Journal of the Department of Agriculture, Western Australia, Series 4

Volume 7 Number 1 1966 Article 8

1-1-1966

Cooking with

O. Evans Scott

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Recommended Citation Evans Scott, O. (1966) "Cooking with wine," Journal of the Department of Agriculture, Western Australia, Series 4: Vol. 7 : No. 1 , Article 8. Available at: https://researchlibrary.agric.wa.gov.au/journal_agriculture4/vol7/iss1/8

This article is brought to you for free and open access by Research Library. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal of the Department of Agriculture, Western Australia, Series 4 by an authorized administrator of Research Library. For more information, please contact [email protected]. FARM AND HOME

COOKING WITH WINE

By OLWYN EVANS SCOTT

WHENEVER you feel that wholesome meal cookery is becoming uninteresting, and that meals needs "pepping up", try a recipe with wine. Judicious use of a little wine in cookery can make an amazing difference to everyday dishes.

Cooking with wine is just as easy as Wine is a stimulant to the glands cooking with any other flavourings, like producing digestive juices—the salivary lemons, vanilla and other essences, spices, glands in the mouth and those associated and so on. One does not need to be a with the stomach and duodenum—thus "Cordon Bleu" graduate to be able to digestion is improved. make interesting wine-flavoured dishes. Wine has the following uses in cook­ Firstly, it must be stressed that when ing— wine is cooked it loses its alcoholic con­ (1) As a flavouring agent—it adds tent—alcohol vaporises at 85 deg., so that "zest" to savoury and sweet dishes it is all boiled away or evaporated off when and accompaniments. food is heated. Cooked food flavoured (2) To enhance other flavours—like with wine can therefore be given without salt, wine can also "bring out" qualms to children. flavours, particularly delicate The flavour of wine becames more and flavours. more mellow as cooking proceeds, there­ fore do not add wine too soon to a dish (3) As a colouring agent—wine helps that requires two or three hours cooking with the colour and sparkle of —within the last half-hour is recom­ clear soups, and jellies sweet and mended. savoury. (4) As a tenderiser—wine helps to break down the fibres of meat, making it more tender and releas­ ing more flavour. WIN*--- Classes of Wine can be classified as— (1) Appetisers — and Ver­ mouths. (2) White Table Wines—, Hock, Chablis, , Moselle, etc. (3) Red Table Wines—Claret, Bur­ gundy. (4) Sparkling Wines — and Sparkling Hock, Moselle and Burgundy. (5) Dessert Wines — Port, , Tokay, Madeira, Frontignac.

