Food cooked in a sauce containing wine

Would you? Yes or no?

If that’s how it’s made, sure I would.

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Generally the alcohol is cooked out of the sauce. If it isn’t it can taste pretty bad.

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I can only speak for myself… personally i am a solid no on this…for me im still in a place where i hate alcohol for what it did to me, how it made me feel and all it took from me so i do not want it in my body in any way, shape or form… im aware that the anger i feel toward it is probably me being angry at myself as alcohol is basically an inanimate substance but i am working on that and toward one day having peace within myself

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Yes. Not just because the alcohol is cooked out…(No chef worth their salt would send out a sauce with alcohol present) but also for the simple reason that when I was drinking, I may have switched my go-to from beer to whisky, to wine and back again but I never had an issue with the peppercorn sauce. Never tried getting myself fucked up on tiramisu :slight_smile:

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OK, I decided it was a no from me. Extra stock instead. Thanks all x

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TBH I’ve heard and read otherwise. It’s usually a very small amount, but some alcohol remains in any sauce prepared with any type of booze. I quote Dr. Scott Rankin, a food science professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison :“typical cooking steps are not able to completely evaporate ethanol from food.” Rankin explains that when alcohol is mixed with water, the liquids form a special mixture called an azeotrope. This means that as your dish comes to a boil, both water and alcohol evaporate at approximately the same rate, even though the boiling point of alcohol is lower than that of water. The bottom line: “If water still remains in the food, so does ethanol.”

Another Dr., Dr. Gavin Sacks, a food science professor at Cornell University, points out that alcohol evaporates at different rates depending on your chosen cooking method and how long you cook the dish. In a typical slow braise, for instance, around 35 percent of the starting amount of alcohol remains after half an hour of cooking. After 2.5 hours, just 4 percent remains. If your braise begins around 12 percent alcohol, the dish’s total alcohol by volume will have dropped to around 0.5 percent after 2.5 hours (the percentage will vary depending on the exact recipe, size and shape of the cooking vessel, cooking temperature and other factors).

For the whole article, go here: Health Q&A: I’m unable to consume alcohol. Can I still cook with wine?.

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Shall we agree to just practice caution?

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tiramisu is one of my favorite desserts and when i recently found out about alcohol in it, i have mixed feelings :sob: i still need to figure out how i feel about it tbh

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As long as the saviordi (can’t remember how it’s spelt lol) aren’t soaked in wine or coffee liquor, you can still have it. Just soak it in a syrup instead.

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You’d also need to take into account your altitude and adjust the cooking times for this. Is this article written in the context of a low altitude?

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Good question to which I don’t have the answer. But I guess so. The offices of the magazine are in New York which is sea level.

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Makes me want to go experiment now. Lol

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It’s down to personal choice but I know for me I’m not a big foodie so I don’t really face this often.
I also think it’s different if you’re out eating a meal and it’s in the sauce etc or you’re making a recipe at home and having a physical bottle in your hand…
I remember having a risotto from the supermarket and thought I could taste something weird, after reading the ingredients I realised it had wine in it, it would have been minimal amounts and it was a strange feeling as I recognised the taste but it did nothing for me.
Like most things at the beginning of my sobriety I would have just straight out avoided it.

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I personally haven’t wanted to make a stew or anything since I started sobriety, but what I would look for are alcohol free wines or beers, depending on what the recipe asks for. With wines it’s usually the terpenes and other aromatics that are the cause of flavour, not the alcohol, so you wouldn’t miss out on anything.

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Many people who quit drinking, want and need all the alcohol out of the house… like what @BJM is saying.

When you start talking about cooking with it you’re having to have an open bottle in your hand and do something with it.

Depending on how secure you are in your sobriety, this could either end up being a disaster or end up being something that you are able to do.

At some point in time after I quit drinking, I was easily able to use wine to cook with and to have it openly around for guests.

I knew 100% that I did not want any alcohol. It never even crossed my mind to want it. I cooked with it and never thought twice about it having alcohol in it

Personally I would not have made a rum cake. To eat one though that someone else had made I was OK with being able to do that

For me, it would not have been a case of being triggered by the alcohol.
It would’ve been a case of not wanting to feel any type of effect from the alcohol.

From my experience, somebody needs to be very secure in their not drinking to have the bottle of wine in their home to then use for cooking.

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Welcome to the site @Massawassa !

I don’t cook with wine, although some of the more traditional stews and suchlike can include a measure of wine for flavour. My version is wineless and it’s just as tasty.

But I’m not bothered when I know something I’m eating has been cooked with a bit of wine, like my mum does, for instance. Because I know the recipes, I know that the quantity is small and it’s mostly cooked off anyway.

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I don’t get bogged down and anal about minuscule amounts of alcohol in food.
If you go down that path you’ll also have to cut out bananas, soy sauce, Kombucha, many fruit juices, yoghurt, kefir, mustard, and any number of other foods that have trace amounts.

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For me it depends on the context.

I make a mushroom gravy that uses a 1/2 c of white cooking wine to deglaze at a high heat.

Some of the alcohol will burn off and what doesn’t gets diluted in the other liquids, making the ABV about 2% - the same as soy sauce.

I really like the gravy and the wine gives it it’s flavor, so I can live with the 0.08 of an ounce of alcohol I may consume from it.

Other foods/desserts that use alcohol, like Bananas foster, I would probably pass on.

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