Alcohol begins evaporating, or “cooking off,” as soon as it’s heated to 173 degrees F. But it doesn’t disappear instantaneously. According to studies by the USDA, it takes 15 minutes of constant simmering to eliminate just 60% of the alcohol present in a dish—and up to 2 1/2 hours to get rid of 95%. These times might vary slightly depending on the specific food the alcohol has been added to, as well as the size of the pan it's cooking in, but these variations aren’t great enough to make a huge difference in the overall picture.
Let’s be real, most of us aren't simmering a sauce for over two hours after we pour in the alcohol. Unless we're making beef bourguignon, chances are the booze is in the pan for considerably less than an hour before we pull it off the heat. In those cases, much of the alcohol is still there.
So, if you're not serving something elaborate like flaming saganaki
or flambeing to show off, there still a buzz in your Penne vodka...
Wanna learn how to do it right?
As someone who distills, I have to say that the above article is bullshit. It doesn't take HOURS to evaporate an once or two of alcohol at much above 173 F...more like minutes, maybe 10 or a bit more in a sauce in a saucepan.
ReplyDeleteWhoever wrote that article doesn't know what they are talking about.
Bad news for Southern Baptists.
ReplyDeleteAs any chemist knows, distillation takes time. Nothing in the world of chemistry is instantaneous. Very quick, perhaps, but not instantaneous. So, yeah, there's a lot of ethanol in the sauce. So to speak.
ReplyDelete