cooking with corked

Interesting result, Dale. I don't recall what I may have said on this subject previously, but TCA is not very volatile all things considered (it's a solid at room temp and boils at a ridiculously high temperature), though the fact that we can smell it tells us that it has

*some* volatility. The point is, though, that it won't have completely evaporated from your sauce. More likely is that it's been chemically modified by the cooking process. Oxidation is a possibility, though related compounds like PCBs and dioxin (scared yet? :P) are notoriously resistant to chemical degradation. How about this? It's dissolved in the fat, and that reduces our ability to sense it? It's likely that one reason that we can smell it in such low concentration in wine is that it isn't very soluble in wine, whereas it's going to be very soluble in fat, thereby reducing the amount that ends up in the air. I like that answer, and it may even have some basis in reality. ;-)

Mark Lipton

Hi, Mark -

Had you considered the possibility that it may be steam distilled away during the cooking process?

Tom S

Of course the meat, seasonings, etc. might mask the corked smell a bit also.

At one time I made vinegar from leftover wine. I soon learned not to include corked or otherwise grossy defective wine. The vinegar did tend to mask some of the defects, but by no means all.

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In message , Cwdjrx _ writes

According to the Pocket Food & Wine Guide, 'most bad flavours and aromas of defective wines - smells caused by rogue sulphur compounds (rotten eggs, putrid drains, cabbages, sweaty socks...) leave with the steam. One thing boiling won't rid a wine of is corkiness and other musty smells. It may be slightly modified in the boiling, but your sauce will stay resolutely musty'.

Key points it mentions are not to waste complex, aromatic wines in the kitchen, avoid oaky wines for cooking and don't use aluminium when cooking with wine as it reacts to form aluminium compounds.

It has lots more useful advice.

Who is the author of the Pocket guide?

On the basis of one experiment, I'm not prepared to state that one can always cook with wine. But I was searching hard for a whiff of TCA in that sauce, and striking out. I think next I'll try this recipe from Sue Courtney, a NZ wine writer (scroll to near bottom):

I'munsure in the sauce I made whether TCA steamed off, was altered, or was masked (there was oil, butter, and meat fat in the pan). Will report on next experiment.

Dale

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In message , Dale Williams writes

It's by Kathryn McWhirter & Charles Metcalfe, and it was published for Sainsbury's (a UK supermarket chain) by Websters International. My copy is from 1995 and I remember seeing it in a larger format for a while after that, but I doubt if it's still in print. I've just checked on the Sainsbury's website and it's not there, though they do have other wine and food pairing guides by other authors.

Go to

and search for 'wine'.

However the authors above have popped up on the website for Tesco, a rival UK supermarket chain:

There is also a food & wine pairing guide here.