Cooking With Alcohol

Great ways to utilize booze in the kitchen By [Josh Perilo] My brother walked into my apartment sheepishly, holding a Morton Williams bag like there might be something dead inside. â??So, I brought the pieâ?¦ The agreement was that I would make the Thanksgiving dinner, and my brother Nathan would bring dessert. He stuck his hand into the bag and pulled out something from a crime scene photo. â??Oh, I piped up, forcing an optimistic tone, â??did you make that? â??I obviously didn"t buy it, he said. The jig was up. Nathan knew what it looked like and now there was no point in my pretending I didn"t either. I was still determined to look at the situation in a positive light, though. â??Well, it looks like maybe just the top is incinerated, I said. â??Perhaps the inside is still fine. Nathan explained how he had trouble folding the egg whites in. He also veered a tad from the original recipe: â??I smelled the pie batter and thought it smelled a lot like this really great 30-year-old scotch I haveâ?¦ so I added a shot. For some reason, that was the point at which I knew the pie would be all right. Sure, it looked like a victim from the burn ward on the outside, but my brother knew enough to match the spicy pie filling with a scotch that he knew would complement the flavor profile. I trusted that his good instincts would save the day. This got me thinking about the idea of cooking with alcohol in general. Every home cook goes through the â??what this recipe needs is half a bottle of wine phase. Most good cooks make it out of that dark chapter alive, but it doesn"t mean that you should abandon using alcohol in your recipes altogether. For my money, there are a couple of great ways to utilize booze in the kitchen. The first, and most popular, is as an ingredient in a braise. Starting with the French classic, Boeuf Bourguignon, the base of almost all rustic French braised meat dishes is vino. Aside from the fact that it adds a desired flavor to your dish (the idea being that if you would match a wine to drink with the dish, then it would probably work if it were actually in the dish, as well), it also helps break down the meat and make it more tender. The traditional Coq au Vin is made with a rooster, which has very tough meat. After soaking in a Burgundy bath overnight, however, the acids in the wine have helped to soften the flesh. The second is, quite simply, as a flavoring agent. Just as my brother used a shot of scotch in his sweet potato pie, the tradition of flavoring cakes with other types of whiskeys has been around for centuries. Originally used as a preservative in desserts like bourbon cake in the American South and the traditional English Christmas Pudding, the whiskeys used in these dishes are now a ubiquitous flavor, as well. Be careful if you"re experimenting, however. It is easy to overdo it in this category, and a little goes a very long way. If you"re feeling retro, you might also try a recipe that calls for a flambÃ&Copy;. While this technique isn"t exactly in vogue anymore, it"s a lot of fun to do (safely) and actually serves a purpose beyond simply illuminating a dark room. As an example, when Cognac is flambÃ&Copy;ed, it reaches a temperature of around 500 degrees Fahrenheit. This is far above the temperature that Cognac reaches when it is simmered, which is around 180 degrees Fahrenheit. The brief exposure to these super high temperatures creates a carmelization in the other ingredients that adds a desirable complexity to your dish. As we sat down and dug into Nathan"s pie, one by one, smiles crept across our faces. â??Oh my gosh, my wife exclaimed. â??This is so good! Nathan stared at his plate, dumbstruck. â??Yeahâ?¦ it really is! he finally stammered. â??You can taste that scotch, I managed to choke out through a mouth full of pie. Once again, booze saved the day. _ josh@pennilessepicure.com