Trouble when cooking with Wines

Whenever i try to cook with wines (making stocks and adding a little white wine, or braising with red wine), I find that halfway during the cooking process, a strange sour-ish smell, reminiscent of chinese medicine is produced, and it is pretty strong.

Has anyone experienced similar smells before? The wines are always bought and stored in my wine fridge at home, so i doubt that expired wine is the cause. Additional, I always use the same stainless steel pot for the braises, and I've read somewhere (might be Mcgee) that the wine can react with the metals and cause off smells.

Someone do enlighten me and how I can prevent this. Much appreciated!

Find more posts tagged with

Recipes Q's

Comments

marianogreco

It is strange for a stainless steel pot but it is the only thing constant in your equation.I would procede systematically,starting with a different pot.

kh.anuj

I don't suspect its you're pot. Most modern food grade stainless steel alloys (18/8, 18/10) are manufactured in such a way that they are almost completely corrosion resistant. However as Mariano pointed out, it does seem like the only constant in the equation. Try using an enamel/ceramic or non-stick pot.

Smells might also come from naturally occurring sulfites in the wine's. This odour would be akin to a rotten egg. You could try decanting the wine before using it, mixing it for about 30 seconds in a blender is a fast way to decant the wine.

Finally, if you are simply looking to mitigate the off-smell you could try evaporating off the alcohol (reducing the wine) at the beginning of the cooking process, typically when de-glazing the mirepoix. This will sufficiently oxidize the wine and should prevent these off odours from manifesting themselves later on. This is a fairly common technique when making stocks in pressure cookers since the alcohol will not evaporate inside its sealed environment. If you decide to give this a try use wine with a low tannin content like a zinfandel or syrah. You might also want to add protein during this reduction step which helps "fine" the wine so it isn't too bitter.

grant

Does the flavor change? Does the aroma persist?

Thaddeus_37740

Hi Grant, it does! The smell and aroma can be tasted in the stock, especially during the aftertaste. As for the persistence, I'm not a hundred percent sure but they seem to go away after an hour or two, but it might be due to the fact that I added more stock afterwards or prawn heads (when i supposedly wanted to make a vegetable stock)