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#Post#: 73055--------------------------------------------------
Your Culinary Questions Answered
By: Venus193 Date: January 15, 2022, 9:09 pm
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I thought this general topic would be interesting for conundrum
cooking questions.
Due to my recent experience with the high price of ingredients
for my boeuf bourgignon, I wondered about something. The wine I
was used to using 12 years ago was not available and the one I
ended up buying cost at least twice as much. Since I was
working with 5 lbs of beef I spent a lot of $$$ on this. There
are other dry reds out there that can be used in cooking that
would have been less expensive, but would not have been from
France. So the question is......
If the recipe is French, do you have to use French wine?
#Post#: 73057--------------------------------------------------
Re: Your Culinary Questions Answered
By: pierrotlunaire0 Date: January 15, 2022, 10:09 pm
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Cook's Illustrated is my friend because they try everything. I
do remember that when they made BB (I'm tired and don't want to
type it out), they tried several different reds. Their
conclusion was that it did not have to be a French burgundy, but
it did have to be a burgundy. The burgundy created the richest
and most balanced results. I do not remember the exact
recommendation, but they produced great results with burgundies
ranging from the high end through much more modestly priced
bottles.
#Post#: 73058--------------------------------------------------
Re: Your Culinary Questions Answered
By: Aleko Date: January 16, 2022, 5:48 am
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[quote]If the recipe is French, do you have to use French
wine?[/quote]
Absolutely not. Relax!
Far more to the point than the national origin of the wine is
the kind of wine it is, and a huge part of that is the grape
variety it’s made of. “Boeuf bourguignon” means “beef the way
it’s cooked in Burgundy’, and naturally the wine they use in
Burgundy is their own local red burgundy. That’s made
exclusively from pinot noir grapes, which have a distinctive
flavour. A US wine made from the same grape will actually be far
more suitable for your boeuf bourguignon than a wine from
another region of France, for example a red Bordeaux, which is
made from a blend of mainly cabernet sauvignon and merlot; the
flavour is quite different and a lot more tannic.
When using decades-old recipes that specify a given wine, be
aware how relatively recently it is that high-quality wine
started to be made and marketed widely from countries other than
France, Italy and Spain - and even in those countries only a few
specialised regions were considered to produce decent wine.
(Before about 1980 it was an article of faith that no drinkable
wine was or could be made anywhere in France south of the
Garonne, but now there are hundreds of good wineries in the
south.) So they say ‘use burgundy / claret / Moselle / whatever’
because back then that was pretty much the only wine of that
type on the market. You don’t need to take that instruction
literally; rather, take it as an indication of the kind of wine
needed.
I remember when in the early 80s my mother was made a present
of a big sea-trout, a fish she hadn’t cooked before: she looked
in an excellent 1950s cookery book which said ‘Start by poaching
it in a bottle of the best burgundy you can afford’ and ended by
saying ‘and if the sauce tastes a bit harsh even with that
expensive wine, throw in a glass of good cognac to mellow it’.
Because back in the 1950s pinot noir grapes were only grown in
Burgundy (or if they were yet being grown in New Zealand and
elsewhere, the wine hadn’t yet made it to Britain); and because
modern winemaking hygiene wasn’t yet a thing, many small
Burgundian peasant producers’ stuff could be pretty nasty, and
even the posh vineyards could sometimes produce tainted wine.
Nowadays you’d be crazy to use the best burgundy you could
afford to poach a fish; for decades now, New World winemakers,
led by the New Zealanders, have been producing delicious and
consistently-clean pinot noir wine at a fraction of the price.
#Post#: 73059--------------------------------------------------
Re: Your Culinary Questions Answered
By: Aleko Date: January 16, 2022, 5:58 am
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[quote]Their conclusion was that it did not have to be a French
burgundy, but it did have to be a burgundy.[/quote]
In the UK, and indeed anywhere in Europe, that sentence would be
a complete contradiction in terms; you can not, legally, call a
wine burgundy unless it actually comes from Burgundy. Are
American winemakers really allowed to market their pinot noir
wines as ‘burgundy’ in the USA? If so, they’d have to re-label
it if they wanted to sell it anywhere else!
I learn something new every day on this site . . .
#Post#: 73060--------------------------------------------------
Re: Your Culinary Questions Answered
By: oogyda Date: January 16, 2022, 8:34 am
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[quote author=Aleko link=topic=2258.msg73059#msg73059
date=1642334299]
[quote]Their conclusion was that it did not have to be a French
burgundy, but it did have to be a burgundy.[/quote]
In the UK, and indeed anywhere in Europe, that sentence would be
a complete contradiction in terms; you can not, legally, call a
wine burgundy unless it actually comes from Burgundy. Are
American winemakers really allowed to market their pinot noir
wines as ‘burgundy’ in the USA? If so, they’d have to re-label
it if they wanted to sell it anywhere else!
I learn something new every day on this site . . .
[/quote]
In "New World" wine regions, such as the United States, the
wine laws of the appellation (geographical indicator) systems
only pertain to boundary specifics and guaranteeing that a
certain percentage of grapes come from the area listed on the
wine label.
