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!

  • BearOfaTime@lemm.ee
    11·
    13 days ago

    You lose as much alcohol as you do water, as they’re chemically bound together.

    Alcohol doesn’t really cook out of a dish.

    • porous_grey_matter@lemmy.ml
      1·
      13 days ago

      That’s not true, otherwise distillation would be impossible. You lose some water along with the alcohol but not the same percentage of both.

      • BearOfaTime@lemm.ee
        1·
        7 days ago

        Distillation isn’t the same thing, because of controlled temps and the condensing process is a significant part of the separation.

        For food you don’t really cook out the alcohol.

        Chemist cooks have tested this. The alcohol cooks out at very close to the same rate as water.

    • StrongHorseWeakNeigh@lemmy.world
      11·
      12 days ago

      That’s not true at all. Alcohol is only azeotropic at much higher concentrations than is present in wine. Alcohol boils at a significantly lower temperature than water and you will lose more alcohol than water.

      • BearOfaTime@lemm.ee
        11·
        7 days ago

        No, you don’t.

        They’re chemically bound and evaporate together in food.

        I don’t have a link to it, but about a decade ago a chemist cook did some testing and demonstrated you lose alcohol at the same rate as the water (or so close as to not be able to see a difference).

        In the end, alcohol doesn’t “cook out” to any significant degree.

    • droporain@lemmynsfw.com
      24·
      13 days ago

      I’m calling bullshit, I never ever felt any of the effects of alcohol from eating anything cooked with it or as an additive. Secondly by adding energy in the form of heat you are breaking those hydrogen bonds which are mixing and rebonding with carbon and whatever else you cooking.

      • Cenzorrll@lemmy.world
        3·
        13 days ago

        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.

        • droporain@lemmynsfw.com
          1·
          12 days ago

          Agreed. It’s like worrying you’ll fail a drug test because you walked by someone on the street and smelled weed.

      • Agent641@lemmy.world
        2·
        13 days ago

        Well you wouldn’t, because it’s so diluted. Imagine you’re deglazing with half a cup, and half of that boils away. That leaves you with 60ml of 15% ABV which is 8 grams of alcohol. If this meal serves 4, the alcohol consumed by each person is 2g.

        Compare this to a single shot of vodka, which contains 17.5g of pure alcohol. You would have to eat 9 portions to consume the equivalent of 1 shot, and if you do that, you probably won’t be invited back.