Hi all,
I recently came across a recipe that I wish to try for a lentil bolognese. I’m excited to try it as I’ve been trying to find a recipe I can use my red lentils with, but I’m curious about one thing both with this recipe, and recipes in general.
This recipe calls for the pan to be deglazed with red wine. This is something I’ve seen before in other recipes, though this recipe is the first of which I’m taking an interest in exploring. I’m personally fine with regular red wine, but my concern is that I have a friend who is incredibly cautious with alcohol, and says she’d refuse to eat things if they had alcoholic ingredients.
Putting aside my personal thoughts about that, I was curious if using a non-alcoholic wine would work just as well, or if the alcohol adds certain properties to the wine that make it function better as an ingredient or for deglazing. I’m mainly curious as I hope to invite friends over for dinner in the future, and want to make accommodations where possible, especially if it’s as easy as simply buying a slightly different ingredient.
Thanks in advance!
I’m not disagreeing with the overall idea of your statement, but you likely won’t feel the effects of alcohol in food no matter what (jello shots would be an exception, possibly other foods absolutely drenched in alcohol). The amount added to food is so low to begin with your body will process it before you start to feel it, it works more as a flavor and fragrance enhancer.
But you’re correct, water and alcohol don’t evaporate at the same rate in cooking, you’d have to do some calculations that I’m not about to spend my time doing, to determine by how much. It ain’t 1:1, but it also isn’t 100:1.