Knowledge Base > Dan Marek - Ask Me Anything (Office Hours)

Ask Me Anything (Office Hours)

Dan Marek - Ask Me Anything (Office Hours)

This event was on Tuesday, March 12, 2024 at 2:00 pm Pacific, 2:00 pm Eastern

Join Chef Dan Marek in his virtual office as he welcomes all of your questions. This event was created for you and we encourage you to Ask Anything – from cooking techniques to cours… Read More.

Recorded

Question:

I have a family member who can't have coconut (saturated fat). My substitution is almond milk w/ coconut extract. Thousands of extracts exist. Are others worth trying & how do you select quality extracts?

— Linda Ellis

Answer:

Some of my favorites are almond extract, lemon extract, a mint extract, orange extracts. I love orange extracts. If I'm doing like a chocolate truffle or something like that. Just a nice little, um, switch on the pallet there too. Um, to try to find the good quality ones is just make sure that the, you know, I, I always, it's always hard when it says natural on a thing, but with extracts it actually works much better because really in the grocery world, if you see the world natural on the word natural on something, it doesn't really mean anything. But with uh, extracts it's a little different because you're typically all housed in some sort of alcohol or something like that. Um, you know, and the fewer ingredients better, but then you'll have like vanilla bean and that, you know, alcohol that's in there to make the extract. Now where you wanna watch out is flavoring, 'cause that's a whole different thing. Extracts are derived from natural ingredients. More flavoring is typically, um, much more pronounced, much, uh, you know, bigger flavor. But it's typically, uh, you know, manmade to be able to make a flavoring instead. Um, so always go for the extract, not the flavor, not the flavoring.
Dan Marek

Dan Marek

Director of Plant-Based Culinary & Dev

rouxbe.com