In the first part of this article, we looked at the use of alcohol as one of the ingredients in a dish or “fuel” for flaming. Next in line are marinades, sauces, and the most exciting way to use alcohol in cooking.
Pickling
In the first part of this article, we looked at the use of alcohol as one of the ingredients in a dish or “fuel” for flaming. Next in line are pickles, sauces, and the most exhilarating way to use alcohol in cooking. What’s our most masculine dish? Barbecue, of course. It is men, banging their fists on the chest, who like to declare themselves unsurpassed barbecue specialists.
It was they who came up with the idea of pouring beer on the shashlik cooking on the coals (I hate it when they do that). And probably it was they who came up with the idea of marinating meat in alcoholic beverages. And although the Internet is full of recipes for kebabs on beer, first of all, we are talking about marinades based on wine. It is in the wine that there is an unobtrusive, but necessary sourness, it is it that can give the meat character, coupled with the very bit of fruit freshness.
It is no coincidence that the inhabitants of Madeira marinate espetada – a local beef kebab – in Madeira, thanks to which even our boring tenderloin will sparkle with new colors. All of the above fully applies to fish kebabs, and in general to any meat and fish – even if you are not going to cook them on the grill. Immediately before cooking, the excess marinade is removed, although sometimes the meat should be watered (or greased) with the marinade during cooking so that it does not burn.
Doing this too often, however, is also not worth it: your task is to bring the heat treatment to the end, and not fight it with all your might, risking, in the end, completely extinguishing the coals. And here is the simplest way to marinate a kebab in wine. Take some white wine, a tablespoon of dried herbs, salt, pepper and crushed garlic – and mix well.
It makes sense to add a little vegetable oil to this mixture to form an emulsion that will envelop the meat from all sides. Place the pork neck, diced 4 centimeters on a side, in a bowl, pour over the marinade, and massage the meat to distribute the marinade evenly. Put the shish kebab in a bag – this will make it easier to turn it over from time to time, and it will also be easier to transport.
Sauces
Using alcoholic beverages in sauces is one of the easiest and most logical ways to dispose of them. It is not surprising that in regions where these drinks – mainly wine and beer – have been prepared since time immemorial, their use in sauces was quite commonplace.
Indeed, why not add a little wine to the food cooking on the fire, if you have more than enough of this wine? Apparently, this is exactly how – somewhere by accident, somewhere by purposeful replacement of water for beer or wine, many recipes were born. In Burgundy, which has been famous for its wine from time immemorial, it is used to cook rooster in wine and Burgundy beef, in Bordeaux they stew lamprey with local wine, and in Milan – ossobuco (and let’s not forget about the Swiss fondue). In Flanders, a Flemish stew is made with dark beer, and in the UK, the now traditional Guinness Pie.
You can list it for a long time, but all these recipes and dishes have one common feature: during the long stewing process, the alcohol is completely evaporated, and the wine or beer itself is boiled down, thickening and imparting a rich taste to the meat that is stewed in it. The finished food turns out to be fragrant, satisfying, warming – just what is needed for the countryside, where, in fact, all these recipes originated. The use of alcohol in sauces that are prepared separately from the dish is a more recent history that has its origins in those strata of society where they appreciate not only how the dish tastes, but also how it looks.
Wine is mainly used here, and it suits any dish – even meat, even fish, even vegetables. The most famous sauces from this cohort are ber-blanc and Dutch, and in both of them very little wine is taken, and it can be replaced with lemon juice or wine vinegar. Wine sauce for a steak is another matter: there is nothing without wine, but simplicity in cooking allows you to make it a sauce for every day. In order to prepare the steak sauce, take the pan in which the meat was fried, add vegetable oil and fry some chopped shallots with thyme leaves in it.
After a minute, deglaze the pan with a couple of glasses of red wine, boil it about twice, remove from heat and stir in a few cubes of cold butter, two to three cubes at a time. The resulting sauce should turn out to be a thick consistency, and, being seasoned with salt and pepper, will make an excellent company for any meat dishes. I wrote a little more about its preparation here.
Food and drink
There is one more way of culinary consumption of alcoholic beverages – in fact, ingestion, as it was conceived by man and nature itself. I’ll make a reservation right away: here I mean exclusively those cases when a duet of a dish and a drink is thought of from the very beginning, and the dish is given a primary role, and the accompanying drink acts as an addition, in which its taste is primarily valuable.
In good restaurants, for example, there is always a sommelier who will come up to you after the waiter and help you choose wine based on the order made; if such a restaurant offers a fixed set of dishes, as a rule, wine has already been selected for each of them, a glass of which will be served to you. But these are restaurants. Firstly, in order to enjoy the combination of food and drinks calmly and without fanaticism, it is not necessary to be a sommelier – it is enough to learn a few basic rules for the selection of wines with food, and then hone your skills in practice.
If someone is interested in my amateurish recommendations on this topic, then they are already outlined on the blog pages: How to choose wine – part one
How to Choose Wine – Part Two Secondly, let’s not forget that during a leisurely dinner, your glass may contain more than just wine. Take, for example, beer: a drink undeservedly defamed by the vodka lobby, with due respect and attention to detail, can accompany any dish no less successfully. When choosing the right duets, there are also rules here – I advise you to read the article How to choose beer for food and food for beer, where, moreover, there is a link to a very useful table of combinations of dishes and different types of beer.
In addition, I am pleased to recommend the story of a wonderful beer blogger Rafael Agayev about how he arranged an evening of beer and cheese. Thirdly, our traditional table, as many researchers of Russian cuisine has emphasized, is primarily a snack bar, and is very harmoniously combined with vodka. This is not in my circle of interests when writing this article, so those who wish can independently explore the potential of combinations of “vodka + salted mushrooms” and the like.
In conclusion
I said this at the beginning, and I will repeat it again – this post is not intended to shape the positive image of alcohol. Whether to use in general, what exactly and how often is a personal matter for everyone, one has only to remember that in this matter, as in any other, rationality and moderation are necessary. In the same way, I will not urge everyone and everyone to pour wine into a pan and pour bananas with burnt rum: dietary habits are an individual matter. But if I managed to dispel some misconceptions and answer the question “where to dispose of the leftover wine”, then my short story has reached its goal.