Cooking with alcohol

[Lost Boy]

I have several LDS friends that won't eat any of my food that was prepared with alcohol.  A few of my favorites are sukiyaki, gyudon, and oyakodon... All Japanese dishes and taste best prepared with sake. 

And for you that think it all boils out, that is not true, there is still some there. 

So do you use alcohol in your cooking? If so, what do you use it in? 

[Guest MormonGator]

4 minutes ago, Lost Boy said:

I have several LDS friends that won't eat any of my food that was prepared with alcohol.  A few of my favorites are sukiyaki, gyudon, and oyakodon... All Japanese dishes and taste best prepared with sake. 

And for you that think it all boils out, that is not true, there is still some there. 

So do you use alcohol in your cooking? If so, what do you use it in? 

One of my first lunches in the church was with a former bishop and current RS president. I saw a bottle of Jack Daniels and I was like "Woah!". They used it to flavor ribs or something. 

Edited May 27, 2018 by MormonGator

[Overwatch]

We don't keep/use bottles of alcoholic beverages in our home. If it comes in an ingredient like vanilla then whatever. If I buy a food with it by accident like mustard with white wine in the ingredients. I'll either toss it or use it depending on how I feel. I doubt I am getting drunk on mustard anytime soon but I want to be cautious not to make exceptions until the day I am just slamming down a beer.

We were given the command to avoid its poison effects, if consumed in large quantities and addictive properties. Also aren't we supposed to avoid the appearance of evil but on the flip side aren't we supposed to judge righteously? Either way the choice is yours. God gives us enough room to govern a lot of what we do.

Hope this helps with any frustrations or concerns you have with your friends not indulging in your fine cuisine.

*Even before I met my wife I did not indulge in Alcoholic beverages. I didn't like what it did to people close to me.

Edited May 28, 2018 by Overwatch
*

[zil]

41 minutes ago, Lost Boy said:

So do you use alcohol in your cooking?

I use vanilla. 

38 minutes ago, MormonGator said:

One of my first lunches in the church was with a former bishop and current RS president. I saw a bottle of Jack Daniels and I was like "Woah!". They used it to flavor ribs or something. 

That's just the technique they use for reluctant investigators.  First the Jack Daniels, then the "Let's set a date for you to be baptized."

[Guest MormonGator]

7 minutes ago, zil said:

 

That's just the technique they use for reluctant investigators.  First the Jack Daniels, then the "Let's set a date for you to be baptized."

I once played a trick on the missionaries using Jack Daniels and apple juice. I removed the JD and filled it with apple juice. I told one missionary beforehand what I would do. When they came to my house, I poured them "whiskey" straight from the JD bottle. One missionary happily took a "shot" and acted like he was drinking real whiskey. The other missionary came very close to going into cardiac arrest, running from my house in tears, or passing out in horror. 

Edited May 27, 2018 by MormonGator

[JohnsonJones]

I'm one of those that try to avoid eating food that is cooked with alcohol.  I know some swear the alcohol is cooked out and that is probably true, but I still try to avoid foods cooked with alcohol.

[Grunt]

I avoid it.  I don't lose sleep if it happens, but I try not to.  I'm just at a point in my testimony where I don't want to be anywhere near "the line".

[LadyGator]

2 hours ago, MormonGator said:

I once played a trick on the missionaries using Jack Daniels and apple juice. I removed the JD and filled it with apple juice. I told one missionary beforehand what I would do. When they came to my house, I poured them "whiskey" straight from the JD bottle. One missionary happily took a "shot" and acted like he was drinking real whiskey. The other missionary came very close to going into cardiac arrest, running from my house in tears, or passing out in horror. 

If I’m not mistaken our house was the first member dinner for this missionary as he had just arrived from the MTC. I don’t know if he every was really able to trust his companion thanks to us 😋

[Ironhold]

Contrary to popular belief, alcohol doesn't entirely cook out of food. 

The latest group of Mythbusters actually tested that by eating Christmas confections that were cooked with alcohol, and by the time they were done one of them actually blew high enough to get a DUI. 

