Help....lactose intolerant dinner party recipes needed.....!

[ArtyFartyQueen]

I've invited a friend and her partner for dinner next weekend and she's just announced that he's lactose intolerant...all fine of course but I've just realised that all my standard dinner party recipes contain milk, cream and butter in copious amounts! Does anyone have any foolproof ideas that they could suggest for both main and pudding? I would be very grateful!

You get lactose free milk/ cream/ butter so could you not just use those substitutes? Think the brand is lactofree and they are made from cows milk

Like PP days you can buy "lactofree" milk cheese and cream.

Also natural hog is generally ok for lactose intolerant people, something to do with the enzymes - but probably safer not to assume.

Anyway loads and loads of food doesn't have to have dairy in! Like, so many foods it's kind of hard to just suggest some as no idea what you like to cook. A nice steak with chips and roast baby toms. Thai green curry. Greek marinaded kebabs with couscous. A lovely ragu and pasta. Some kind of stew. Venison with roast veg. Fish with a herby breadcrumb and minty mash potatoes and greens. Etc etc!

Substitutes don't taste the same if you are a big dairy eater.

Dark chocolate mousse made with eggs not cream, and raspberries with hard caramel stick/shape things was always my go to df dessert.

Main course is much easier - could be anything couldn't it. Yesterday we had butterflied leg of lamb with garlic and rosemary with roasted root veg and cavolo nero. I did stir fry the cabbage with butter but you could use olive oil.

The Intolerant Gourmet is a lovely DF (and GF) cookbook if you need inspiration - the DF/GF Bakewell tart is my favourite Bakewell ever.

but lactofree products are cows milk based with the lactose broken down so shouldn't be a big change of flavour. Lactose free doesn't have to mean dairy free

You can make a dark chocolate mouse with avocados. I like it. Doesn't really taste of avo. Lots of recipes online.

Lots of dishes use coconut milk for richness.

Lots of dishes use wine / red currant jelly for richness. Cornflour can thicken.

There are mole (sp?) that use peanuts for richness.

Lots of dishes use flavourings such as soy and various spices.

Potatoes can be fried/roasted in oil. Add herbs, garlic, spices to taste.

I wouldn’t assume he could have kactofree products without checking though. I’m sure the packaging on a lot of them says not suitable for people with lactose allergy. Best to go completely DF or check with them first.

Spanish chicken is nice with rosemary sautéed potatoes, yiu can sauté them in pure .

Butter is low in lactose - as a lactose intolerant person I've never had a reaction from butter. For milk/cream go for Lactofree. It is just regular milk with the enzyme that digests lactose added to it, because people who are lactose intolerant don't have that enzyme in their stomachs naturally.

A lot of the dairy substitutes have the right-ish texture but are pretty flavourless, except for coconut-based stuff which is often unpleasantly claggy.

The exception is a dairy-free creme fraiche called Oatly which tesco stock - it's in a tub in the chiller cabinets. It's NOT the tetrapak one, but the one in a small cardboard tub. It's lovely.

I wouldn't feed any dairy either. Do you know that it is just an intolerance or could it be an allergy.

People can react anywhere on the scale, DD had an epipen eventually so I am overcautious but I would want to know exactly where I stood or I wouldn't feed it at all.

We still use oatily (even though DD's allergy was 'cured' by the Uni of Leicester) Annie, I will look for that.

I served this fillet of beef with lemon, cumin and chilli rub at a recent dinner party. It went down a storm, could serve with roasties, broccoli and green beans.

fish with a lemon butter sauce.
roast salmon
pesto chicken.
herb crusted lamb/pork
loin roast.
tomato based stew
rosemary chicken with oven roast ratouille

Ooh don't use regular pesto - it has Parmesan in. You'd have to make your own without Parmesan.

Is she definitely lactose intolerant or allergic to all dairy? Big difference.

Will have a think on food. Steak?! Pulled pork? Fancy chicken of some sort? Then you just need df sides.

For dessert, Nigella Lawson's chocolate olive oil cake is amazing, and totally dairy free. It's made with ground almonds, so is really squidgy and more of a pudding than a cake. It's amazing served warm with raspberries and Swedish glacé dairy free ice cream (nice enough for dairy eaters not to notice the difference). ice cream. Also, Booja Borja chocolate truffles are dairy free and absolutely incredible (and dangerously moorish!)

Pesto contains Parmesan and I’m assuming Fish with a lemon butter sauce would contain erm, butter?

Might be worth asking if they can cope with goats' milk, because many lactose intolerant people can, even though it contains lactose. Odd, but true.

oh I thought the butter could be a lacto free one like flora do cuz you cant tell the tast different when its done for this type of things.
I wasn't being purposefully dense :)

We use lactofree products all the time. Not sure about the claim that lactose intolerant people are fine with butter; DH most definitely isn't.

A roast chicken / lamb / beef is dairy free without doing anything special. Or something like duck a l'orange - Tesco are doing an offer on duck breasts at the moment, and it's lovely with mash (use mayonnaise rather than butter in it) and some green veg.

Pudding is harder, but crumble (make the topping with Pure or Vitalite) is easy and you can serve it with soya cream or Swedish Glacé ice-cream. Some ready-made strudels are non dairy, too. Or just do a fruit salad.

Lacto free milk tastes exactly the same as ordinary milk. The hard cheeses like cheddar, don't have lactose in them. You can buy lacto free cream but it's single only.

If I'm going to friends for dinner I take Lactase tablets with me, to save any embarrassment. Holland and Barrett sell them.

Lactofree cream is whippable though. I would say it was somewhere between single and double cream. I spend a fortune on Lactofree stuff, having several family members who are lactose intolerant dairy lovers.