To taste the differences, take three chicken breasts, salt and pepper them all in the same way, and prepare one with a low-impact cooking method, one with a medium-impact method, and one with a high-impact method. Then try each with a series of different wines and note how your preference in wine varies with the cooking method.
KEY 3. SAUCES AND CONDIMENTS
A sauce is a trump card: it invariably dictates the wine match. Varied in personality, sauces may be cold, room temperature, or hot. They may be vinaigrettes, salsas, chutneys, or reductions. They may contain herbs, spices, fruit, or any combination thereof. Some contain cream or butter; others may be based on stock, flavored infusions, or wine. Some are smooth in texture; others are chunky and coarse. In any form, sauces want to run the show. Every sauce can be analyzed and broken down into its basic taste components. From that analysis, you can reach an informed choice about wine.
For example, vinaigrette-based and citrus-based sauces share the common element of acid: there is sharpness at the core. Rather than try to find a wine that works with all the ingredients, it would be wiser to find one that pairs well with sourness, for that will be the basic personality of the dish. In chutneys, sweetness may dominate, whereas in a salsa, harissa, or any other sauce based on hot peppers, the dominant characteristic, and the one that will govern wine choice, will be heat.
Matching a wine with the basic tastes in a sauce is a fairly straightforward principle that can also apply to textures. A butter- or cream-based sauce, with its silky and rich texture, may, like emulsified sauces (such as mayonnaise and aioli), pair best with similarly rich-textured wines such as Chardonnay, Pinot Gris, and Viognier.
To demonstrate these principles, return to the chicken-breast experiment. This time sauté three chicken breasts identically and serve them alongside three very different sauces: salty (soy-based), sweet (such as a fruit chutney), and spicy (harissa, salsa picante, or another hot sauce). Next, line up an array of wines. As you work through the permutations, you'll note the dramatic impact of saucing.
AND THOSE DEVILISH SIDE DISHES
Global travel, food experimentation, and increasingly daring palates, supported by the year-round availability of fresh ingredients from around the world, mean that we live in an intriguing food time. I am often astounded by restaurant menus. Not only can these dining establishments lay on the lavish “menu-speak” descriptions, but the dishes themselves may have four to six accompanying items that have personalities as compelling as that of the central item. I have been surprised and at times disappointed to discover that the entrée I ordered had to take a back seat to a more intensely flavored side dish. Surprises like this can wreak havoc on wine choices, so when you're dining out, it's important to read the menu carefully; when you're planning an elaborate meal at home, remember that side dishes and condiments can, like a sauce, influence the wine selection even more than the main ingredient or its preparation.
WINE IN THE COOKING
Having explored how cooking influences wine pairing, we need to look at the use of wine in the cooking. There are three fundamental applications of wine in cooking: cooking with or in wine, marinating foods with wine, and macerating foods in wine.
COOKING WITH WINE
Like your good olive oil and vinegar, your cooking wine should not be stored next to the stove. Heat detracts from the wine's flavors and accelerates spoilage; the convenience of having the wine right at hand does little to justify the sacrifice of integrity. Also important is what's in the bottle. Hands off any “cooking wine” from the shelf of the local market! Such wines are almost always chock-full of added salt and bring nothing to the party. Never cook with wines that you wouldn't be willing to drink.
The two most common applications of wine in cooking are as a flavoring component of a sauce (as in a beurre blanc or beurre rouge) and as a cooking or stewing liquid (as in the classic coq au vin or boeuf bourguignon). In both cases, once the wine is cooked (and the alcohol and most of the water evaporated off), what's left bears little resemblance to what was in the bottle. Compulsive chefs who want to tie a dish and a wine together by cooking with the wine that they intend to serve are, in my opinion, fooling themselves. Here's the making of a lively dinner party conversation: cook down a cup each of Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay to a saucelike consistency. Add a touch of butter to emulsify each, and serve the two sauces to all. Ask your guests to identify which is which, and watch the sparks fly.
This transformation is even more pronounced when a dish is stewed for hours. A simple but tasty table wine will be fine to pour into that boeuf en daube. There's no need to use a sixty-dollar Napa Valley Cabernet. Hooray for life's little bargains!
But surely, people ask, there must be a way to sense the pedigree of the wine when cooking? In one single case the answer is definitely yes: when the wine is incorporated into the dish at the last moment, and therefore not cooked. Many recipes either require or suggest this use for wine, and in this case alone I would recommend using a very fine wine or the wine being served with the meal, as there will be a strong reference.
A couple of principles are important when cooking with wine.
• If you cook with an off-dry wine or a sweet wine, the residual sugar will have an effect on the dish. This sweetness may or may not be desirable.
• High oak and high tannins will add a perceptible note of bitterness. I generally avoid monster reds and Chateau Two-by-Four super-oaky whites for cooking, as I don't enjoy the added acrid notes.
MARINATING AND MACERATING
Marinating and macerating both use uncooked wine. With marinades, the ingredients spend time in the wine and are then removed from the wine and cooked. With macerating, the ingredients spend time in the wine and are generally served in the maceration liquid in the final presentation. As when cooking with wine, most people grab whatever's open and pour in the required quantity, regardless of quality. And although it is true that added ingredients such as chiles, dried spices, herbs, garlic, and onions may overshadow the flavors of the wine, the wine's quality will nonetheless influence the final dish.
Marinating is a wonderful technique. It creates great complexity of flavor and gives the impression that you slaved over a dish for hours when in fact you might have put the marinade together in twenty minutes yesterday or the day before. In wine marinades, it pays to use a better wine: it will add a more complex flavor to the dish.
Usually used for meat but often also for fish or fowl, marinades provide layers of flavor while tenderizing and adding texture. The acids in wine act to break down the toughness of the meat, so the higher the acidity of the wine, the more dramatic and effective the marinade will be.
With macerating, too, the quality of the wine has a dramatic effect on the final dish. The two most popular examples of macerating with wine are that lovely concoction sangría, and fresh or dried fruits macerated in wine.
While using a bottle of Château Lafite Rothschild is not necessary, a tasty, juicy, and appropriately fruity red will make a difference: a local Spanish Rioja joven, a zesty Beaujolais, or a plump Italian Dolcetto makes a welcoming base for those cut-up oranges, lemons, and other flavorings for sangría. Similarly, when you're serving a dessert of fresh summer peaches floating in Moscato d'Asti, a cheap, soapy-tasting bottling will take away from the dish; using a better wine will pay off in spades.
This chapter covers a lot of material. To make the information easier to refer back to, I've created the following cheat sheet, which summarizes the key points of this chapter and adds a few other tips.
QUICK REFERENCE (A CHEAT SHEET)