What’s the goal and why adding something like vodka if you’re just going to cook it out anyway? Why add it if it’s all going to evaporate in the end?
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What makes you think the alcohol would just be boiled away?
We add broth, soy sauce, cream, and many other liquid ingredients into food for flavors. When water evaporate, the sauce thickens. They don’t become air. The same is true for alcohol.
– it helps things melt or dissolve (see: cheese fondue)
– it can be delicious (see: pears in red wine)
– it can be fun to set on fire (see: Christmas pudding or crêpe Suzette)
I am not sure about vodka because vodka doesn’t have much flavour after the alcohol is removed but wine, beer and whiskey all have distinctive flavours that add to the food even after the alcohol is boiled off.
White wine in chicken noodle soup is a thousand times better than chicken noodle soup without white wine. That’s all I know, so I’ll keep doing it haha
It’s a misconception that all the alcohol disappears. It really depends how you are cooking it and for how long. If you add brandy to a peppercorn sauce in a pan and simmer for 5 mins your going to have more left than if you leave it simmering for 30 mins. Even burning off the alcohol, say, on a Christmas pudding, leaves you with a decent whack of booze. It flavours the food, can aid cooking if you flambe and is a good solvent for sneaking ingredients into sauces.
No one is adding pure ethanol. The alcoholic drink added also adds its own flavors, and the evaporation of the alcohol can also change the taste.
Flavour.
It doesn’t always work, but when it does, there is a distinct flavour that comes with cooking some things with some alcohol. One that worked well for me recently was leaving some steaks to marinade in whisky (nothing outrageously expensive, £35/750ml) for a couple of hours. Cooked it and you could definitely taste whisky element – and was noticeably more tender than usual, which when you buy cheaper tougher steaks is a nice change!
Same as when I do red wine gravy, even with a cheaper bottle (£7/750ml); it’s distinctly flavoursome.
It’s better than “cooking with gas”?
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