do we have a wine forum?

I am not a drinker at all and have been wanting to cook with wine and need recommendations. If a recipe says to deglaze with red wine what should I use?

I make Julia's recipes twice a month but she always stipulates the kind of wine to use.

Help! I need to know what to buy. I have been using three buck chuck for most recipes but I am sure you fine wine lovers are going to groan over that.

Thanks,

SA

There are plenty of people who like that wine (not me) but I'm sure it works fine when cooking. I have had it, it's just "ok".

I would use a merlot or cabernet.

Three buck chuck is fine for a lot of the recipes that we have here. If a recipe does not call for a lot of wine, like 1/2 cup of less, I use dry vermouth, regardless of whether the recipe calls for white or red wine, as I don't think it matters in most recipes. Cooks Illustrated recommends Gallo Dry Vermouth, which is inexpensive, $3-4 around here. It's what I use. Vermouth does have herbs in it, so you need to take that into account, but I generally find it works very well. The other nice thing about vermouth is that it is a fortified wine, and an opened bottle can stand around for a month, longer in the fridge, thus you are not likely to have waste.

If a recipe calls for more wine, a cup or more, I would tend to use what it calls for, cabernet for a dry red, sauvignon blanc for a dry white. Modestly priced wines are just fine.

I don't know if we have a Wine Forum but there are times that I think we have a WHINE Forum around here. And I'm as guilty as the next person! LOL

duonyte, it's brilliant to use vermouth instead of wine!

I shall follow suit from now on. It can only be better than most wines!

By the way, you don't need to use fridge space for it. Fortified wines last just about forever. Just keep it in a cupboard.

Hi, S A! Didn't mean to hijack your thread -- but if you don't drink wine, the idea of getting a good bottle of vermouth and using that instead, is great, because as I said above, it lasts forever at room temperature.

I want to give you another hint. If you click on the link I'm giving, you'll reach the entire list of Community Forums.

This means you can scroll down and check out each one -- there are more than 50!! Now do this: when the page opens, right-click your mouse on an open space to the right of the words "Community Forums".

A menu will appear, and one of the items says, I think, "Make shortcut". Highlight and click. It will ask whether you want a shortcut on your desktop to this page. Yes, you do, I think.

This means every time you come to Zaar, especially in a hurry, you just click on your shortcut, which will be titled "Community Forums" and hey presto, you reach the forum page, and they're all there ... to browse to your heart's content.

http://www.recipezaar.com/bb/

Many people who are not wine drinkers, will buy the small bottles to keep on have for cooking.

Other options:
1) Wine can be frozen into cubes for future use
2) Wine Reduction - Frozen Cubes

Hubby did buy me a bottle of Gallo dry vermouth and I made the absolute best stroganoff ala Julia Child. Even better than I would have expected. Had it on the table in 30 minutes and it was awesome.

I picked up some Chuck yesterday and am doing a roasted chicken tonight so I hope my experiment turns out great.

Thanks,
SA

Thanks Zurie. I always knew you were less technically challenged than I am....

SA

Thanks Zeldaz - That is exactly what I was looking for.

SA

This is so funny - I had just posted that in the wine forum suggestion box. I majored in whining and complaining in college.

SA

Yes, but it takes a marriage to really grant you a Ph.D. in Whining!

I got that covered too. Just this evening my DH told a friend that I was excellent in whining, complaining, and attention-getting. He's so sweet.....

SA

A wine forum???? Hadn't even thought of that I'm off to check it out though - I'll bet they have some great ideas as I love to cook with wine.