Hi all,
I recently came across a recipe that I wish to try for a lentil bolognese. I’m excited to try it as I’ve been trying to find a recipe I can use my red lentils with, but I’m curious about one thing both with this recipe, and recipes in general.
This recipe calls for the pan to be deglazed with red wine. This is something I’ve seen before in other recipes, though this recipe is the first of which I’m taking an interest in exploring. I’m personally fine with regular red wine, but my concern is that I have a friend who is incredibly cautious with alcohol, and says she’d refuse to eat things if they had alcoholic ingredients.
Putting aside my personal thoughts about that, I was curious if using a non-alcoholic wine would work just as well, or if the alcohol adds certain properties to the wine that make it function better as an ingredient or for deglazing. I’m mainly curious as I hope to invite friends over for dinner in the future, and want to make accommodations where possible, especially if it’s as easy as simply buying a slightly different ingredient.
Thanks in advance!
If the pan is hot enough and little enough wine is used, all the alcohol will quickly evaporate out. It actually tastes bad when that doesn’t happen; you’re supposed to let it stir around until that bit has boiled off.
That being said, the deglaze is there to get the fats and other caramelized components unstuck from the metal and reincorporate them into the meal. Any highly acidic liquid ought to do although it’ll change the flavor profile quite a bit depending on what you use. To be safe and stick to the spirit of what the recipe is trying to get you to do, you can use apple cider vinegar. But you’ll need a base to offset the acidity if you put in too much.
Deglazing liquid does not have to be acidic, water works fine too, but you aren’t adding any flavor. It’s the action of adding a liquid to a pan that’s above boiling that works all the fond off the bottom of the pan.