Non-bachelor, cooking impaired help needed!?

Question

I am just learning to try and cull my culinary skills from "Baked Chicken" in an oven to a few more ravishing recipes. What exactly is "white cooking wine" for?? Cooking with what specifically?

Answer 1

That stuff labeled as 'cooking wine' does not taste as good as a regular wine from the liquor store. Don't even bother with it. I don't even distinguish between reds and whites when it comes to most cooking. I found that the inexpensive Taylor Dry Sherry serves well for almost all my cooking needs. Some recipes may depend on a certain type of wine to give the dish a distinctive taste, but those a few and far between. Wine adds some taste, and is sometimes used in marinades to help tenderize lesser cuts of meat.

Answer 2

Congrats on expanding your culinary horizons. White cooking wine that youd get in a grocery store is something you put in food to give it the flavor of wine without the alcohol. Theres white cooking wine, marsala cooking wine, red, etc. Not sure how old you are but its not a bad idea to buy real wine. I think it tastes better and you can drink whatevers left :) Dont buy anything too sweet or too expensive.

Answer 3

You can use it when stewing chicken or steaming or poaching fish. You can add it to a pan after the above has cooked and reduce it to make a sauce (add a little butter off the heat at the end).
Its also very nice for steaming shellfish.
Better off buying an inexpensive real white wine from the liquor store than the grocery store. Grocery store cooking wine has added seasonings, sugar and even salt.
Hope this helps! Good luck.

Answer 4

The white cooking wine you see in stores is not anything you really want to cook with. I use an inexpensive but drinkable wine for cooking, red or white ($5/bottle or less).

Cooking with Wine

How to find wines that work great in recipes and in your glass.


Randy Mayor

By Karen MacNeil

To me, the term cooking wine has two meanings: There's the wine you put in a dish, and -- equally as important -- the wine you sip while you cook. I think there's no better way to spend an evening than concocting a delicious dish while sipping a good wine for inspiration.

It's easy to find a good wine to drink while you cook -- in fact, it's often easier than knowing which wine to cook with. That's because when listed as an ingredient, wine is often suggested in the most generic terms. When a recipe says, "1 cup dry white wine," you're left to wonder: "Will anything from $5 to $25 do?" and "Can the recipe yield equally flavorful results with either a California Chardonnay or French Sancerre?"

Here are guidelines to help you make the best pick.

If a recipe calls for dry white wine, the best all-around choice is a quality American Sauvignon Blanc. This wine will be very dry and offer a fresh light herbal tilt that will enhance nearly any dish.

If the dish has bold or spicy flavors, go for a more aromatic white wine. Gewurztraminer, Riesling, and Viognier all have dynamic fruity flavors and exotic floral aromas that counterbalance heavily spiced dishes.

If a recipe calls for dry red wine, consider the heartiness of the dish. A long-simmered leg of lamb or beef roast calls for a correspondingly hearty wine, such as a Petite Syrah or a Zinfandel. A lighter dish might call for a less powerful red -- think Pinot Noir or Chianti.

Get to know Port, Sherry, Madeira, and Marsala. These are among the best wines good cooks can have on hand. They pack the most intense flavors and -- because they're fortified with a little more alcohol than table wine -- have the longest life on the pantry shelf.

Port has a rich sweetness and depth that's especially good in meat-based casseroles. Sherry's complex roasted nutty flavors can enhance just about any soup, stew, or sautèed dish. Two styles of Sherry that work best are Amontillado or Oloroso. Madeira can be mesmerizingly lush with toffee-caramel notes. Use the medium-rich style known as Bual, a touch of which will transform ordinary sautèed mushrooms. And Marsala's light caramel-like fruitiness is an integral part of Mediterranean sautès, many of which bear the wine's name in their titles.

Avoid using cooking wines. Clearly there are far better choices than so-called "cooking Sherry" or other liquids commonly billed as "cooking wine." These are made of a thin, cheap base wine to which salt and food coloring have been added.

Never cook with a wine you wouldn't drink. A poor quality wine with sour or bitter flavors will only contribute those flavors to the dish. Julia Child once said, "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." It's worth the investment to buy a quality wine. Just don't forget to sip a little as you stir.

What Happens to the Alcohol?

Conventional wisdom holds that after a few minutes of cooking, the alcohol in wine evaporates. That's not exactly the case. Research from the USDA shows that 85 percent of the alcohol remains after wine is added to a boiling liquid and then removed from the heat. The longer a dish is cooked, however, the less alcohol remains. If a food is baked or simmered 15 minutes, 40 percent of the alcohol will remain; after one hour, only 25 percent remains; after 2 1/2 hours, just 5 percent. But since wine does not have a large amount of alcohol to begin with (generally 12 to 14 percent), the final amount of alcohol in a dish is not a problem for most people.