Cooking With Wine
Wine is not only an excellent addition to your meal, it can also be an essential ingredient. Wine can be used in many sauces and marinades. Beurre Rouge and Beurre Blanc, are both French cooking sauces that use wine as one of the ingredients. French cooking would not be the same without wine. Chinese cooking also makes extensive use of wine as well. Wine combines well with vinegar, fish paste, soy sauce, and other ingredients.
You may be tentative to cooking with wine because of questions you may have about using it. Here are some answers to questions that many people have about cooking with wine.
Is the cooking affected by the wine quality?
Cooking tends to concentrate the flavors of the wine in cooking. You'll want to use a good quality wine, but at the same time, you don't want to spend $100 on a bottle of wine, and just use it for cooking. You can find some perfectly good quality wines for under $20. A good rule of thumb is to not use any wine for cooking that you wouldn't drink.
What about the alcohol content of the wine?
Alcohol evaporates at a fairly low temperature, 172 degrees F. Since the cooking temperatures are almost always higher than this, most of the alcohol will evaporate, leaving behind the flavors of the wine. In addition, you will probably only be using a small amount of wine in any given recipe, so even if not all of the alcohol evaporates, there won't be very much left in the dish when it is done cooking. So, if you don't drink wine for personal or religious reasons, you can most likely use it safely for cooking.
What if I put too much wine in my dishes?
There's a simple answer. Don't. Just don't put too much wine in your dishes. If you're following a recipe, then just add the amount of wine called for. If you think it is too much, then add a little bit less. If you're experimenting with your own recipes, then add a little bit of wine at a time. Add some, and let it cook for a while, then taste. If it needs more wine, then add more wine. If it tastes fine, then you don't need to add any more. Just remember, if there isn't enough wine, you can always add more. If there is too much, you can't remove it, so go easy on the wine, until you know how much you can add.
Is there a difference between cooking wine and regular wine?
Yes there is. Cooking wine has chemicals and salt added to it. You probably wouldn't want to drink a bottle of cooking wine. As stated above, you shouldn't cook with any wine that you would not drink. So, unless the recipe calls for it, and there are recipes that do specify cooking wine, then you'll want to choose a regular bottle of wine for your recipe.
If you just follow these simple tips, you'll be able to enhance your soups, sauces, marinades, and other recipes with the proper use of wine.
