Cooking with booze.

[MeanAndMeaslyMiddleAges]

I'm a terrible cook. Let's get that out there now! But now my ds is weaned I've been challenging myself to learn and, I've got to say, I'm really proud of myself. I've been learning a new recipe per week and I'm trying to cook 3 home cooked meals per week (ie 'proper' cooking rather than just bung in the oven jobs). I batch cook for ds at weekends so he always has good food. Problem is, I'm a really fussy eater so the challenge now is to cook recipes that all three of us (me, dh and ds) can eat, rather than warm up something separate for ds.

Anyhow, I've found 4 recipes I think we'd all enjoy but they all include booze - varying from cider, beer, white wine and cooking sherry. I just don't know at what age I can let ds have this. He's 15mo. I read recently that it's a myth that alcohol is cooked out of the sauce during the cooking process so I'd really appreciate some advice!

Many thanks.

What dishes are they Mean? Will he be eating Steak Diane?

Well done too on the cooking front. You need to have a serious word with yourself on the fussiness front though!

Lol, nothing so adventurous - we're talking casserole type things mostly. Chicken and white wine, pork in cider (although tbh it'll probably be nicer in cloudy apple juice), chicken in beer, steak and ale stew and... I forget what the sherry was for. Pre cooking drink?

Thanks for the encouragement though! Actually part of the reason for my wanting to cook more is because I'm so fussy - a) I need to vary the food I eat and b) I want to try and get over a rather odd, restrictive and unhealthy food phobia I have. Basically, I can't bring myself to eat fruit or veg (not including my friend the potato). I've had counselling, hypnotherapy and 33 years if being treated like a freak by everyone except dh and parents/ mil/ bil. It's a proper phobia, I feel sick at the very thought. HOWEVER, since my ds has been weaned I've managed to get over the fear of physically handling/ preparing the stuff as I don't want him to be like me and thankfully he loves fruit and veg! I always make sure he gets a healthy diet but I know it won't be long before he notices I don't eat it so I need to try and get over it a bit! Big step tonight - I made pork and apple casserole and put real apple in with it. It stewed and merged with the sauce and I ate it! Very proud of myself. But that's a thread for another day I guess.

so long as the sauce is heated sufficiently after adding the alcohol, it will have evaporated before you eat it. Definitely NOT a myth.

Ethanol (the alcohol in booze) has a boiling point of 79C as compared with 100C for water, so that would suggest that if you simmer the mixture at, say 90-100C, the alcohol would boil off leaving just the water.

If you did it in a covered pan the alcohol would presumably remain as any which boiled off would recondense on the inside of the lid.

So to get rid of the alcohol you'd have to cook uncovered. However I think the physical chemistry of the process is more complex.

This link suggests that if you simmer for an hour, 25% of the alcohol is retained, and generally the longer you cook it the less alcohol is left:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooking_with_alcohol

I don't know how much alcohol would be OK for a 15 month old. I believe in the olden days, gripe water used to contain a fair amount of alcohol. Whether that harmed the children I have no idea!

As Somebloke, above, says, if only 25% of the alcohol is left after 1 hour simmering, by the time that has been diluted with the stock and other juices in the recipe, then split between, say, 6 people, and also bearing in mind that your 15 month son won't have an adult portion, the amount of alcohol left in his portion is going to be 5/8ths of Bugger-all. I wouldn't worry. Anyway, he might ask for more which is a great habit to get in to! Food I mean, not booze!

I love cooking with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food!