A lot of folks just won't take the risk of using alcohol, and will use substitutes whenever possible. 

[lostinwater]

Wow!   🍺

https://academic.oup.com/jat/article-pdf/22/3/181/2363223/22-3-181.pdf

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5421578/

Edited May 28, 2018 by lostinwater

[Lee]

21 hours ago, Lost Boy said:

I have several LDS friends that won't eat any of my food that was prepared with alcohol.  A few of my favorites are sukiyaki, gyudon, and oyakodon... All Japanese dishes and taste best prepared with sake. 

And for you that think it all boils out, that is not true, there is still some there. 

So do you use alcohol in your cooking? If so, what do you use it in? 

Not when we cook at home. If a friend cooks for us or we are at a restaurant we will eat the food if it has been prepared with alcohol . 

[NightSG]

On 5/28/2018 at 12:42 AM, lostinwater said:

Wow!   🍺

https://academic.oup.com/jat/article-pdf/22/3/181/2363223/22-3-181.pdf

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5421578/

Interesting that they only looked at commercial baked goods, which generally have a few days between finishing and consumption to continue outgassing.  IIRC, USDA did a study on home baked breads and found up to 5% ethanol concentration in bread that was still warm form the oven, though the average was closer to 2%.

[JohnsonJones]

3 hours ago, NightSG said:

Interesting that they only looked at commercial baked goods, which generally have a few days between finishing and consumption to continue outgassing.  IIRC, USDA did a study on home baked breads and found up to 5% ethanol concentration in bread that was still warm form the oven, though the average was closer to 2%.

So is that why people say homemade bread tastes so good?

 

(I am joking...too good of comment not to post a snarky reply...I should have been stronger willed on this one I suppose).

[lostinwater]

6 hours ago, JohnsonJones said:

So is that why people say homemade bread tastes so good?

 

(I am joking...too good of comment not to post a snarky reply...I should have been stronger willed on this one I suppose).

Well, @NightSG's was very good (as usual).  Mine was pleading out for such a reply.

 

Edited May 29, 2018 by lostinwater

[omegaseamaster75]

On 5/27/2018 at 2:16 PM, Lost Boy said:

I have several LDS friends that won't eat any of my food that was prepared with alcohol.  A few of my favorites are sukiyaki, gyudon, and oyakodon... All Japanese dishes and taste best prepared with sake. 

And for you that think it all boils out, that is not true, there is still some there. 

So do you use alcohol in your cooking? If so, what do you use it in? 

Lots of food has alcohol in it, I use it as needed when a recipe requires it. You can see me at the store walking out with a six pack of mexican beer, or a bottle of rum, or brandy etc. 

It is hard to eat out if you put a limitation on yourself when it comes to eating food that does not contain alcohol.  

No Italian food, no french, no mexican ( you better ask how they marinade their meats or make some sauces) certainly the best deserts are out of the question, no good sauces for your steaks.

Honestly how do you get along if you refuse to eat anything that had alcohol in it?  I guess you could always just be "that guy"

I understand that it is not all cooked out so what.....

[Vort]

1 Corinthians 8 casts the issue in a revealing light. Some of us think that the Word of Wisdom's prohibition against drinking alcoholic beverages was never intended to apply to incidental alcohol content, even use of distilled spirits. Yet a convincing argument can be made both for and against such an interpretation.

But what happens when someone tender in the faith -- perhaps a child or young adult, or a new member, or someone coming back into the faith after a hiatus of years, or someone only discovering his or her testimony in middle age -- what happens when such a person is confronted with an active and believing member who seems to him or her to discount the Word of Wisdom? When some such person sees someone cooking with sherry, s/he might well question the very foundation of his/her own testimony.

I like root beer. Specifically, I like homebrewed root beer, not the stuff made with dry ice but the stuff made with yeast. Obviously, there is a small alcohol content involved in any fermented concoction. When I was a child, this "small" content was called a "trace". So I have never worried about it. Turns out that that "trace" can be as high as 2% of the volume, which puts it in the same realm as regular beer. Even if the "trace" is much smaller, say ½% to 1%, it's still an "alcoholic beverage" in some sense. Should we avoid drinking it?

