Rouling into Spring - how to do it without dairy?

Was asked for some non-dairy meals and purees which typically aren't difficult, however........what do you all use as dairy substitutes? Esp for things like yogurt? Inspired by Eleven Madison Park, it was time to celebrate a bit of spring with a citrus poached crab salad via avocado roulade. Served with cucumber gelee, with avocado pudding and butternut squash and curried cauliflower purees. Chef Humm serves his prawn or crab avocado roulade with a greek yogurt (which I have to admit likely would have got very nicely) and I used a spiced butternut squash puree to help bind the internal ingredients.
For desert a fruit salad, which I made with roasted banana and vanilla cauliflower, poached apple and strawberry spheres.
Sunday's dinner was thyme seasoned (between the 2 breasts) chicken roulade which received rave reviews! Thanks chefsteps!! and I used the avocado again, but as the side/salad this time and creating an envelope instead of a roulade and filling it with a guacamole and iceberg lettuce salad (for the crunch)
The flavors were well received here, but I find myself sometimes
mentally "stuck" on what I know instead of reaching for what I don't?
Tips?

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Brendan_Lee_56950

I thicken with xanthan a lot, or if it's something I want particularly thick I will turn to agar for a fluid gel

tshewman

Hi Brendan, Thanks! much appreciate. I use agar a fair bit and xanthan sometimes. So, getting a decent consistency wasn't too big of an issue (although my plating of the purees continue to need practice), but rather the replacement of the dairy flavors or flavor compounds. For the vanilla cauliflower (instead of a dairy pudding), I found without something else (in this case the roasted bananas did work quite well) it was ......vanilla cauliflower (cauliflower was actually strong b/f the addition of the roasted banana). Hope that makes sense.

Brendan_Lee_56950

Oh I see what you're saying. I don't really do dairy for flavor typically so I may not be a big help there (i don't really like milk and am lactose intolerant). I'm not sure if you are trying to be dairy free for health reasons or for dietary choices but you could add in some of those dairy flavors with milk solids which would allow you to control the fat content. You could also look to other "milks" such as almond, soy, etc.

tshewman

Thanks Brendan! Looking for a combination of texture and flavor. For example the original EMP recipe uses creme fraiche and mayonaise. So to substitute for the creme fraiche the texture isn't too difficult as we can manipulate purees and such so that it's not too far off. If I understand some of the writings, diacetyl is the major flavor compound in CF (or any sour cream). I still have more work to do in figuring this out but there's a freshness that comes with the dairy addition that I am unsure if it exists (the diacetyl) in the other dairy free milks mentioned. I sometimes get requests for "no dairy" etc when entertaining and I can tolerate "some" milk and milk products, just not a ton. So would be nice to have some alternatives.......then I begin to think what do I/we like about certain dishes where milk products are used and can I do them with a very similar flavor without the use of milk.

Brendan_Lee_56950

AFAIK the diacetyl flavor is a strongly buttery flavor whereas the tang and freshness from CF and sour cream would likely be attributed to lactic acid. You could try adding some lactic acid to things to get some of that tang, I know brewers do this to a certain extent so it's availability should be pretty wide.

tshewman

Thanks Brendan, I thought the lactic acid was more of a probiotic and used for fermentation etc and had no idea it would be attributed to flavor.

Matt_67991

If you're trying to replace a cultured dairy product, you can culture a non dairy product. IiF did some stuff on this lately, and there are lots of examples in Sandor Elix Katz's "Wild Fermentation". Kefir grains are very versatile.

tshewman

Thanks @Henri!, essentially trying to replace with similar texture and taste. The texture seems easier to obtain than the flavor which is why I was starting to look at the flavor compounds to see if I could find the same or similar in non-dairy alternatives then work on modifying the texture of the replacements.