Cooking with Wine

One of the most flavorful and practical food preparation solutions that Chef’s use is wine which acts as a flavor collector and reduction technique. When you are cooking food in a skillet, liquids surrounding the food reduce and evaporate away leaving behind dry coatings of spices and food “juices”. That’s where the savory flavors are and adding some wine to liquify those flavors will prevent burning and coat the food with colors and tastes you desire. Here are some cooking pairings I have found that give me tasty results.

To create sauces to serve with your meats and vegetables, you can use cornstarch for a quick, light sauce (5 minutes) or prepare a roué (skip the ads) for a more complex and heavier sauce (20-30 minutes). Next quarter, I will post two sauce videos here so you can see how do prepare them yourself!

Be sure to review all ingredients before using them to check for allergies and food ingredients that your doctor and nutritionists have asked you to avoid.

  • White wines
    • Light Fish
    • Shrimp
    • Chicken
    • Vegetables
    • Sauces for light meats
  • Rose wines
    • Pork
    • Salmon
    • Tuna
    • Heavier Flavorful Fish
    • Heavier Vegetables
    • Sauces for medium meats
  • Red wines
    • Beef
    • Venison and other game meats
    • All Stews
    • Sauces for heavier meats
  • Specialty
    • Sherry
    • Madera
      • Mushroom Madera Sauce for Steaks
    • Grand Marnier
      • Crepe Suzettes

Wine Guide Links

If you enjoy drinking the wine, you should cook with the wine.

If you want to set yourself up with an exceptional wine purchasing decision (so you can cook with wine as much as you want), I have discovered the Liberty Creek brand which is about $8-9 per bottle (1.5 liters). I use the following Liberty Creek wines for cooking and even blend them for a glass of wine for “Chef drinking” a la Julia Child. Occasionally I have a really good bottle of wine open and then I will use that also. But good wine is consumed within hours of it’s opening at Chez Voisin!

  • White
    • Pinot Grigio
    • Chardonnay
  • Rose
    • Pink Moscato
    • White Zinfandel
  • Red
    • Founders Red Blend
    • Merlot
    • Sweet Red

My favorite Liberty Creek blend for drinking while in the kitchen (or any other room), is a 2:1 blend the Pink Moscato (Pink-Rose) with the Founders Red Blend (Red).