Cooking with Wine

[jmarie]

I have never cooked with wine before....in fact, I do not even drink it or other alcoholic beverages. However, a lot of recipes in the CL magazine, call for a dry white wine...or a dry red wine or a red wine. Is this the same as white cooking wine or red cooking wine? Thanks for your help?

[sneezles]

Cooking wine has a high sodium content as a preservative. Here is what CL has to say about subs:

Alcohol Substitutions

Here's what can be used in place of alcohol in some of our recipes.

Often we're asked what can be used in place of alcohol in our recipes. Liqueurs add a special flavor to desserts that is difficult to replace, but if you choose to make a substitution, here are some tips. Note, however, that the flavor will change, and it may take some practice to find the flavor you like the best.


If the recipe calls for 2 tablespoons Grand Marnier or other orange-flavored liqueur, substitute 2 tablespoons unsweetened orange juice concentrate or 2 tablespoons orange juice and 1/2 teaspoon orange extract.


For 2 tablespoons rum or brandy, substitute 1/2 to 1 teaspoon rum or brandy extract for recipes in which liquid amount is not crucial. Add water, white grape juice, or apple juice, if necessary to get the specified amount of liquid.


For 2 tablespoons amaretto, substitute 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon almond extract.


For 2 tablespoons sherry or bourbon, substitute 1 to 2 teaspoons vanilla extract.


For 2 tablespoons Kahlua, coffee, or chocolate-flavored liqueur, substitute 1/2 to 1 teaspoon chocolate extract plus 1/2 to 1 teaspoon instant coffee in 2 tablespoons water.


For a 1/4 cup or more port wine, sweet sherry, rum, brandy, or fruit-flavored liqueur, substitute an equal measure of unsweetened orange juice or apple juice plus 1 teaspoon of corresponding flavored extract or vanilla extract.


For a 1/4 cup or more white wine, substitute an equal measure of white grape juice or apple juice.


For a 1/4 cup or more red wine, substitute an equal measure of red grape juice or cranberry juice.

Other substitutions include chicken broth, beef broth, vegetable broth, clam juice, flavored vinegars, fruit juices, apple cider, and nonalcoholic wines. If you use a nonalcoholic wine, you may need to add a tablespoon vinegar (red or white depending on which color wine is specified) to help cut the sweetness of the fake vino.

[laughsandlaughs]

Don't buy cooking wine....just buy a fairly inexpensive bottle of regular wine and use that. Wine in cooking is good!! and doesn't taste like wine. My husband can't stand wine (at a restaurant one time I asked him to take a sip out of my glass and he spit it back into my glass!!!) but this week I made a risotto with lots of wine and he LOVED it.

[jmarie]

Ok...maybe I didn't phrase my question correctly...laughsandlaughs, you were almost there...It isn't that I am afraid of cooking with wine...what I meant was that since I do not drink wine, that I do not know how to buy it to cook with, so my question is ...What brand...or how do you know if it is DRY white wine or DRY red wine or will just any white or red wine do? I purchased the cooking wine so I am stuck there...but for future references...I want to cook with wine, so how do I know what to buy?
Thanks for your efforts!
Joyce

[lorilei]

jmarie - For cooking, you can stick to a couple of basics:

Cabernet is a nice dry wine for cooking that goes well with meats and red pasta sauces. Merlot is a bit fruitier, but also works well.

Pino grigio works wonderfully in most white wine dishes. And Chardonnay has a very deep, oaky flavor that lends itself to some sauces.

AND
Port wine is excellent if you need a sweet red wine

Hope that helps a little bit http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/smile.gif

[JulieM]

Joyce, you can use a Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot for red, and Chardonnay for white. Those tend to be dryer and therefore not as sweet. Usually the label on the back of the wine will say if the wine is fruity, dry or whatever.

[lindrusso]

If you are looking for brand name recommendations, I cook with Vendange Chardonnay when recipes call for dry white wine and I cook with Taylor Sherry or Ernest & Gallo Hearty Burgundy when it calls for dry red wine. Some people recommend cooking with whatever you like to drink (I know that this doesn't apply in your case) but I can't bring myself to pour a cup of $15 wine into my cooking, so I keep the cheap stuff around for cooking!!! http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/smile.gif

[jmarie]

Ok...now we're cooking...I appreciate all of you who took the time to post to help me out! I know what I need to buy now...this helped me greatly! All of you guys are just the best!
Joyce!

