I used to make coq au vin, used what ever was cheap and white. Mateus red wine for beef.

Edited to ad: Mateus is sold in little bottles, no waste. I don't drink wine. I'd rather have ice tea and it costs less. :0)

I sometimes make beef Burgundy with red wine and I've tried to make a few other wine dishes. I always ask for a suggestion. Last year I found some small bottles at the grocery store that only hold about two cups of wine. They are great because there is no waste. I don't actually like to drink wine. I learned my lesson on the cooking wine. That stuff is full of salt and ruins the food.

That cooking wine is the most disgusting stuff. I don't know if it really is even wine, can it be sold in a dry area if it's really wine? I don't think anyone buys it yuck. I do use wine in various dishes I cook, it's always a wine I would drink.

Yes I always do and even just for a plain stew. It all a lot I think to the flavor. I always save any that is left in a bottle for cooking.

I don't cook anymore. Just me, and no family around, but when I did cook I loved to use wine, or whatever the recipe called for. I have a good recipe for chicken using brandy. I didn't have a lot of wine just sitting around the house, but I always had a bottle of dry white vermouth that I would use instead of white wine. My very favorite thing, chicken tarragon uses it.

We all agree about "cooking wine" so do we agree that a good red wine is used most often? Have never made coq au vin, but hope to try it and see it calls for a white wine. A dry white?

Any yum-yum recipes appreciated. Thank you.

Red sauce (tomatoes from the garden) demands wine. Doesn't matter red or white. Whichever is open.

No, I don't use wine, and don't drink it either. Never have any in the house.

Indeed, "cooking wine" is a garbage product.

The traditional approach to Coq au Vin uses red wine. That's the source of the normal dark color of the sauce.

Most people can't afford to pour a $50+ bottle of wine into a beef stew, but neither should you use a Two Buck Chuck (unless you've tasted it first and it has a better than expected taste profile). It should always be at least a decent bottle and one you would drink (as previously suggested). Something that's at least a few steps up from rot gut.

I rarely have wine left over in a bottle. For those who use that, make sure it's still good. Wine oxidizes quickly and is usually past its prime after a few days (unless one of the various open bottle preserving devices is used)

My answer is just like Marilyn C.

Sue

I always have two of these little 4-packs in the pantry for cooking. One Chardonnay and one Cabernet Sauvignon.

What time is dinner tonight, angelaid? You can cook with one, we can drink the other one.

Two Buck Chuck is actually an excellent wine for cooking. It's a blend of wine lake (surplus sold off by wineries), so case by case it might taste different, but it's always palatable. Perhaps uninteresting, but palatable. As S-lash said, it's a good idea to taste before using since it isn't predictable, but I've never had a bottle that wasn't fine to use. That's what cooking with a wine you'd drink means. The exception is when you're making a reduction. Then, you have to be careful about the flavors you're concentrating.

There's a similar thread in Cooking, where it was mentioned that what "Cooking Wine" is is heavily salted wine to the point where it is so undrinkable it escapes the taxes/excise. Perhaps that also also makes it allowable to be sold in dry areas, Raven, but I don't know.

I do taste leftover wines if they've been sitting around, but you have to taste for the fine notes. A lot of what makes it not what it used to be cooks off. Even wines that have gone bad can be cooked with. Quite a ways back, a very very good cabernet sauvignon had gotten hot and turned. I used it for a lamb braise. It was exquisite. The wine gets heated in cooking, anyway, right? It went from undrinkable to amazing. I would never use that fine (er...expensive) a bottle of wine in ordinary (rather than special occasion) cooking, even though I would use good enough wines in this situation, if it had not gone off, but all the good that was in it, that made it the renowned vintage that it was, was still there.

In the cupboard near the stove, I keep decent but affordable Sherry, Madeira, Port and Marsala, and I keep the ends of bottles of table wine for cooking as well. Chardonnay is not great for cooking in general, but there are many kinds of dishes where it's more the alcohol that's necessary, rather than any particular flavor, and I'll throw an end of Chardonnay in there, perhaps with the end of something lighter and sweeter.

Pink, I don't use a lot of recipes, so don't have any to share, but you can think of it this way: Any time you're adding water or stock to a recipe, you can substitute a couple slugs (3 TBSP?) of wine. Alcohol evaporates differently, but there's not that much alcohol going in. Unless you want your efforts to taste boozy, you need to simmer or bake it out for a good 15-20 minutes to get half the alcohol out. Unless you're doing a slow braise (like for hours), there will be some alcohol left, but heating, given some time, softens up the sharp alcohol flavor.

