A shot of wine to enhance the dish

From the table to the kitchen wines are doing more to add flavour to our platter than one can imagine!

Increasingly being used as a vital ingredient in cooking, wines, especially red wine is used as a flavouring agent in various dishes and especially to add that robust flavour to meat dishes. Even some special sauces carry a fair amout of wine component to give it a definite taste. 

When the wine is heated, the alcohol in it ‘cooks off’ , leaving only the aroma and a light taste. Both red and white wines are used in various dishes, from seafood to chicken, mutton, beef  and even pork. One can also use wine as marination, which can be an alternative cooking liquid or as a flavour to food when the dish is ready to be served.

Wines are used in making pastas and sweet dishes, like goat cheese mousse with red wine caramel. One of the major factor to be kept in mind while using it in preparing something is its quantity. Too little wine will be lost and too much will be overpowering. Apt proportion is the key!

“We make a lot of dishes made from both white and red wine. We have grilled chicken with red wine sauce, Shephard’s Pie, which is minced beef cooked in red wine and served with mashed potatoes. We also have jumbo prawns ans grilled lobster made in white wine,” says executive chef Abhinav Sharma at Amsterdam Kitchen
and Bar.

“Wine give that refreshing flavour to every dish. Red is used in meat dishes and white is used in seafood dishes. We use the white wine called Sauvignon Blanc in fishes and red wine called Madeira in meat dishes. People have gradually started liking red wine more than white, because of its robust and strong flavour,” adds Abhinav.

Wine can be a great substitute for water in many recipes as it also provides the amount of moisture that water would give. It can also be used as marination to tenderise the meat. Marinate vegetables in wine before grilling, roasting or baking and savour the unusual flavour of the dish!

Jit Ghosh, executive chef at The Wine Company, said, “We use wines in our risotto dishes and also in various non-vegetarian dishes. We also used wine as gravy/sauce, which is the reduced version of wine when cooked with meat.”

Wines also go well with baked dishes. One can also just splash some over ice creams or cheesecakes.