Cooking with wine.

[falcon]

I'm planning on buying a few bottles of wine for cooking purposes and I'd appreciate some reccomendations.

I'd like a white for chicken and a red for stews and casseroles but I've no idea what to buy.

I don't drink so I don't particuarly care what they taste like when one drinks them so long as they give the food a good flavour.

Also how long can I keep an opened bottle of wine for?

Can't tell you what to buy, but I find anything cheap isusually ok.

Also, I sometimes freeze the leftovers in ice cube trays and then turn the cubes out into freezer bags, they are then ready to pop into stews, etc later on.

wine doesnt last long when opened. i think nigella has vermouth or marsala on standby in stead of wine.

Ty that's a great idea.

Not sure I know either! I've never thought about it. I just use whatever I've got in the house, which is usually drinkable, thus meaning I cook with it and drink it at the same time!

I would suggest just getting a couple of bottles of supermarket own brands of table wine. Maybe £4'ish a bottle. I personally won't get very cheap red wine, because its the flavour of the wine you are after keeping, so if its naff, the food will taste naff.

HTH!

I have another dumb question. Does it really matter how much alcohol one puts in the sauce or when roasting the chicken if most of it burns off?

When I'm making a roast chicken I'm usually too lazy to measure out the 150ml of wine and find myself sloshing half the bottle into the pan. Is that a bad idea?

Sloshing is fine, in fact preferable
Alcohol burns off terribly easily so do not worry about that and you should never cook with any wine you wouldn't drink.

TY Morticia, that does help I'll make sure I avoid cheap red wine.

I've no idea about wine prices either though, I don't know what is cheap and what isn't as I almost never buy wine and when I need it for cooking I usually grab the first small bottle I see on the shelf.

Asda do their own brand Cabernet Sauvignon, for about £3, which is drinkable, so is fine for cooking. You don't want to buy sweet white either. Something like Soave or Pinot Grigio would be fine. Gosh, I'm starting to sound like an alcy!

I have a few more dumb questions.

I presume Marsala keeps for longer than normal wine then? And does it have a very strong taste?

I literally know nothing about alcohol.

Masala has more alcohol content. Its usually about 20% volume, whereas red wine is around 12% and white around 8 or 9%, so yes, it will keep longer. Not really sure how long you should keep it for tbh, but I've got an opened bottle in the cupboard, which is at least a year old and we still use it.

I find cooking with wine is a bad bad plan.

I am all tispy and the food is burnt!!!

TBH, when I cook with wine, I open whatever bottle I will be drinking with the meal, and slosh a load of that in IYGWIM.

and then DH and I share the rest