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Cooking with wine :-)

Ultramum

Ultramum

Well-Known Member
Got friends coming for a meal on Saturday and I'm doing Jamie Oliver's 5 hour lamb. Basically slow cooked leg of lamb cooked in a bottle of white wine with veg.

Two questions:

How do I carb count the meal when something is cooked in wine?
and
How to thicken the meat juices without cornflour? Reduction?
 
Ultramum said:
Got friends coming for a meal on Saturday and I'm doing Jamie Oliver's 5 hour lamb. Basically slow cooked leg of lamb cooked in a bottle of white wine with veg.

Two questions:

How do I carb count the meal when something is cooked in wine?
and
How to thicken the meat juices without cornflour? Reduction?
Click to expand...

Forgive if this sounds GMa and sucking eggs.
Long slow cooked lamb with a good glug of white wine will produce a lot of liquid, if you cover it with foil. The wine will evaporate off leaving the wine bit... while tasty it can get to be a bit strong / lambie if you reduce it and I don't think it actually benefits from being "thickened". I tend to pour it off, let it stand for 10 minutes and then remove the fat that will rise to the top, keep this warm and use as juices.
The veg that are added at the start are really not fit for serving as veg, they are for flavoring the stock. If you like there's no problem to throw in some veg half an hour before serving in with the lamb.
It's a topper of dish.
Carbs: essentially it will be the meat, which won't have a lot of carbs. The juice, not a lot. Depends what veg you select...
 
A reduction would be the way to thicken the wine. Most of the alcohol will break down, but all of the carbs will remain, and any sweetness will be intensified. Hence all of the carbs from the wine that you add need to be counted.
 
ME_Valentijn said:
A reduction would be the way to thicken the wine. Most of the alcohol will break down, but all of the carbs will remain, and any sweetness will be intensified. Hence all of the carbs from the wine that you add need to be counted.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure this is true.
Most alcohols are low mol wt compounds that will be "boiled" off during the cooking process and not broken down, so the carbs associated with them will not be in the final reduction. The sugars that were present in the wine that were not converted to alcohol in the fermentation process will still be present and I have no idea how efficient the fermentation is...
 
Most wine has very little carbs unless it is a sweet one which I don't think that you would use for this dish I would drain off all the juices and put them in the freezer for a while then you can take off the fat to use as dripping (my husband loves it on toast) or you can use it to cook roast veg in .Then reduce the liquid down it should be ok unless you like a thick gravy
CAROL
 
I haven't cooked this particular dish but I have cooked similar. What I do is to remove the veg that has been with the meat since the beginning of cooking and replace it with the veg you will want to eat about an hour before the end (or however long you think it will take to cook the new veg). I then use a stick blender to whizz up the old veg and during the meat's resting time I reduce the wine/meat juices but not so its too strongly flavoured (keep testing) then add back in the whizzed veg to make a slightly thickened gravy. If not thick enough then I add in some double cream and simmer for 10 minutes.
 
I thicken with whizzed up veg too.
Other alternatives would be whizzed up psyllium husks or whizzed up chia seeds. Never actually done this in a meat gravy, so I wouldn't suggest trying it for the first time on something you are serving to guests!

The problem with all these 'alternative' thickeners, is that they never produce the same texture as traditional gravy thickened with flour - but then for a meal like this, that won't be the texture for which you are aiming.

I wouldn't worrit about the carbs, either.
So long as the steam can escape, most of the alcohol will boil off.
So long as the wine is dry, there won't be many carbs in there in the first place.
You (probably) won't be drinking the gravy by the bucket.
The rest of the meal (fat, protein and fibre) will slow down absorption.

think of it as a trial run. If you see any spikes, then you can do a re-think next time you cook it.

Making me hungry just to write this.
 
Thanks for all the advice and info. This is our standard Christmas dinner meal and so easy to do.

I usually serve the meat on a big dish with the slow cooked veg around it - people can dig in and serve themselves. The veg are carrots, potato, parsnip, onion and celeriac. I usually thicken the remaining juices with Bisto Lamb granules.

I am avoiding the roasties, roasted parsnips and Yorkshire puddings and doing loads of veg - carrots, broccoli, cauli, leeks and savoy cabbage so I can fill up on the veg. I think I'll go with @Brunneria and just have a little bit of the gravy (not a grreat gravy fiend anyway) and see what happens.

Berries and cream for pudding :-)

Before and after photos ... for those feeling hungry :-)

11866423_10153618228411742_8575773745396388201_n.jpg 15675597_10154911082481742_1737255561625471207_o.jpg
 
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