Cooking with Wine

Everyone talks about selecting a wine to drink with dinner, but what about choosing a wine to put in your dinner?
Wine is commonly used to add a subtle flavoring or a powerful zest to a dish.

In order to cook wisely and effectively with wine, here are a few of the basics.
While water boils at 212° Fahrenheit, alcohol evaporates at only 175°. If you pour wine into a hot pan, more alcohol will evaporate than water. But as the amount of alcohol decreases in proportion to the water, less alcohol evaporates. The percent of alcohol left in the pan depends on how long you let the wine heat. Baked or simmered for 15 minutes, 40 percent of the initial alcohol in the wine remains.
After one hour, 20 percent remains; after two-and-a-half hours, only 5 percent is left. If the wine is reduced to a syrupy glaze, then all of the alcohol has evaporated. What you are left with in all of these cases is the sweet, bitter or acidic flavors of the wine you used.
Therefore, the alcohol in the wine does not become more concentrated after cooking, but the other flavors in the wine do. This fact debunks the myth that you can actually get drunk by eating chicken marsala. The amount of time spent reducing the wine usually depends on the color of the wine.
White wine should be cooked for a short amount of time to burn off the alcohol, but red wine needs to be reduced until almost all of the alcohol is evaporated. If it is cooked for longer, the initial purple color of a red wine turns to a rich red that will blend well with the brown colors of meat. There are several uses for wine during the cooking process. First, you can deglaze a sauté pan with wine as a base for a sauce. You can also use it as a marinade to tenderize meat before cooking to soften the meat's fibers. Use fortified wines as a splash of flavor at the end of the cooking process. In this case, you can taste the alcoholic flavors of the wine because the wine is not cooked for enough time to be reduced.

Choosing a Wine
If this is your first time cooking with wine, start with a mainstream white or red like Marsala or Barolo. Avoid using cooking wine because it is salty and overpriced. Try to match the wine's flavor to the flavor of the food as much as you can because when the wine concentrates during cooking, a fruity wine will give a fruity taste to the dish, a sweet wine will add sweetness to the dish and a cooking wine will increase the saltiness of the dish.
For a white wine, use Arneis or Marsala. Strong and dry white wines should be used in cooking, not bitter ones. Marsala can be used to deglaze a pan and to finish dishes like veal marsala. Red wines, like Barolo, Gavi and Docetto d'Alba, work best in red sauces and marinades.
When choosing a red to cook with, pick a deeply-colored, fruity wine low in tannins unless you are making a hearty meat dish, which needs a hearty red wine. When you are more comfortable cooking with wine, you can start experimenting with more daring and flavorful wines. The more you know about the characteristics of your favorite wines the more creative you can get when cooking with them. Buon appetito!

Tips

* Only cook with a wine that you would drink because if you start with a wine that you do not enjoy, you won't like the core flavor of your dish.
* A wine should complement or contrast the main ingredient, not overpower it.
* Don't sacrifice rare or expensive wines in the pan because the alcohol evaporates.