How does cooking with alcohol flavor the food when the alcohol eventually evaporates? What kind of flavor is absorbed?
For example, if I make a sauce using vodka, what kind of flavor is added when vodka doesn’t have much of a flavor already?
What are different flavors imparted into food from the different alcohols: red wine, white wine, beer, rice wine, etc?
Comments
The alcohol in the liquor you’re using evaporates, but the other things (sugar, flavor, herbs, etc) stay behind in the sauce.
Vodka has no flavor so does not add its own flavor but it helps bring out and brighten flavors in citrus (which a tomato is) the same way it does with orange or grapefruit juice. It’s like adding a drop of water to whiskey to help express the oils.
You will have some of the flavor of the wine or beer (minus the alcohol) in the sauce. Sweetness/bitterness from the wine etc when making like a marsala for example.