Cooking with Wine
"I love to cook with wine - sometimes I even put it in the food!"
… a great sentiment, shared by many enthusiastic cooks, across the globe. Imagine the scene: a glass in hand, as we pour a generous (preferably unmeasured) slurp into our ingredients, as we happily prepare our evening meal.
And, arguably, we have the French to thank for this relaxed liaison between food and wine. They can teach us a thing or two about cooking with wine, starting with the basic principle that the wine you use for cooking has to be drinkable - not corked or unfit for human consumption. Cooking will not, as if by miracle, turn duff wine into something that will enhance your dish - au contraire, it will ruin your masterpiece.
All you need to do is choose decent quality, cost-effective wines for cooking. Here are some suggestions:
Dry red wine
Basic fruity table wines, such as Pinot Noir or a lighter bodied Zinfandel are great for cooking, because they're fairly low in tannins and will not overwhelm your dish.
Use for making red wine sauces, gravy, soups, beef and lamb casseroles, game recipes, spaghetti Bolognese, ratatouille or even Greek pastitsio.
Dry white wine
Avoid dry whites that are too sharp or acidic or excessively oaked, because these characteristics, although desirable in a drinking wine, are not so hot for cooking, as they become accentuated during the cooking process. Opt instead for simple, fruity table wines, such as chardonnay or sauvignon blanc for cooking.
Use for making cream sauces, pasta sauces, white meat dishes such as chicken casserole, soups, seafood and fish recipes, especially salmon, or in a fondue.
Sherry
A gem for use in cooking, genuine Spanish sherry will add oomph to a surprising number of sweet and savory dishes. Avoid sherries at either end of the dry/sweet spectrum, i.e. extremely dry fino sherry or sweet cream sherry. Your best bet is a medium amontillado sherry.
Use for savory sauces and white meat recipes, pasta dishes such as chicken lasagne, and soups