Use of alcohol in cooking

[TaffyW]

For those incorrectly stating the alcohol would cook off..... According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), baked or simmered dishes that contain alcohol will retain 40% of the original amount after 15 minutes of cooking, 35% after 30 minutes and 25% after an hour. But there’s no point at which all of the alcohol disappears. Baking or simmering an alcohol-containing dish for 2.5 hours will still leave 5% of the alcohol content behind.

This is also backed up by UK scientific studies.

You come to MN, spout some random facts with no context and expect to be lauded for it?

Any mixture of alcohol and water will boil at a lower temperature than water alone and the alcohol will evaporate off first, as there gets to be less and less alcohol it will boil off more slowly, hence probably traces will remain however long you boil for. If you don't boil at all after adding the alcohol it will all still be there although diluted by the rest of the liquid. A sherry trifle will have diluted sherry in it.

To be fair, it always makes me laugh when I watch cooking shows and the celebrity chef sets fire to the pan to "burn off the alcohol" then immediately blows the flames out and declares all the alcohol gone.

I have to admit that I don't understand this. I happily add alcohol to food and think the panic about alcohol content is ridiculous, but if I know someone doesn't drink, I would always ask before adding alcohol to food. Not because of the alcohol content, but because drinking/using alcohol has so many connotations for people.

In the same way that I don't use meat products when I'm cooking for vegetarians. Not because I'm worried about the taste, but because I'm respectful of people's desire not to have any contact with animal products.

Well what do you expect when you turn up to tell people they are wrong about something they weren’t even talking about?

If you stood in the middle of a cafe and announced your views about alcohol in cooking/the reason for the Second World War/ or if the high street should be pedestrianised without any warning on previous conversation then people would at best ignore you then.

Yabu - who cares?????

I should fucking well hope so. 🍷

But popping up out of the blue to tell people off for doing something which may inadvertently lead to a small number of people consuming very slightly more alcohol than they might consume if they drank a glass of juice (but still nowhere near enough to become intoxicated and comfortably under the weekly health guidelines). What on earth is the point?

It's as if I posted about the theoretical risk of you all being hit by a bus or being in a plane that falls out of the sky and urged people to stay indoors. Depressing, judgemental and completely devoid of purpose other than to nag and make people feel vaguely unsettled.

People have enough stuff to worry about in their lives.

Is there a massive Mormon push into influencing UK opinions going on at the moment? There are posts about the evils of alcohol, caffeine, children being permitted to drink tea - oh, the horror!

Not to mention the judgements upon pregnant women, which is all about controlling women's bodies (and by extension, their right to make their own choices regarding fertility).

@NeverDropYourMooncup Hello, would you like to change religions? I have a free book written by Jesus

I was wondering about that. There are three separate thread on here today bemoaning alcohol. It's like a Temperance takeover.

And by the way I have no problem with people questioning our approach to alcohol but this particular thread is one of the daftest, most small-minded things I've read on here for ages.

And????

What's risotto without wine? My kids were weaned on it

It's worth bearing in mind if you're going to cook a casserole with really large amounts of wine in it. Just do some quick back of the envelope sums to work out whether it's worth worrying about, rather than assuming that "it'll all cook off".

This is relevant for people like me who are allergic to alcohol. I am regularly told that "it will cook off" so it's good to have scientific confirmation that this is not the case. For those talking about juice, I would have a bad reaction to that too so would avoid.

How much spag bol can I eat and still drive?

I manage to never cook with alcohol as a close relative does not take it in any forms. The good Lord thankfully invented white wine, red wine and all sorts of other vinegars for this very purpose though so it’s all good. Or you can just use something else entirely, that’s the joy of cooking. Happy days.

Can I drink while cooking? I do that a lot.

About 6.5 Kg

However don’t have more than 12g of my Christmas Cake.

Actually I'd never considered that before. The only time I'd use alcohol in cooking is when doing a risotto and that would be 10ml white wine tops.

There's a low level of alcohol in lots of things, bread included.

Me too

But you use alcohol to deglaze a pan, so you are applying direct heat which the same study shows works much faster.

Assuming you reduce the liquid by at least half, there won't be much booze in it before you even start simmering.

Only a concern if you’re feeding a recovering alcoholic, surely?

So let's say there's still 25% of the alcohol left after an hour.

1 large glass of wine in a 6-serving spag bol is half a unit of alcohol per serving. After an hour that goes down to 1/8 unit. I'd feed that to my kids without a thought, surely even an alcoholic wouldn't be getting any kicks from that?