Hi all,

I recently came across a recipe that I wish to try for a lentil bolognese. I’m excited to try it as I’ve been trying to find a recipe I can use my red lentils with, but I’m curious about one thing both with this recipe, and recipes in general.

This recipe calls for the pan to be deglazed with red wine. This is something I’ve seen before in other recipes, though this recipe is the first of which I’m taking an interest in exploring. I’m personally fine with regular red wine, but my concern is that I have a friend who is incredibly cautious with alcohol, and says she’d refuse to eat things if they had alcoholic ingredients.

Putting aside my personal thoughts about that, I was curious if using a non-alcoholic wine would work just as well, or if the alcohol adds certain properties to the wine that make it function better as an ingredient or for deglazing. I’m mainly curious as I hope to invite friends over for dinner in the future, and want to make accommodations where possible, especially if it’s as easy as simply buying a slightly different ingredient.

Thanks in advance!

  • Agent641@lemmy.world
    2·
    16 days ago

    Well you wouldn’t, because it’s so diluted. Imagine you’re deglazing with half a cup, and half of that boils away. That leaves you with 60ml of 15% ABV which is 8 grams of alcohol. If this meal serves 4, the alcohol consumed by each person is 2g.

    Compare this to a single shot of vodka, which contains 17.5g of pure alcohol. You would have to eat 9 portions to consume the equivalent of 1 shot, and if you do that, you probably won’t be invited back.