I love curries, and used to go out to local Indian, Malaysian and Thai restaurants just to get my curry fix. However, so many curry based dishes are high fodmap due to the use of ingredients such as onion, shallots or garlic. Occasionally I’ll risk it, but I often have my fructose malabsorption triggered, and end up feeling getting really sick.

One of my favourite Indian curries is Rogan Josh. Rogan Josh is a Kashmiri curry, and there are many variations on this traditional dish, with some being high fodmap and some being very low fodmap. Your luck may vary considerably depending on how your local restaurant does the dish. For instance, this version of Rogan Josh uses 1kg of onion! (and is obviously extremely high fodmap) - however, these recipes use no onion. I have also seen recipes that add tomato, yoghurt or cream. 

I’ve borrowed from all of these recipes, to make a variant that is low fodmap, gluten free and lactose and casein free, with ingredients I was able to find relatively easily (this may vary depending on what your local stores offer when it comes to Indian spices).  I did not have any Rajantot (which is used in several of the recipes I found online), so I did include a small amount of tomato. This can be changed if you have problems tolerating even a small amount of fresh tomato.

I love risotto, it's one of my comfort food dishes. However one of the problems with many risotto recipes is making it fructose friendly and low fodmap, as most recipes contain onion, and especially stock containing onion. This is particularly an issue when dining out at a restaurant, as it's easy to overlook the onion in the stock, even when the rest of the ingredients are low fodmap. 

At home, it's easier to make risotto from scratch, so then you can ensure all the ingredients are safe, but unless you've got some home made stock handy, or have managed to find a safe, low fodmap stock (here in Australia there are some stocks that are onion free and low fodmap, but ingredients in store bought stock can change, so be cautious when using store bought stock), it can be  a challenge to make a risotto that still has some real flavour. What I do in this situation is make some "fake" stock with salt and pepper dissolved in boiling water, along with adding some fresh herbs and chilli. I'm interested to get some feedback from anyone who tries this recipe. It works for me, but tastes vary. Let me know what you think.

This recipe is gluten free, low fodmap and fructose friendly, with lactose and casein free options.

Here’s another quick and easy dish using pesto. This dish is chicken with walnut and rocket (or arugula, as it is also known) pesto, served with gluten free gnocchi. 

Using rocket instead of basil adds a peppery flavour to the pesto, and the walnut complements this flavour very nicely.

This dish is low fodmap, fructose friendly and gluten free. It does, however, contain parmesan, which is a problem for some people with lactose intolerance, and is not safe for someone with casein intolerance.

Pesto is a great way to make a quick and easy pasta dish, but many store bought pestos contain high fructan ingredients such as garlic or cashews. However, with a few simple changes, it's easy to make pesto that is fructose friendly and low fodmap (it's also naturally gluten free - however it does contain parmesan cheese, which makes it unsuitable for people with casein intolerance, and although parmesan cheese is low in lactose, it may be an issue for people with lactose intolerance, depending on their individual level of sensitivity to lactose.  

To be honest, one of the worst things I find about having to mostly stick to a low fodmap diet due to having fructose malabsorption is not that I have had  to seriously cut back on sweet foods, it's the having to avoid high fructan foods such as onion, garlic and wheat (particularly onion, as that's used in so many foods).

That said, it's nice to be able to have sweet foods from time to time, and it can be a challenge to find low fodmap desserts (although there are more appearing), and particularly ones that aren't too bland.  However, there are some good recipes if you search online, and I've been experimenting with my own recipe for chocolate cake. I wanted to not only make the chocolate cake low fodmap and fructose friendly, I also wanted to make it lactose and casein free, as some of my friends have kids who have lactose and casein intolerances, and it can be tough on kids when they miss out on treats at parties or other special occasions. I think this one turned out well, read more for the recipe.