3 Ways to Make Your Mouth Water
salad waiting for a red wine vinaigrette
Wine has been around for a longggg time. We’re talking xxxxx (look up when first wine found). Suffice it to say that over that period of time, there have been a lot of creative ways wine has been used. We’ll save some of the more unique approaches for next week, but for now, let’s look at 3 ways wine has been used in the kitchen, but not for drinking.
Wine adds great flavor to a basic vinaigrette, so if you want to jazz up your salad, try this great recipe from Giada De Laurentiis:
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup red wine vinegar
- 3 tablespoons lemon juice
- 2 teaspoons honey
- 2 teaspoons salt
- Freshly ground black pepper
- 1 cup olive oil
Mix the vinegar, lemon juice, honey, salt, and pepper in a blender. With the machine running, gradually blend in the oil.
Wine as a marinade:
Wine has acidity which makes for a great marinade. And with the abundance of flavors out there, the versatility of what you can mix it with for an end result is almost endless. Here is one rendition for Red Wine Marinade from Eating Well Magazine:
Ingredients
2 cups red wine
1 small onion, diced
2 3-inch strips orange zest, (see Tip)
2 sprigs fresh rosemary, coarsely chopped
2 tablespoons red currant jelly
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground pepperCombine wine, onion, orange zest, rosemary, jelly, salt and pepper in a medium bowl. Pour the marinade into a shallow baking dish or 1-gallon sealable plastic bag for marinating 1 to 2 pounds (4 to 8 servings) of your chosen protein.
Tips & Notes
Tip: Use a vegetable peeler to easily remove strips of the outer orange skin (zest), leaving the bitter white pith behind.
Wine in your dessert
Wine is often THE dessert, what with all the different sweet wines and fortified wines such as port. But it can also be used as a y to enhance a simple dish into something amazing. Take the basic vanilla ice cream. It doesn’t get more simple than that. But take a 2 cups of red wine, a teaspoon of sugar, and simmer with a few sprigs of fennel until it is reduced to about 1/2 cup, and you have a sauce to drizzle over that ice cream that’s to die for.
How have you used wine in your cooking that has gotten rave reviews?