[lindrusso]

BeckyM -

Red wines, in my experience, will last quite a while - at least for cooking purposes. White wines will need to be chilled in order to stay fresh. In either case, the wine will stay fresh longer if you use the Vac-U-Vin - a plastic cork that has a hand pump to pump out all the air. I use my FoodSaver canister attachment with special corks - works the same as the Vac-U-Vin.

[foodiedelite]

On another subject with cooking with alcohol, do you always remove your pot from the stove prior to adding alcohol?

We store out left over wine used for cooking in the refrigerator--if it starts to turn to vinegar--we use it in lieu of red/white wine vinegar in recipes.

[LGBurns]

Actually, I don't think you would want to remove the pan from the heat--you want the wine (or other alcoholic bev) to reduce and intensify in flavor so you need to keep it over the flame in order for it to do that. That's also why "they" say to use wine that you would like to drink when cooking because the flavor is intensified and theoretically with cheap wine you end up with intense cheap wine flavor. However, that really hasn't been my experience. I suppose it depends on what kind of recipe it is. If the wine flavor is one of the main ingredients, you probably want to use a more expensive wine (like in a pinot noir sauce), but for something like spaghetti sauce any old red wine will do IMHO. Of course, when I make chili there is no way I would use anything but good beer (no Coors for me) but that's mostly because Coors, Budweiser, etc. are too watery IMO.

[lindrusso]

The only reason I've heard that you should remove your pot before adding the wine (but you would then return it to the stove) is to avoid spilling the wine into an open flame and starting a fire - obviously mostly a concern with gas stoves. Now, I'm not usually a klutz (ha!) but I did this with the whiskey pork chops and had a nice flame a-going!! http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/redface.gif

[This message has been edited by lindrusso (edited 04-12-2001).]

[ama47369]

Sneezles-

Thanks for the chart on substitutions! (I'm a little embarrased to say this) but I have just recently been trying the extracts in some recipes in leau of the alcohol.(we are on a tight budget) And, I was using a 1 to 1 ratio in the substitution!!! That's probably why my Banana Stuffed French Toast with Grand Marnier Sauce didn't turn out so good last weekend! It was so strong!

Thanks!
http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/smile.gif

[jmarie]

This has been a great thread...thank you all so much for your responses...and even the cooking methods...as my daughter would say....This is way cool!

[SusanMac]

I agree w/lindrusso. I typically keep a cheap bottle of white wine on hand for cooking (unless you're an expert chef, the $7 stuff is great for cooking...the $30 stuff is great for drinking :-)

I like Hess Select chardonnay for a dry, reasonably priced white wine for cooking. It's about $7-9. There's one called Evolution 9 that is way, way dry, too, but hard to find.

Since I'm a huge red wine fan for drinking, I rarely put it in my dishes (just glasses). I keep a cheap port on hand (I think the brand is Russo and is about $10, lasts forever) and put it in every single pasta sauce I make. It definitely adds a unique flavor without tasting like you're drinking a glass of wine.

There was a CL recipe published last year for a port & mushroom sauce for steak that is easy and absolutely fabulous. And you can experiment with a mix of different mushrooms. I now put it on lots of meats. Definitely worth a try.

[BeckyM]

Another question occurred to me in reading these posts. I have always just used cooking wine, but I'm thinking I might get better flavor by using regular wine. My question is whether or not I can just keep an open bottle of wine in the pantry to use when I need a little bit. That's what I do with my cooking wine, but I've heard that regular wine will go bad in a couple days. Is that true? I would hate to buy a new bottle of wine each time I need 1/2 cup for a recipe!

[sk8ingmom]

As you are reading the back of the bottles - dry wines are usually aged in oak - sweeter wines are usually aged in stainless steel. Cabernets and Chardonnays are generlly dry, but if you get one that's been aged in steel, it's probably not what you are looking for in a "dry" red or white.

[jliah]

jmarie, I had the same question as you. I went to a liquor store with a list of often-used wines in the CL recipes and just asked them to help me there. A man gave me suggestions on what to buy. He picked the less-expensive wines to keep the cost down and seemed to be knowledgeable in what would work well. He also said not to buy the cooking wines because of the sodium.

[sk8ingmom]

Originally posted by ama47369:
Sneezles-

I have just recently been trying the extracts in some recipes in leau of the alcohol.(we are on a tight budget) http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/smile.gif

I LOVE those little "airplane bottles" they sell at the front of the liquor store. Usually one bottle is enough whiskey, kahlua, or whatever to put in the recipe & they are only $1-$2 dollars each.