Cooking with alcohol - how much stays in your food?

Kirsty_UK

I found these articles and thought it was interesting, and surprising!

http://lifehacker.com/5836187/how-much-alcohol-remains-in-a-dish-when-cooking-with-it

"Conventional wisdom says that alcohol added to a dish gets cooked away, but in fact, a large percent of alcohol still remains in the dish, depending on your cooking method"

and this is the % chart they quote from

http://www.ochef.com/165.htm

laurelderry

Very interesting! Thank you for sharing!

NoAdditives

Cooking temperature and method of cooking definitely make a huge difference! Since I'm pregnant I stay away from anything that has alcohol, which is hard because I crave Irish food which at restaurants often has whiskey or Guinness in a sauce or somewhere else in the dish.

bcattoes

When I cook with wine I usually just log half of what I put in. Usually I let it simmer for a bit to reduce so according to the chart I guess less than half of the alcohol is left but I there are other calories in there too, so I'll probably just stick with half. I'm not that nitpicky about exact calories. As long as I'm in the ball park I figure it will even out in the end.

3ur3ka

Coincidentally, my two favorite dishes both contain white wine. and now I know why. :drinker:

Kirsty_UK

I guess I posted it for two reasons, one being the calories, and how to log them, but also because if you're avoiding alcohol for others reasons, you might not realise how much remains.

I'm shocked that flaming doesn't burn it all off to be honest.