Adults Only: Cooking With Alcohol

Alcohol in the kitchen doesn’t have to mean a sneaky glass of wine while you’re cooking dinner. Sometimes it can actually make it into the food and will likely make dishes better as a result.

While you don’t need to put booze in absolutely everything you’re cooking – no matter how tempting it might be – certain dishes taste so much better with it. Alcohol can add a depth of flavour, make a meal taste a lot more complex and, in some cases, actually mean it cooks better.

But cooking with alcohol isn’t just a case of throwing in a splash of wine and hoping for the best, you need to ensure you’re using it in the right ways to get the best results. So you can make the most of a bit of cheeky booze in your kitchen, here are some of the best ways to use it well:

Because alcohol adds such a depth of flavour, it is great for adding to marinades to help enrich meat and seafood. While too much alcohol can affect protein by changing its texture, just the right amount will help to increase its flavour and bring out the best possible taste.

The best way to use alcohol in marinades is to team dark alcohol with dark meats and light ones with lighter meats and fish. This will ensure you don’t overpower the ingredient or change its colour.

You can give alcohol marinades a try with this easy tequila and lime one from The Wholesome Dish, which is ideal for chicken and seafood and will create a fresh and delicious meal.

Booze also works really well in sauce to add depth of flavour and is a really easy way to make your sauce taste more complex. However, a lot of people overdo it when it comes to adding things like wine and whisky to their sauce, adding a bit too much so that the alcohol is all you can taste.

It’s a good idea to substitute some of the water or stock that you usually add to your sauce for alcohol and simply add a splash more later on if you want to increase the flavour. Work to the same rule that dark booze is for dark meats and light is for fish and ingredients like chicken and you won’t really go wrong.

To help you make some tasty sauces that include booze, try this pork and mustard cider sauce recipe from A Life of Geekery or whip up some of Lavender and Lovage’s seafood chowder.

Do you ever order something with beer batter and wonder why all battered foods don’t taste quite as good? Whether it’s onion rings, fish or the humble battered sausage, beer batter just seems to take it to the next level and leave our mouths watering.

Beer batter results in a super crispy and golden batter, but keeps the fish, onion or sausage nice and tender. This is because beer contains several things that help it to make the best batter, including a lot of-of air, which makes for a lovely bubbly batter. Because the bubbles in beer also stick around for longer, it means that the heat from the oil doesn’t damage the food it encases, resulting in a crispy crust, but perfectly cooked interior.

The result is the best better without you having to know any fancy techniques. Try it for yourself with this fab recipe from Tinned Tomatoes for beer battered garlic mushrooms that are sure to be a big hit.

We all know that fruit is healthy and that to get the most benefits from it we have to eat it as it is. However, fruit can also be fairly decadent and made more delicious when teamed with alcohol. We don’t just mean adding brandy to sultanas and dried fruit to create a rich Christmas cake or pudding – although this is a great option – as adding it to fresh fruit can also create simple but tasty desserts.

Certain fruit and alcohol pairings work really well, such as brandy with cherries or apricot and red wine with pears. Finding the right alcohol for your fruit will help to bring out the flavour, add richness and ensure that desserts are for adults only.

You can use alcohol to preserve certain fruits for a later date – brandy apricots on ice cream is always a good idea if you’re over 18 – or to create puddings for eating straight away. Try this recipe for pears poached in dessert wine from Fresh From The Oven to get to grips with alcohol and fruit.

Of course, it isn’t just fruit that tastes great with alcohol; most desserts can be made to be a little bit more decadent with the addition of a cheeky tipple. Whether your poison of choice is wine, cider, Irish cream, brandy, whisky, gin or something else, you’re sure to be able to find a pudding that pairs with it.

As with any other meal you make with alcohol, be sure to start with a little bit so as not to overpower what you’re making, remembering that delicate ingredients need less. You can always add a splash more rum, but things get difficult when it comes to trying to hide the flavour – especially if you’ve done a bit too much tasting and the recipe is getting a bit blurred.

If you fancy making a boozy dessert, whatever the occasion, give this gin and tonic cheesecake from Sunday Baking a go or team chocolate with something stronger by trying The Little Loaf’s chocolate whisky layer cake. Just make sure that most of the booze goes into the food.

*credit to The Little Loaf for our featured image