If you wouldn’t dream of drinking it, don’t cook with it is the rule for cooking with wine, and likewise cheese – if it’s too hard, dry and old do not think you can resuscitate it in a cheese sauce. While you would not pour Grange Hermitage in to your red-wine reduction, the best cheese can raise the most humble dish to high status – try macaroni cheese made with Parmigiano Reggiano and gruyere or cauliflower cheese with Pyengana cheddar.
Wine
“Wine can mellow to a remarkable richness when it is simmered in sauces, braises or stews,†says noted food writer Anne Willan. Heating wine accentuates its flavour, reducing it to its essentials – the reason you do not use inferior or leftovers for the job.
Cooking alters the aroma of wine but not the tartness, sweetness or savouriness, which become concentrated. Reduction is best done slowly rather than at a brisk boil. Willan says red wine needs to be reduced by half during cooking, white wine even more.
The natural glycerin in wine helps to bind sauces, making it possible to use less fat.
Citrusy, lively white wines are ideal for seafood, shellfish and poultry and work well in salad dressings. Acidic white wine is also the choice in Italy for use in lamb dishes.
Young reds suit red meats, bolder reds more robust dishes. Reducing a cabernet sauvignon concentrates the tannins and can leave a bitter taste; this can be avoided by adding a protein-rich ingredient to the reductions, such as finely chopped meat or a good stock.
Add a slurp of red wine to pasta sauces or gravy, and you need not be cooking risotto to justify some white wine when cooking rice.
The acidity of wine helps tenderise meat when it is marinated in wine for a time, and the acidity also brings out the flavours in the food - oaked chardonnay lacks the acid to do this.
Long, slow cooking will evaporate the alcohol in wine, as will using it to flambé a dish, but when it is added to a sauce and cooked for just 10 minutes or so, some alcohol remains (and the flavours will be more evident).
Cheese
Heating releases the aromas of cheese, but unlike wine, long, slow cooking is not the best way to go. At high temperatures cheese curd will shrink and release moisture and can very easily become stringy – like mozzarella on top of a pizza, where, of course, it is a desired trait. To avoid this, choose cheeses suited to melting, including hard grating cheeses such as parmesan, crumbly cheeses such as Cheshire and Leicester (Ashgrove Red Rubicon) and firm cheeses like gruyere, fontina, and pecorino. Cheddar is another favourite in cooking, although it will become stringier more easily than the ones first mentioned.
When adding cheese to sauces do it at the last minute, and grate the (chilled) cheese first. Once the cheese is added, avoid stirring it too much and do not overheat it or it will become rubbery. Molten cheese needs to be cooled a little before its eaten, but don’t wait too long because the cheese will get stringier as it cools down.
Including a starchy ingredient such as flour, cornflower or arrowroot will stabilise the cheese – this is a principal observed in the classic fondue (gruyere and raclette are the cheeses of choice). Another ingredient of fondue, wine, also stabilises cheese. A cheese sauce that is separating can be rescued with a dash of white wine or lemon juice.
Haloumi is a cheese designed to be cooked – dusted in flour and grilled or fried. Indian panir cheese will not melt and can be fried or simmered. Fresh goat cheeses and ricotta also resist melting and will hold their shape in tarts, on pizza or as a pasta stuffing.
Raclette cheese is made to be melted. A traditional griller holds the cut edge of half a round under a grill and then you scrape the melted layer (racler means “to scrapeâ€) onto cooked potatoes (pinkeyes for preference) served with gherkins. Check www.raclette.com.au for a more modern raclette party grill.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
