this time, and if your fillets are thicker then carry on cooking for another five to ten minutes.
• While the salmon is cooking, make the dressing for the crushed potatoes. Mix the mustard and maple syrup together and adjust quantities according to your personal taste. Set aside.
• Once cooked, leave to rest and then cook the spinach. Wilt the spinach for a minute or two.
• To make the sauce for the fish, put the crème fraiche, lemon juice, capers and parsley into a saucepan and heat gently for a few minutes, taking care not to boil. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
• Crush the potatoes with the back of a fork and mix in the dressing. Serve, with the salmon resting on a bed of the spinach. Enjoy!

Low FODMAP Fish Pie

Serves 6

Fish pie is one of my all-time favourite dishes. It's so easy to make and such a great comfort food, especially as the days are getting colder at this time of year. I usually make mine with garlic but obviously that is a no-no on this diet. I found that the green part of spring onions (pretty much the only onion you're allowed on the FODMAP diet apart from chives) made a pretty good substitute, as it manages to convey that same onion-family flavour. I served this to my non-FODMAP family and they couldn't tell the difference between this one and the one I usually make! 


Ingredients

800g  mixed fish (I use two supermarket fish pie selection boxes for ease, however you can use fillets of fish from your local fishmonger. The best types of fish for this pie in my opinion are salmon, haddock and smoked haddock.)
1.6kg potatoes, peeled, chopped and boiled
1 pint/600ml lactose free milk (I use Lactofree)
300ml double cream*
4 spring onions (green parts only), chopped
4 eggs, boiled and quartered (optional)
100-200g grated cheddar cheese
salt and pepper, to season

*in my low-FODMAP guidelines, cream, sour cream, creme fraiche and butter are all safe to eat. However, if you are particularly sensitive to lactose, I would use lactose-free cream, which Lactofree produce and which is stocked in both Tesco and Sainsbury's.

Method

• Preheat the oven to 180' C/160 for fan oven/Gas Mark 4. 
• Boil your chopped potatoes for about twenty minutes, or until they are soft when you poke them with a fork. Drain and set aside.
• Put the milk, cream, fish and chopped spring onion in a large saucepan and cook on a medium heat for about 4 minutes, until the fish is cooked through and looks opaque. In a low-FODMAP diet, you can only use the green part of the spring onion, and in my opinion it's pretty vital in this dish to give it some extra flavour. Season to taste.
• Remove the fish and the onion with a slotted spoon and place into a large ovenproof dish.
• Turn up the heat on the sauce and let it boil for about 3 minutes, stirring constantly, so that it thickens a little. I've found that lactose free milk thickens much quicker than regular milk, so make sure you keep an eye on it so that it doesn't boil away.
• Pour the sauce over the fish, and top with the boiled eggs if using.
• Spoon over the mashed potato and smooth it over with a fork. Scatter the cheddar cheese on the top.
• Pop into the oven for around 30-40 minutes. I have a fan oven that is insanely hot so I usually put mine in for about 25-30 minutes.
• Dig in and enjoy!

First foray into low FODMAP life

Hi everyone!
My name's Olivia and I've recently been diagnosed with Irritable Bowel Syndrome and, after seeing a dietician, advised to go on a low FODMAP diet for at least two months. As someone who loves to cook, this is something that hit me pretty hard...no onion or garlic? They're pretty much the base of everything I cook! However, I'm determined to make the best of it and so this blog is hopefully going to be the base for some of my adapted low FODMAP recipes.
A little more about me: I don't eat meat so these recipes will be either vegetarian or fish based. Most of these recipes will be adapted from high FODMAP recipes I'm used to cooking so they're going to be tried and tested before I put them on here!
A little more about the low FODMAP diet: FODMAP stands for Fermentable Oligo-saccharides Di-saccharides Mono-saccharides and Polyols (a bit of a mouthful). Basically these are foods that are poorly absorbed by the gut, causing symptoms such as abdominal pain, bloating, gas, diorrhoea, nausea and constipation. Basically, these foods may be the cause of why you feel like you're in a constant war-zone with your gut whatever you eat. This diet involves cutting out gluten, lactose and a wide variety of fruit and vegetables including legumes and pulses. It's a challenge, but if it makes you feel better it must be worth it, right?
In this blog I'm going to be not only recording recipes but also how much progress I'm making with the diet and whether it seems to have made a big difference to my health or not (don't worry, no TMI inducing posts, I promise.)
There are also a few different varieties of the FODMAP diet varying from country to country; I'm from the UK so will be following UK FODMAP guidelines.
So here goes nothing!