Journal of Agriculture, Vol 7 No 1 1966 Wines are either "dry" (not sweet) or Savoury Sauces, Gravies and Dressings sweet, and cover a wide range in between Any white sauce or cheese sauce, or medium-dry. Sherry is the most useful dishes like cauliflower cheese, macaroni wine in cookery. Dry sherry can be used cheese, celery-in-white-sauce, Welsh rare­ in all the savoury dishes, and sweet bit, tuna mornay, crayfish mornay and so sherry in any sweet dish. Madeira can on, can be given added zest by adding a be used in place of sherry. Sherry and white table wine or sherry—try a table­ the dessert wines keep well when opened, spoon wine to each cup of sauce. but neither the red or white table wines Any brown sauce, tomato or barbecue nor the sparkling wines keep for any sauce, gravy, or casserole dish in brown length of time. Left-over table wines can gravy can be improved with a red table be used up in cooking in a variety of ways. wine or sherry, using the same proportion. Try in place of lemon juice Soups or vinegar in salad dressings like mayon­ To clear soups (and jellied soups in naise, French dressing, and in savoury summer) and to meat and vegetable soups jellies. add dry sherry or a red table wine. To creamed soups and light-coloured soups like fish, chicken, potato, celery and onion Meat Dishes and so on, use sherry or a white table Roasts wine. Try one teaspoon wine per serving Baste roast beef, turkey and duck with —taste for flavour and add more if liked. a red table wine—claret or burgundy, and use for game, like rabbit. Baste Fish Dishes a ham with a sweet . For If serving small pieces of fish in a white each four pounds meat allow one cup of sauce or mornay, make the sauce using a wine. Baste a chicken with a small cup tablespoon of wine to each cup of liquid. of white wine and a little butter. Make If using fillets of fish, allow a dessertspoon gravy from the wine and meat juices in of wine for each fillet—aproximately half- the baking dish—remove excess fat with cup wine per pound of fish. For a fish clean blotting paper or folded tissues. casserole bake the fish in wine, then serve the wine and fish juice as a sauce, Pot Roasts and Boiled Meats or thicken with a little cornflour. Try As above, use one cup of wine to each wine in place of vinegar or lemon with four pounds of meat, using for fried or grilled fish—use chablis, hock or dark meats and white wine or sherry for dry sherry. light meats. Grilling and Frying Marinade or soak the steak or cutlets in claret, burgundy or sherry for half to one hour before cooking. A little garlic or some finely sliced onion may be added to the wine, also a dash of hot sauce or some tomato sauce or puree. While the meat is cooking, season and thicken the marinade mixture to make a sauce to serve with the meat. Casseroles, Braizes and Stews Add about one tablespoon of wine to each one pound of meat, using claret, bur­ gundy or sherry for red meats and white table wine or sherry for similar dishes of light meats like chicken, lamb, veal and so on. 46

Journal of Agriculture, Vol 7 No 1 1966 Minced Meats pieces. Dip in seasoned flour then brown Any dish of minced and mixed meats on both sides in a little butter or oil. like meat loaf, brawn, pies and pasties, Place in an ovenproof dish. Fry some rissoles, sausages, steak-and-kidney pud­ thinly sliced onion—add a small clove of ding, can be improved by adding a little garlic if liked—till golden brown, and wine to the gravy or mixing and binding pour over the meat. Cover meat and liquid. onions with a layer of sliced tomatoes, sprinkle wth breadcrumbs and pour in a of dry sherry, cover and cook Sweet Dishes till tender. Serve with mashed potato, Simple puddings, trifles, cake-puddings, green peas and diced or sliced carrots. moulded creams, jellies, fruit-sweets, (Thicken liquid with a little cornflour if souffles, sponges, flummery, ices and the breadcrumbs have not thickened it sauces of all descriptions can be flavoured sufficiently, or if more gravy is required. with or have their flavours enhanced with Cook a little flour in the pan after frying wine. Sweet sherry or sauternes, port, the onions—allow to brown very slightly muscat, tokay, madeira, can be used. A before adding liquid). little wine can reduce a too-sweet taste as well as give a distinctive flavour. Continental Beef Olives Prepare thin slices of steak, chopped Cooking with Spirits, Liqueurs, Cocktails. onion, and strips of bread, bacon and Brandy and rum are often used in fruit cheese. Roll up each slice of beef with cakes and puddings, sweet mincemeat, bacon, bread, cheese, then add onion. Tie brandy or rum sauce, hard sauce, etc., and each "olive" securely. Make a well- to flavour whipped cream, chocolate and flavoured brown sauce and after browning coffee flavoured dishes, cakes and icings. "olives" in a little fat, add them to the Liqueurs like Kirsch and Maraschino sauce to simmer till tender. Add a little (almond flavoured) and others such as chablis or sherry to the gravy half an creme de menthe, Cointreau, creme de hour before serving. (A simple beef olive cacao and drambuie give a wonderful can be made by wrapping the bacon and flavour, as do cocktails like apricot, meat around a little sausage meat or cocktail, maison ruvee, and others such as bread stuffing). cherry brandy, marsala, brandevino. As these are so very concentrated, use Spiced Silverside only one or two drops, and taste for Boil silverside as usual until almost flavour before adding more. Use in ices, cooked. Lift on to a baking dish. Coat jellies, sauces, fruit salads, parfaits, ice­ thickly with a paste made from half a cup cream toppings, whips, icings and fillings. each of brown sugar and breadcrumbs and If serving a hot sweet "flambe" or one teaspoon each of cinnamon, mustard, flaming, make sure it will flame success­ grated orange and grated lemon rind. fully be heating the brandy or rum in a Stud with a few cloves, then bake in a small saucepan first. As with wines, the moderately hot oven to brown the crust— alcohol will be burnt off, leaving the baste frequently with a cup of sherry or flavouring without its alcoholic content. claret or burgundy mixed with the juice of the orange and lemon. Serve with the Storing Wines usual boiled vegetables and white sauce, Keep bottles in a cool dark cupboard. or lightly saute (fry and shake in a little Light and air cause deterioration, so place fat) and coat vegetables thickly with each bottle on its side to that the chopped parsley. is kept moist and cannot dry out, thus keeping it air-tight. Fruit Whip Take a cup of unsweetened fruit pulp— use peach, pear, apricot or apple or prunes. Some Recipes to Try Make a meringue mixture from two egg Cutlets in Wine whites, a pinch of cream of tartar and Choose lamb or veal. Trim lamb cutlets, from half to three quarters of a cup of or cut veal fillets into neat serving-sized sugar, depending on the sweetness of the 47