In my opinion -- please note that caveat -- drinking homebrew root beer is in no realistic sense a violation of the Word of Wisdom. But I don't see any particular virtue to it, either. If my neighbor is scandalized by my drinking root beer, does it do me harm not to drink it?

I know the counterargument: Such people should mind their own business, and heck, maybe it would do them some good to step outside their rigid interpretations and get a new perspective on things. I have used such arguments. But tender seedlings cannot be expected to weather great storms or, in some cases, even a moderate rainfall. Do we consider our brothers and sisters precious? Do we think their testimonies precious? Such things ought to inform our actions.

Reminds me of a song from my high school days -- which I believe was the theme song of an R-rated movie. (Yeah, let's go there next. Not.) The song was very popular and also widely mocked, but I think it's actually quite profound. Substitute "testimony" for "love", or else just recognize that they are two aspects of the same underlying phenomenon.

 

 

[Guest MormonGator]

14 minutes ago, Vort said:

 

 

Oh how sweet! You posted @mirkwoods favorite song! 

[Sunday21]

12 minutes ago, MormonGator said:

Oh how sweet! You posted @mirkwoods favorite song! 

Really hate this song!

[Guest MormonGator]

Just now, Sunday21 said:

Really hate this song!

I hate it with a passion as well @Sunday21. Cheesy, over the top, melodramatic and downright horrible. 

Poor @mirkwood though. Dude starts crying when he hears this song. 

[unixknight]

I don't care what anybody says I love that song.

As for cooking with alcohol...  It's a case by case basis for me.  Would I use it in a recipe like the aforementioned Christmas candies?  Nah.  Would I use it in a recipe where enough of it cooks off that it doesn't matter anymore?  Sure.

I'm not gonna die on that hill either way.  10 years from now I might feel differently but I feel comfortable saying I obey the Word of Wisdom honestly in my current approach.

[Guest]

On 5/27/2018 at 4:16 PM, Lost Boy said:

I have several LDS friends that won't eat any of my food that was prepared with alcohol.  A few of my favorites are sukiyaki, gyudon, and oyakodon... All Japanese dishes and taste best prepared with sake. 

And for you that think it all boils out, that is not true, there is still some there. 

So do you use alcohol in your cooking? If so, what do you use it in? 

I don't normally cook anything with alcohol.  But I did prepare one dish.  I don't remember what it was.  But I found out that I did it wrong.  It seemed to taste fine.  But I was taking a cooking class and the chef said,

Quote

"There's really no such thing as 'cooking wine'.  If the wine is so bad that you wouldn't drink it, and then you're going to cook away the only redeeming quality about it, then how is it going to make your food taste better?

He suggested that if cooking with alcohol, you need a high quality wine that will compliment the dish's other ingredients.  That made a lot of sense.

Since that time, my wife and I ate at a really nice restaurant for one of our anniversary dinners.  We ordered a roast that (from the description) looked/sounded really appetizing.  It was cooked with wine and slow roasted all day.  We figured the wine cooked away, and we ordered it.  We both took one bite and regretted ordering it.  The meat was tender and juicy.  We could tell many of the seasonings were just fine.  But the flavor of the wine was pretty strong.  We really couldn't finish it.  Basically the wine ruined the otherwise perfect roast.

We brought home the left overs and gave it to someone's dog.  She wouldn't eat it.

Since then, we really never saw the need to add it.  It wasn't a matter of the WoW.  It was just that we were perfectly happy with the seasonings that we cooked with.  And I just didn't see spending $200 on a bottle of wine to ensure it was a good enough wine to cook with.

Yes, we're aware that a small amount of alcohol remains after cooking.  But there's a small amount of alcohol in a lot of foods we eat that we didn't even realize had any alcohol in it.  The way I think of this is: If there is such a small percentage of alcohol in it that we'd have to basically eat till we burst just to get 1/4 of the way to drunk, then we're probably not going to ever over consume.  There's not much of a danger there.

