SC - Alcohol in Cooking (Long)
Elise Fleming
alysk at ix.netcom.com
Sun Oct 4 06:57:53 PDT 1998
Greetings from Alys Katharine. I thought some of you might be
interested in this article was just in the Cleveland Plain Dealer about
the amount of alcohol left after cooking. It was written by Robert L.
Wolke in the Washington Post.
So many cookbooks assert that all or virtually all of the alcohol
burns off during cooking...that almost everyone accepts that
statement as gospel. The standard explanation, when there is one,
is that alcohol boils at 173 degrees Fahrenheit, while water doesnt
boil until 212 degrees Fahrenheit, and therefore the alcohol will
boil off before the water does.
Well, thats not the way it works.
Its true that pure alcohol boils at 173 degrees and pure water
boils at 212. But that doesnt mean that they behave independently
when mixed; each affects the boiling temperature of the other. A
mixture of alcohol and water will boil at a temperature between
173 and 212 degrees - closer to 212 if its mostly water, closer to
173 if its mostly alcohol, which I certainly hope is not the case in
your cooking.
Heres whats happening when you simmer a pan of food containing
wine or beer:
When a mixture of water and alcohol boils, the vapors are a mixture
of water and alcohol together. But because alcohol evaporates more
readily than water, the proportion of alcohol in the vapoars is higher
than it was in the liquid. But the vapors are still far from pure
alcohol, and as they waft away from the pan, theyre not carrying much
of the alcohol. The alcohol-loss is much less efficient than people
think.
How much alcohol will remain in your pan depends on so many
factors that a general answer for all recipes is impossible. But the
results of some tests may surprise you.
In 1992 a group of nutritionists at the University of Idaho,
Washington State University and the Department of Agriculture measured
the amounts of alcohol before and after cooking two Burgundy-laden
dishes similar to boef bourguignon and coq au vin, plus a casserole of
scalloped oysters made with sherry. They found that anywhere from 4
percent to 49 percent of the original alcohol remained in the finished
dishes, depending on the type of food and the cooking method.
Higher temperatures, longer cooking times, uncovered pans, wider
pans, tip-of-the-stove rather than closed-oven cooking - all conditions
that increase the general amount of evaporation - were found, not
surprisingly, to increase the loss of alcohol.
What about using wine to deglaze a pan when there isnt any other
alcohol in the recipe? The researchers didnt test this, but it stands
to reason that the more you reduce or evaporate it, the less alcohol
- - and water, of course - is going to remain. So to get rid of the
alcohol, take the sauce almost to dryness and then quickly replace
some of its (hot) water before it scorches.
Do you think youre buring off all the alcohol as you march
triumphantly into your darkened dining room bearing a tray of
blazing cherries jubilee or crepes suzette? Well, think again.
According to the 1992 test results, you may be buring off only
about 20 percent of the alcohol beofe the flame goes out. Thats
because to sustain a flame, the percentage of alcohol in the vapor
must be above a certain level. Remember that you had to use a
high-proof brandy and warm it to make more alcohol vapor before
it would even ignite. (You cant light wine, for example.) When
the alcohol burns down to a certai, still-substantial level in the
dish, the fumes are no longer flammable and your fire goes out. Thats
show biz.
How much weight should you give these test results when trying
to accommodate your guests?
One thing you should conisder is the dilution factor. If your recipe
for 6 servings of coq au vin calls for 3 cups of wine, and if about
half of the alcohol cooks off during a 30-minute simmer (as the
researchers
found), each serving will wind oup with the amount of alcohol in 2
ounces of wine. On the other hand, those 3 cups of wine in a 6-serving
boef bourguignon that simmers for three hours and loses 95 percent
of its alcohol (according to the test results) will wind up giving each
diner the alcohol equivalent of only two-tenths of an ounce of wine.
Still, alcohol is alcohol. So let your conscience be your guide.
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