Journal of Agriculture, Vol 7 No 1 1966 fruit. Carefully fold in the fruit pulp the rum. Replace the chocolate with finely and a teaspoon of wine, or a drop or two pureed fruit—strawberries or apricot are of liqueur. Add colouring if desired. Serve are most suitable—and use an essence and in individual sweet dishes or parfait suitable colouring to match the chosen glasses with jelly or cream. Use the egg flavour. Cherry brandy and pink colour­ yolks to make a custard. ing with chopped cherries and cherries to decorate top would be in keeping or green Zabaglione colouring, creme de menthe and angelica, Put three egg yolks, three teaspoons and so on. Be imaginative with flavours sugar and a tablespoon Marsala in top and combinations, and invent a glamorous half of a double saucepan or a basin that name for each dish, too! will fit over another saucepan. Beat steadily with a rotary beater over hot Too Much Spoils The Flavour! (not boiling) water until mixture becomes thick and fluffy and there is no raw egg Finally, a word of warning. As with taste. Scrape sides and bottom occasion­ most flavouring agents, enough is delight­ ally while beating. Remove from heat and ful but too much spoils the flavour. Be stand pan or basin in cool water and beat careful not to overdo it, particularly with a little longer to prevent curdling. Serve the concentrated spirits, liqueurs, etc. hot or chilled in parfait glasses, garnished Consider the basic menu—planning prin­ with a sprinkling of nutmeg, cinnamon ciples, too—if you are having, say, chicken or grated chocolate or grated orange rind. and almonds with wine, leave the wine flavoured soup or fish dish or the sherried fruit and chantilly cream for another Chocolate Souffle menu. 1 oz. almonds, blanched, shredded and lightly browned. 3 eggs—separated. 2 oz. castor sugar. 2 oz. cooking chocolate. 1 level tablespoon gelatine softened in two tablespoons water rum. i pint to 4 pint cream. Method Melt chocolate, gelantine over low heat until dissolved. Whisk the egg yolks and sugar over hot water until thick and creamy. Remove from heat and stir in the almonds, chocolate, gelatine and a tea­ spoon of rum. When cool but not set, fold in the whipped cream and then the stiffly beaten egg whites. Pour into a souffle dish (straight sides) which has greaseproof paper tied around it so that mixture will come above the sides of the dish (imitat­ ing a risen, cooked souffle). When set, remove paper carefully and press coconut or chopped nuts around sides, and decor­ ate top with piped whipped cream, nuts and cherries. To vary the flavour of this cold souffle, use a little coffee essence as well to make a Mocha flavour, or substitute vanilla, for — NOT TOO MV

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Journal of Agriculture, Vol 7 No 1 1966