#Post#: 73062--------------------------------------------------
Re: Your Culinary Questions Answered
By: Hmmm Date: January 16, 2022, 10:35 am
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[quote author=Aleko link=topic=2258.msg73059#msg73059
date=1642334299]
[quote]Their conclusion was that it did not have to be a French
burgundy, but it did have to be a burgundy.[/quote]
In the UK, and indeed anywhere in Europe, that sentence would be
a complete contradiction in terms; you can not, legally, call a
wine burgundy unless it actually comes from Burgundy. Are
American winemakers really allowed to market their pinot noir
wines as ‘burgundy’ in the USA? If so, they’d have to re-label
it if they wanted to sell it anywhere else!
I learn something new every day on this site . . .
[/quote]
In 40 years of exploring New World wines, I have never seen an
American Winery call their wine Burgundy. It is frowned upon,
but I'm not sure if it is illegal. In France, majority of
Burgundy uses Pinot Noir grapes. So a winery in the US would
call theirs a Pinot Noir and they may list it as an "old world
style" with a description of similar to Burgundy. It's just like
no US winery markets their sparkling wines as Champagne. And you
will find American made wines with a description of being in the
Bordeaux style, but they are not listed as a Bordeaux.
#Post#: 73080--------------------------------------------------
Re: Your Culinary Questions Answered
By: Aleko Date: January 18, 2022, 2:48 am
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Going back to the original question: you can’t replicate a
foreign dish exactly unless you can obtain all the authentic
ingredients, which is rarely possible. A Burgundian cook setting
out to make boeuf bourguignon in Burgundy would as a matter of
course use not only red burgundy wine but beef from the local
Charolais breed, in preference to other, cheaper wine or beef.
And even if you could source Charolais beef in the USA, you sure
as heck couldn’t get the specific varieties of onions, mushrooms
and carrots you’d find for sale in Dijon or Auxerre. Even the
butter in France is made by a different method and so it tastes
different!
So unless a recipe includes some really key ingredient - nuoc
mam sauce, foie gras, whatever - it’s really a question of
using ingredients that are not only good quality in themselves
but do the same culinary job as the originals. For example,
there’s a Spanish recipe I like, Truchas con Jamon - trout fried
and wrapped in fried Serrano ham. If I can’t lay my hands on
Spanish ham I quite happily use Italian prosciutto or Black
Forest ham: because these each have a different flavour of
course the dish tastes different, but it works fine because
these are all raw dry-cured hams. Cooked ham would change the
whole texture of the dish for the worse.
#Post#: 73086--------------------------------------------------
Re: Your Culinary Questions Answered
By: lowspark Date: January 18, 2022, 8:26 am
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A lot of good information here about wines!
I think if you are a chef of some kind, cooking for customers,
they yeah, you probably need to stick to specific ingredients to
maintain the integrity of the dishes you serve.
But for the typical home cook, I don't think it's necessary to
be that rigid. You can make some delicious meals by following
the spirit of a recipe instead of the letter.
When a recipe calls for a specific varietal of wine, I've found
that other varietals will work well, as long as they are the
same type. If a recipe calls for a cabernet, for example, I find
that you can sub another dry red - merlot or pinot, or even a
dry red blend.
Again, I'm not listing the dish on a menu and trying to get
Michelin stars. I'm just trying to feed family and/or friends a
delicious meal. So if it's not 100% authentic, I'm ok with that.
I just want it to taste good!
#Post#: 73095--------------------------------------------------
Re: Your Culinary Questions Answered
By: Hmmm Date: January 18, 2022, 9:26 am
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I agree Lowspark.
Most people would not be able to tell the difference in a
Charolais vs an Angus especially once it is stewed with wine and
other products.
There are a few products that I don't think can be substituted.
For example, if I can not get Spanish piquillo peppers and
Spanish tuna, I'm not going to make Pimientos del Piquillo
Rellenos de Atún substituing a different pepper or tuna. It's
just not the same at all. But if I can't find fresh Savory, I'll
substitute Thyme in a favorite meatball recipe.
But I want make Thai Basil chicken using Italian basil, it has
to have Thai basil. Any time a recipe writer suggests the swap,
I know I need to move on from that site. That's like saying it's
fine to just use Tellicherry peppercorns in place of Sichuan
peppercorns. I mean, you can make a dish that will taste nice,
but it's not going to be the same.
#Post#: 73099--------------------------------------------------
Re: Your Culinary Questions Answered
By: Aleko Date: January 18, 2022, 11:19 am
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[quote]But I want make Thai Basil chicken using Italian basil,
it has to have Thai basil. Any time a recipe writer suggests the
swap, I know I need to move on from that site. That's like
saying it's fine to just use Tellicherry peppercorns in place of
Sichuan peppercorns. I mean, you can make a dish that will taste
nice, but it's not going to be the same. [/quote]
I totally agree. In the same way, if I wrap Black Forest ham
round my trout I know it's not 'truchas con jamon' and wouldn't
pretend to guests that that was what I was giving them. It's
'Forelle mit Schinken', which is also a d*mn fine dish that I
can be confident people will like. Yes, chefs claiming to be
serving 'X-named-and-known-dish' have a responsibility to stay
true to the recipe; but otherwise it is totally legit to use
one's own judgement to substitute ingredients if that also
produces delicious results, even if the deliciousness isn't the
same.
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