Cooking with Wine

India may not be termed as a wine drinking country, but well, things are changing especially in the urban set ups. And don’t we all need a little change ? So, I thought it will be a good idea to bring in a little adventure in your everday mundane cooking.

And cooking does burn off the alcohol present in the wine to a fair extent, so don’t really have to worry about the intoxication part. I have been to a few dine-outs where the menu carries some exotic dishes with wine in them. All those exotic lengthy names on the menu, does make one wonder what flavours are they carrying after all.

Once during a holiday at a luxury resort (quite famous I must say), I happened to ask an Executive Chef the significance of wine in cooking. He replied that “reducing the sauce with a good wine lends the dish an enhanced and an unique flavour, which otherwise cannot be achieved”. He did suggest a few good dishes, that we could try out – one of them was the Chef’s Special which was quite good 👍 After that, I did try a couple more off the menu (with Chef’s recommendation ofcourse).

Just like the chef had mentioned, the flavours had a depth and were quite interesting indeed ! I remember vividly, the main course dish I tried was BAKED CHICKEN IN WHITE WINE SAUCE and the dessert was a WINE FLAVOURED CHOCOLATE MOUSSE – which I loved 😍

Since, we were staying there for 3 days and I had all the time in the world, I explored the place, the cuisine at the resort and also befriended a few staff members. The chef in particular was quite a story-teller. His version of everything was very interesting and engaging. He encouraged feedback on the food and so everytime I had a chance to meet him at the resort, I made sure to give him my honest feedback, and he was kind enough to listen to me.

This incident was somewhere at the back of my mind, when I was planning on the “Concept of the month for June 2021.

So, let’s try and achieve some kind of success in bringing out that unique flavour the chef spoke of, through the few recipes I have selected and will be posting at regular intervals this whole month.