I don't cook with it, but rarely stray about $10 for what I do use for cooking. Almost anything you put wine into, cooking wise, gets reduced and so the flavor is concentrated. Proceed with caution.

Most wine makers in California buy grapes for some percentage of their production, the company that makes Two Buck Chuck should be no different. I thought their own vineyards were pretty large. I do know the company's ownership is connected to the Franzia family, long known for its large output of inexpensive wines produced (almost exclusively) in the Central Valley.

We use Apothic Wines for cooking and drinking.It's the best $10 wine we can find in Ohio. Buy a case and it's $9 a bottle.

Our guests have never refused a second or third glass.

Apothic

Yeah, Bronco have massive vineyards in the Valley. I read that they use automation for picking, too. I'm sure you're right that a great deal of the wine lake comes from their own company.

As to the concentration of flavors, yes, of course, as the water and alcohol evaporate, the flavors are left behind. If it's a couple of slugs in a sauce, batter or dough, however, the flavors don't concentrate like they do in a reduction, and on a roast, they are diluted again by the drippings. In a reduction, you add a whole bottle of wine to a couple cups of stock and reduce (steam out) that to one cup of liquid.

You don't have to buy fine wine to cook, but for the love of everything holy, you can not ever use "cooking wine".

;-)

I use white wine
frequently when making a white pasta sauce and always when making
risotto. Beef stew usually gets a fair amount of red wine. I also use red wine when making Coq au Vin, because that's what the recipe I first used calls for -- although sometimes the chicken ends up sort of purple -- maybe I should try using white wine.

My "award winning" chili recipe uses dark beer, either
porter or stout.. Kahlua makes chocolate brownies much better.

A favorite, go-to addition to
make sauces or soups better is medium-dry Madeira,. In my opinion
Madeira is what sherry was trying to emulate, but sherry missed the
mark.

I like Chianti Red wine in my pasta sauce for Spaghetti sauce but that's about it. We don't drink at all but I love the flavor in my sauce. Burgundy Beef, haven't had that in years, that sounds soooo good!

Oh! I also used a white wine when I made shrimp scampi, but that was years ago.

I used to dribble a little vermouth in soups, which improved the flavor. But I don't any longer as DH dislikes foods cooked with wine or liquor.

I checked and coq au vin blanc.....uses white wine. OH! So I did use white wine, but it changes things. :0) I remember using a German zinfandel white in it. I googled recipes and cream, chicken stock, thyme, cognac and bacon...that was it! Yes, I do keep cognac on hand. I use it in sweet 'n sour pork too. Haven't made that in years!

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/emeril-lagasse/coq-au-vin-blanc-recipe.html

Coq au vin blanc in French means cock (rooster/chicken) with white wine. So yes, chicken with white wine uses white wine.

The traditional preparation of coq au vin (cock/chicken with wine) as mentioned above is with red wine and, in particular, burgundy. The color of the end product is part of the tradition and, of course, the flavor is different than if made with white wine. .

This prompted me to share a cartoon (don't know how to post it) called Wine Pairing in the Stone Age" - goes something like this:

"Simple rule of thumb - if it tries to eat us, serve it with red. If it runs away from us, serve it with white." Lol!

LOL, and sometimes I drink wine while cooking. :)

bob_cville: You can cook for me anytime! Would you share your brownie and chili recipes? I have a kahlua fudge recipe and would love to zap my brownies.

sheilajoyce_gw: Your idea for soups sounds interesting. Just a dollop?

seagrass_gw: Love the humor. Worth remembering.

OklaMoni: You go chef!

Yes to red wine in stews, pepper steak, other beef dishes. I pour some over a pork roast before salting and adding garlic.

If no red wine is open, I use Vermouth on the pork. We always have red Vermouth open (as well as Jack, bitters and a bottle of cherries - haha).

WelI am not a wine drinker & know nothing about wine. I am a beer drinker though. And when I need wine for a recipe guess what I use -cooking wine!! I will look for the little wine bottles next time I shop & see if I notice a difference. I have never added it to beef stew, but will next time I make it.

Chisue, thanks for the reminder! Vermouth is great in cooking.