Cooking With Wine Can Transform Food
Today’s adventure; food and wine. Cooking with wine.
When we talk about food and wine most often the conversation is about what wine pairs well with specific foods. Rarely, do we talk about which wine would be great to cook with.
A general rule is; if you are cooking or baking with wine it must be of acceptable quality to enjoy for drinking.
“If you do not have a good wine to use, it is far better to omit it, for a poor one can spoil a simple dish and utterly debase a noble one.”
Julia Child
A poor ingredient leads to poor results. Cooking wine is an inferior wine to cook with because of its added salt and preservatives. In the case of cooking wine, it is better to omit the wine.
In ‘The Nuances of Cooking with Wine’, Dr. Joe LaVilla suggests “using a very mainstream white and/or red to cook with. As you get more accustomed to using wine as an ingredient, you can start to play around with which wine you want to use. Buy an extra bottle of the wine you are planning to serve with dinner, and use it in the dish. Or how about using a Sauvignon Blanc, known for its herbaceous quality as a wine, in a dish highlighting herbs? Zinfandels have a berry or cherry character, which would be a nice background to a fruit sauce for duck. A buttery Chardonnay is the perfect base for a beurre blanc. The more you learn about the characteristics of your favorite wines, the more creative you can be with how you cook with them.”
Wines work well for cooking in a variety of different methods such as marinating, deglazing, poaching and finishing.
In marinating foods especially meats, red wine breaks down the tough fibers in meats tenderizing them. Thomas Keller (Chef/Owner of The French Laundry) brings red wine to a boil, and then cools it before adding other ingredients for the marinade. Keller believes that this technique achieves a wine flavor but you don’t get the textural breakdown in meat that is already tender, or the discoloration. Boiling and cooling red wine may prevent meat from turning a dull gray and instead will produce a rich brown color.
For marinating, white wines are a great choice
Herbs and vegetables steeped in white wine makes a tenderizing marinade for the chicken. This marinade flavors the chicken and also becomes the foundation for the sauce in the finished dish.
Poultry, pork or fish are usually marinated in white wines. Use red wines with red meats.
The Food Lover’s Companion describes deglazing as, after food (usually meat) has been sautéed and the food and excess fat removed from the pan, deglazing is done by heating a small amount of liquid in the pan and stirring to loosen browned bits of food on the bottom. The liquid most often used is wine or stock. The resultant mixture often becomes a base for a sauce to accompany the food cooked in the pan.
A base for a Sauce
A base for a sauce can be made by deglazing the pan after browning meat or fish, or caramelized drippings by pouring liquid (wine, stock, water, or a mixture) into the hot pan and reducing it to concentrate the flavors.
Poaching; gently simmering food in liquid is another excellent way to use wine in cooking. Poaching in wine can include everything from salmon and other fish to pears, cherries or dried fruit.
Finishing a dish with wine is adding the wine at the end of the cooking process. When wine is added at the end and heated slightly, it retains most of its characteristic flavors and aromas.
Fortified wines such as Sherry, Marsala or Madeira are common finishing wines. Add a splash of wine to Soups, stews or casseroles such as with Veal Marsala. Sherry is excellent in cream soups or try Madeira on top of chocolate ice cream.
Wine heightens the natural flavors in food and adds depth.
Uncork a new adventure and add wine
to your recipe repertoire.
Cooking with wine:
Stay healthy. Be intentional making excellent choices and enjoy cooking with wine.
The Author Heidi Fleming is a Lifestyle Architect. She helps people make a personal blueprint for healthy living and healthy aging. She is a proponent for encouraging others to find their path and stay on their path for healthy living; Clean label living and healthy aging.
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