Wine in the kitchen and on the table
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MY nearly two week journalism, wine and gastronomic adventure in Italy is nearing an end. Throughout my journey from Umbria to Veneto and then Lombardy, I’ve been constantly reminded that wine permeates the culture and lives of Italians. It’s everywhere, from restaurant tables, bars, cafes to train stations and airports. In Italy, wine is inescapable.
To be fair, other wine producing nations in Europe share this passion for wine and one of the most important domains of wines is in the kitchen. No respectable Italian, French or Spanish kitchen exists without wine. Red wines are used to marinate and make sauces for meats; whites to freshen up and embellish seafood, white meat and other dishes. The beneficial roles wine play in the kitchen are innumerable. But as with other key ingredients, there are right ways as well as wrong ways to use wine in cooking. Here are a few helpful tips.
Some rules
Wine is used to enhance, intensify and accentuate the flavors of a dish. There are three basic uses of wine in cooking, namely: to marinate, cook and finish a dish.
In all cases, a quality wine should be used. In other words, if you don’t enjoy drinking the wine then don’t use it for cooking. This is obvious when used as a marinade but equally important when wines are used to make sauces. The important step of reducing a wine-based sauce accentuates the imperfections of inferior wines.
Likewise, quantity is important. Use too little wine and there’s no perceptible benefit, use too much and the wine overpowers the dish. Depending on the ingredients, cooking method and wine used, the ideal quantity of wine varies but the key is to act like a professional chef and keep tasting. To be truthful, cooking with wine, just like winemaking itself, entails more than just a little trial and error.
Italian classics
As I’m presently eating and drinking my way northward up the Italian peninsula, I think it appropriate to share some classic wine dishes I’ve enjoyed this trip. First and foremost was the Umbrian wild boar homemade tagliolini in red tomato wine sauce. Small chunks of locally sourced wild boar are marinated in red wine for 12 hours then seared over high heat. Chopped onions, carrots, celery and stewed tomatoes are added along with nearly half a bottle of quality Umbrian red wine. The dish is dressed with fresh rosemary and sage and slow simmered for up to two hours then served over pasta. Like many rural Italian dishes it’s quite simple to make and utterly delicious.
My fellow guest journalists from China enjoyed this dish with me in the 15th-century Nocia home of local Michelin restaurant and Palazzo Seneca Relais & Chateau owner Vincenzo Bianconi.
In Verona for the world’s largest wine fair, Vinitaly, I enjoyed one of my favorite slow cooked dishes. In this case, donkey is marinated then cooked in Amarone red wine with seasoning over low heat for eight hours, then served with polenta. The result is one of the most tender and savory meat dishes you’ll ever taste. Another equally salivating version of this dish uses slightly sweeter and less gamey horse meat instead of donkey. Needless to say, you’d be terribly remiss if you didn’t enjoy these regional Veneto dishes with a bottle of full bodied Amarone wine.
In the three aforementioned dishes, the marination and slow cooking in red wine tenderizes the meat while also mitigating the gamey flavors. If game dishes aren’t your cup of tea, then the Italian culinary experience offers countless other delectable options.
During this trip I also enjoyed a wonderful fish dish. We caught a lovely fat carp in Umbria’s largest freshwater body, Trasimeno Lake. The local chef glazed the fish in extra virgin olive oil and white wine added some herbs in the cavity and roasted it for a short time in a very hot oven. We enjoyed our Umbrian delicacy with a bottle of vibrantly fruity and fresh Pucciarella Agnolo Colli del Trasimino DOC local white wine. The acidity in the white wine offset the fattiest of the carp and accentuated the fresh natural flavors.
Wine is also important in Chinese cuisine. Every talented Chinese chef I’ve had the privilege to work with is a master in the judicious use of wine to marinate and cook food. In traditional Chinese cooking, yellow rice wine is preferred — with the wines of Shaoxing the most favored. In countless dishes, like marinated hairy crab, drunken chicken and chicken stew with medicinal herbs, yellow rice wine embellishes and adds complexity to the dishes. Distilled rice and grain liquors are also frequently used.
Rosso di Montalcino
In general when using white or red wines to marinate or cook, it’s best to use acidic wines. This is especially true with seafood and fatty meat dishes. These wines nicely freshen up foods while also accentuating their natural flavors. Few reds do this better than Rosso di Montalcino DOC from Southern Tuscany. These 100 percent Sangiovese baby brothers of the great Brunello di Montacino DOCG wines combine lively red fruit flavors with good acidity. The better versions are also reasonably priced, high quality red wines. When cooking with Rosso di Montacino DOC wines, I like to use a minority of the wine for cooking and drink the rest while enjoying the dish. If you can’t find them, then Chianti DOCG or the slightly less distinguished Rosso Toscana wines are also good options.
Where to buy in Shanghai
Variety:
Though locals refer to it as Brunello, the grape that makes the great Brunello di Montalcino wines and lesser Rossi di Montelcino wines is actually one of the many Sangiovese clones.
Key term:
In Italian the words “Rossi di” literally mean “red wine of” and usually the more specific the region referred to, the better the wine.
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