Wine Cookery

We've gone through what all the sloshing, swirling and spitting wine is all about now I'm going to give you the information I found on Cooking with wine.  These tips are just generalizations about cooking with wine to help you get into the swing of it.

1.  When cooking with wine, bring the dish to the boiling point, and do not cover - this allows the spirits to evaporate, leaving the essential flavor behind, but do not boil.
2.  When you marinate meat in wine (for flavor and/or as a tenderizer), dry the meat well before cooking or it will not brown.
3.  Meats that will eventually have wine added to their cooking sauce should be well browned at the start of their cooking period, before wine is added.
4.  White wine is best for fish - the only part of the old rule that should be adhered to;  red wine is too assertive a flavor, and will also stain the flesh of the fish an unpleasant color.
5.  Delicate dishes (fillet of sole, for example) can take only a little wine, while more robust ones can stand more.
6.  If a recipe does not call for wine, but you would like to substitute some for part of the liquid, add only a very little at a time, tasting as you go.
7.  Be sparing with sherry, which has a strong flavor; make certain what you use is dry sherry, not one of the sweet varieties;  soup is the exception, where cream sherry may be used.
8.  When you are making a very tart or a very highly, spicily seasoned dish, omit wine.
9.  Taste as you cook - never add so much wine that it drowns out the flavor of the dish's chief ingredient; in dishes with very saulty ingredients, add salt to season only at the end of cooking time, if needed.