cooking with late harvest/sweet wines

[CtznCane]

I not only love drinking sweet/late harvest wines, I use them for cooking as well and am constantly on the lookout for new ideas. BTW: I also serve the same wines with the dishes too.

2 favorites of mine are:

1. Doing split lobster tails in butter & almond oil and L.H. Riesling , then finishing the sauce off with cream and slivered almonds. -- I usually do this as an apetizer though for entree as well once in awhile.

2. Chicken breats scallopini style briefly sauteed with butter & shallot, then adding (not available right now) Rosenblum Muscat de Glacier. After removing the chicken breasts adding cream and reducing the sauce, then garnishing with orange slices.

I'd really be interested on feedback of what savory dishes others make with Late Harvest wines. I feel these wines are undrused in this regard.

[Brad Ballinger]

Not much of this occurs. Sometimes a recipe will call for Sauternes, but they don't mean the classified ones that can raid your wallet, they mean the under $10 version from B&G.

Usually, though, when people want something sweet, they will go with a fruit-based sauce that has been reduced. It's much cheaper that dessert wine.

[Steve Klc]

Not much of this occurs

I'm not so sure Brad, at least at the higher or more creative end. Just about every chef working in whatever you want to call the New American style--those influenced by or trying to emulate the cooking of a Thomas Keller or Rick Tramonto--have or have had a foie gras dish on their menus utilizing a late harvest or dessert wine along with fruit--as a sauce or macerating the fruit--and not just pairing the wine with the dish. Reducing fresh fruits changes those fruits--and many think deadens the flavor and the acidity/brightness quotient of said fruit--and that's where some inherent acidity in a good dessert wine can help layer flavor. The Asian/Fusionists, or whatever you want to call them, also realize sweet wines harmonize with their food well and not just in a wine-food pairing sense. I see glazes and gelees of dessert wines used in savory applications quite a bit when dining at the high end--usually as an accent, say glazed on clam or oyster for instance--and all this could pretty easily be adapted by you Cane because you'd use so little of those relatively expensive wines at home (versus in a restaurant)--you'd use leftovers much the same way a chef would use. I'd try not to dilute the wine and use it pure in your dish. You could also pour out a gelee of the dessert wine then cut it into cubes and sprinkle it on a dish--some chefs put the dessert wine cubes in a bowl along with some other ingredients--and then pour a hot consomme or stock over it tableside--allowing the cubes to melt and release aroma.

[viva]

Since you'd drink an LH wine with lobster or foie gras anyway to counteract the richness of the food, I think cooking with it in those dishes is wonderful. A little for the sauce... a little for me... sauce... me.

Cane, when you posted this topic, I started thinking of more dishes to work with a dessert wine in the sauce - like a LH riesling & apple sauce over roasted pork, or LH with apricots over roast turkey... yum.

Best pie I ever made was with quinces poached in muscat-de-beaumes-de-venise (no idea if that is spelled correctly) as the filling. I'd love to work that into a savory dish.

[Brad Ballinger]

Not much of this occurs

I'm not so sure Brad, at least at the higher or more creative end. Just about every chef working in whatever you want to call the New American style--those influenced by or trying to emulate the cooking of a Thomas Keller or Rick Tramonto--have or have had a foie gras dish on their menus utilizing a late harvest or dessert wine along with fruit--as a sauce or macerating the fruit--and not just pairing the wine with the dish. Reducing fresh fruits changes those fruits--and many think deadens the flavor and the acidity/brightness quotient of said fruit--and that's where some inherent acidity in a good dessert wine can help layer flavor. The Asian/Fusionists, or whatever you want to call them, also realize sweet wines harmonize with their food well and not just in a wine-food pairing sense. I see glazes and gelees of dessert wines used in savory applications quite a bit when dining at the high end--usually as an accent, say glazed on clam or oyster for instance--and all this could pretty easily be adapted by you Cane because you'd use so little of those relatively expensive wines at home (versus in a restaurant)--you'd use leftovers much the same way a chef would use. I'd try not to dilute the wine and use it pure in your dish. You could also pour out a gelee of the dessert wine then cut it into cubes and sprinkle it on a dish--some chefs put the dessert wine cubes in a bowl along with some other ingredients--and then pour a hot consomme or stock over it tableside--allowing the cubes to melt and release aroma.

I was thinking more the home cook. Restaurant chefs, particularly Keller and Tramonto are an entirely different league, and it's not even apples to apples. They cook with plenty of ingredients that would be once-in-a-lifetime luxuries for me.

Thanks for the comment about reducing fruit. I was thinking moe in terms of juices that compotes, but it's good to know.

The one place I do use dessert wines in cooking is granita. Yum yum.

[Busboy]

Try browning duck pieces and then braising them in dessert wine, duck or chicken stock, leeks, apples, thyme, whatever floats your boat. If you have time, cool skim and strain the braising liquid and then slowly bring the duck back to heat in it. Serve with wild rice and sauteed apples. Pretty swell.

[Carolyn Tillie]

For me, most LH and Sauterne tend to be a bit too expensive to cook with -- however, I will use port reductions in sauces, especially over venison or duck.

I was watching one of those Great Chefs series on the Discovery Channel where the chef reduced an entire bottle of ice wine for what would ultimately be four servings of a dessert -- at $75.00 a bottle, I was incredibly jealous!

[Jon Tseng]

The obvious classic is peaches poached in sauternes... especially this time of year

The riff would be foie gras poached in sauternes or sweet wine... the thomas keller has a recipe for gewurtztraminer-poached foie gras - you should be able to substitue a sweet wine here

One of the deserts a gavroche is london is a tokaji delice (think its a bavarois/mousse thing flavoured with tokaji) which could also be made with other sweet/lh wines

Look at the James Peterson book on Desert Wines - theres recipes to go with wines in there so there may be some which include them too

cheers

J

[Busboy]

For me, most LH and Sauterne tend to be a bit too expensive to cook with -- however, I will use port reductions in sauces, especially over venison or duck.

!

I've found a very reasonably priced Greek muscat -- Samos? -- for about $9 at Whole Foods. It pretty mush stomps most dessert wines that cost more than twice as much in terms of taste and body, and holds up in cooking quite well. The Greeks take dessert wine pretty seriously and do them well; it's worth seeking them out for both cooking and drinking.

[CtznCane]

cost is a factor and I wouldn't go over the top myself price wise. The one I use with the Lobster usually is Concannon Vineyards Late Harvest J. Reisling at about 17.50 per bottle, though 15 since we are club members there. I've also found a pleasant, not great, covey run LH chenin blanc at Trader Joes. The Concannon is a fine one regardless of price, but not all sweet wines are too outrageously priced.

I really like the idea of with the duck breast! Gotta try that one.

[wnissen]

Julia's recipe for Suprêmes de volaille à blanc calls for vermouth, but she says you can also make it with tawny port. Not wanting to waste a real tawny on this, I used a grocery store "tawny" "port" that made the sauce less than white, but tasted great. I've also made a rosemary, dried cherry, and LBV port sauce to go with sautéed pork tenderloin medallions. Again, yum. My only beef is that these become difficult to match with wine due to all the sugar. I usually pour myself a small glass of the sauce wine and sip it with the meal.

Walt