[Lost Boy]

4 hours ago, Carborendum said:

I don't normally cook anything with alcohol.  But I did prepare one dish.  I don't remember what it was.  But I found out that I did it wrong.  It seemed to taste fine.  But I was taking a cooking class and the chef said,

He suggested that if cooking with alcohol, you need a high quality wine that will compliment the dish's other ingredients.  That made a lot of sense.

Since that time, my wife and I ate at a really nice restaurant for one of our anniversary dinners.  We ordered a roast that (from the description) looked/sounded really appetizing.  It was cooked with wine and slow roasted all day.  We figured the wine cooked away, and we ordered it.  We both took one bite and regretted ordering it.  The meat was tender and juicy.  We could tell many of the seasonings were just fine.  But the flavor of the wine was pretty strong.  We really couldn't finish it.  Basically the wine ruined the otherwise perfect roast.

We brought home the left overs and gave it to someone's dog.  She wouldn't eat it.

Since then, we really never saw the need to add it.  It wasn't a matter of the WoW.  It was just that we were perfectly happy with the seasonings that we cooked with.  And I just didn't see spending $200 on a bottle of wine to ensure it was a good enough wine to cook with.

Yes, we're aware that a small amount of alcohol remains after cooking.  But there's a small amount of alcohol in a lot of foods we eat that we didn't even realize had any alcohol in it.  The way I think of this is: If there is such a small percentage of alcohol in it that we'd have to basically eat till we burst just to get 1/4 of the way to drunk, then we're probably not going to ever over consume.  There's not much of a danger there.

Most of the alcohol I use is in Japanese cooking.  And generally is is alcohol specifically made for cooking.  I have tried the dishes without alcohol and with.    There is definitely a difference in flavor and the alcohol definitely made it better.

As for wine..  Haven't cooked with it much.  Chicken Marsala, beef stroganoff, etc.  Generally to me instead of wine, you can use grape juice instead,.

[jewels8]

I have never seen a need to use alcohol in cooking.  I have no problem obeying the spirit, as well as the letter of the Word of Wisdom.  To me, there are other ways of flavoring, and seasoning foods that are delicious, nutritious, and that I can feel at peace about.  I am far from perfect, but I know that if that were the only thing I were accountable to the Lord for, I could look him straight in the eye, and not worry about it the least little bit.  I took a gourmet cooking class once, and my teacher, a nonmember, was so into cooking with wine that it seemed almost an "obsession" with her.  But one thing was nice.  We made soups one night, and one group was making a French Onion soup, and it had wine in it.  They knew I wouldn't taste it.  (and I don't even like french onion soup anyway)  But, they set aside some for me before putting the wine in.  I thought that was sweet of them to think of me and respect my belief.  And I ate some, since they didn't put it in mine.

     Contrast that with an LDS friend who concerned me, when in my singles ward, he told me he cooked with alcohol.  That really bothered me.  We had linger longers and Break the Fasts, and he would bring his dutch oven and now I knew not to eat his food.  I told my best friend and we both never ate what he brought after that.  With the testimony I have, I just could not, in good conscience, have eaten any of that.  My husband is the same way.  I am glad of that and we raise our kids that way, and we don't give our family meds with alcohol.  I have seen that Nyquil can have as much alcohol as a "drink"  Certainly getting a  child or an adult drunk in the name of illness is not something the Lord would approve of.  Not saying an adult may necessarily get drunk, but I do think society, tv, has really downplayed the effects of alcohol, making it seem funny and the way people joke about it.  Anyways, Satan wants people to think loosely of this.  I know this may not seem related, but I just recently was reading a religious book about a man who  had died and came back to life, and he shared his experience.  It really puts things into perspective, like why should people toy around with these things, when they think it may be insignificant, but they don't realize how the spirit can withdraw, even if its a little bit, and any way, it just made me think.  I imagine when the end comes for each of us, and life flashes before our eyes, we may wonder why we thought some things were ok and would we have changed some things.  Don't know, just a thought.

[pwrfrk]

I cook with alcohol, not for the alcohol content but the flavor.  Beer or whiskey.  Good stuff.  If there is some alcohol left, it's negligible.  But the taste is there.