If you love a glass of red wine for your dinner, it may be time to know that red blends are fantastic for more than just drinking. Added to hearty winter stews, luxurious sauces, and tasty desserts, red wine delivers an unmatched essence to the kitchen.
Whether you are a novice cook looking for new recipes to expand your skills or a seasoned foodie wanting to try something new, cooking with red wine is the ideal way to incorporate unmatched boldness and robust flavor notes to any dish, perfect to enjoy with a glass of your favorite 19 Crimes red wine.
Blend Selection
When you step into a liquor store, you are met with an abundance of options from which to choose. And if you are not a seasoned wine drinker, it may be daunting to figure out where to start. The most important tip to remember when selecting a wine is that you shouldn’t cook with a blend you wouldn’t drink.
Cabernet Sauvignon is a full-bodied blend with noticeable acidity and dark fruit flavors, including black cherry, plum, and black currant. Pinot noir is typically light and more delicate in taste, with red fruit flavors like strawberry and raspberry.
Zinfandel varieties are ideal for hearty, rich, and flavorful dishes that need a bold and robust wine to match their punchy profile, while merlot is mild and fruity and introduces refreshing notes of cherry, plum, and chocolate to any recipe.
Ingredient Pairings
If you don’t have a specific recipe you want to recreate using red wine, it is worthwhile knowing the traditional ingredient pairings it is used with to form the base of your meal. One of the joys of cooking is experimenting with new flavor combinations and techniques, and having a set place to start gives even the most novice cooks the confidence to try something new.
Red wine and red meat get along like a house on fire. The strong, bold flavors of beef, lamb, and veal perfectly complement the complex and robust notes of red blends, each possessing enough intensity to match the other without overpowering.
Similar to red meats, earthy vegetables like mushrooms, beets, and carrots are tough enough to stand up to the punchy flavor of red wine. When combining vegetables with wine, be sure to pick a bled you love, as the veggies will soak up the liquid like a sponge. Use your favorite red in a marinade, a decant pasta sauce, or as the secret ingredient to an umami-filled side dish.
No dish is complete without the right selection of herbs and spices. But adding them to a dish that uses red wine is a fantastic and surefire way to unlock their full potential. Bay leaves are ideal for soups and stews, fresh thyme or rosemary for roasted veg or marinades, and oregano for pasta sauces.
Alternatively, you can combine your favorite seasonal flavors, such as zesty citrus fruits, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves, to make a steaming batch of mulled wine.
Popular Cooking Techniques
When cooking with red wine, using one of the popular techniques is a fantastic way to get the most from this luxurious ingredient. These techniques include deglazing a pan, where red wine is used to loosen the delicious caramelized bits stuck to the bottom of the pan after searing meat or other ingredients.
It can be used as the perfect base for a flavorful marinade. Add herbs, olive oil, garlic, and your chosen protein sauce to as much or as little red wine as you choose to become infused with an unmatched richness.
Furthermore, you can sear meat at a high temperature before braising it slowly in a small amount of red wine for tender meat and deep, bold flavors. Finally, red wine can be simmered down with a range of your favorite aromatics until it thickens into a lush, concentrated sauce that can form the base of sauces and broths.
Sauces & Reductions
One of the most popular ways to cook with red wines is to create rich and creamy sauces and reductions. With just a few ingredients, you can whip together sweet or savory liquid gold to finish off a wide variety of tasty dishes.
The process is relatively straightforward and doesn’t require complicated techniques to get right. You just need a little bit of patience to ensure you wait for the perfect consistency. Traditionally, you simply need to sauté aromatics like white onion, shallots, and garlic in butter until soft and very aromatic. Add your red wine and simmer the mixture until it has reduced by half to create a concentrate bursting with flavor. From here, you can add stock and further simmer the mixture until it thickens and is ready to add to any meal your heart desires.
Sweet Treats
Don’t be fooled into believing that red wine has to be reserved strictly for savory meats and vegetables. When used in baking, the hearty flavor profile of red blends does a fantastic job of boosting the sweetness of the dishes and transforming your desserts into something new and improved.
Incorporating red wine into batters or mixtures introduces a resounding hit of flavor while enhancing the overall aroma of the dish. Furthermore, it can be used to add much-needed moisture and tenderness to cake sponges and pastry treats or simply as an easy way to give your finished product a beautiful, deep hue.