Cooking With Alcohol - As An Ingredient

As An Ingredient

Many dishes incorporate alcoholic beverages into the food itself. Such dishes include coq au vin, chicken cacciatore, and boeuf bourguignon. More modern examples are beer grilled chicken and bratwursts boiled in beer. Adding beer, instead of water, to chili during cooking is popular. An overnight marinade of chicken, pork or beef in beer and spices is another example.

Specialist cooking wines, liqueurs, vermouths and eaux de vie are widely used by professional chefs to enhance flavour in traditional and modern dishes. These are specially created to be an ingredient in cooking, not a beverage. As well as offering excellent value for money, they have a longer shelf life which avoids wastage. The addition of specialist cooking wines, liqueurs and vermouths adds flavour to finished meat and fish dishes; desserts benefit from the use of sweet or dry wines. In addition, the use of specialist cooking wine in marinades can tenderise meat and is of particular benefit to game dishes. Many chefs discourage serving the same alcoholic beverage with the meal that was cooked using it.

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