Wine and Indian Cuisine

In previous article we discussed about types of wines used in cooking and how they are used in western cuisine, but in this article we will discuss how to use wines in Indian Cuisine.

Using wine in Indian cuisine is a lot more complicated than using it in western cuisine because Indian food uses a lot of ingredients and each has its specific properties and so it becomes a difficult task to use wine. But nowadays as globalization is increasing there is a rise in demand of Indian food that has wine in it and chefs are constantly trying to meet the requirement.

India and use of alcohol in cooking
Since centuries in Indian food one can find the use of alcohol, in one or other form
Examples of a few such dishes are Popatji, a dish in which batter is fermented using toddy and then it is deep fried. Another such preparation is Recheado paste, a goan preparation which is made with toddy. It is used as a marinade for seafood.

Wines can be used in Indian Cooking same as it is used in contemporary style of cooking, i.e. as a marinade, as a cooking liquid or as a flavour enhancer in a chutney or gravy

All the styles mentioned in pervious article can be used in Indian cooking owing to our diversified culture, we have hot and sweet notes together, earthy and spicy, and at least 10 aromatics (Generally).
How to do it you ask?? Identify the particular characteristic that you want to uplift in the gravy of the dish for example Spinach aka Herbal Notes. Now Identify the weight of the dish i.e. is it too fatty or is it a very light dish, here we assume that our dish is a creamy i.e. heavy, and finally identify the intensity of the wine i.e. the hotness level, here we take it as a mild hotness .
Hence, in a dish called Palak Paneer we have the herbal notes of spinach, weight of the creamy gravy and finally mild spiciness of the chilli. Now it is safe to select a dry wine, with herbal characters or floral notes on the nose and contradicting the heavy profile with the leanness of the wine. For example we can take a Dry Chenin Blanc or a Sauvignon Blanc in this case.
This type of systematic breakdown will help you in identifying the most suitable wine
Note: Prefer Low abv wines or else make sure that the wine is completely cooked through as the alcohol can make the gravy taste funky if left behind.

So provided below are a few examples of how you can use wine in Indian food.
Raan is a dish made from whole leg of lamb which is marinated and dum cooked. We can use red wine to marinate it so it acts as a tenderizer and also provides a gamey flavour to it. And as it is dum cooked which means long cooking hours most of the alcohol is cooked off leaving behind the gamey flavour.

The same idea can be used while preparing Khad ka pinda, it’s a rabbit preparation from Rajasthan where it is marinated, wrapped in jute and then it is embedded in earth and coal is kept on top.
White wine and seafood are excellent pairs because the acidity of wine lifts up the taste of seafood. We can use white wine while preparing balchao, it is a spicy dish and it is almost like a pickle, which means it has a lot of fat in it and to counteract that fat we can add a splash of white wine which will provide it with the required acidity and also a more minerally taste. One can even replace the toddy in rechadao with white wine.

It would be injustice to vegetarians if we don't use wine in vegetarian food, but where can we use it?? Just think of having Dum Gucchi (morels from Kashmir)

cooked with red wine it would provide it with more earthy and matured taste.
So these are few examples of how wine can be used in Indian cuisine, using which wine with which food is more trial and error based rather than theoretical.

Thumb rules while using wine
• Don't use a wine which you don't drink.
• Long cooking hours burns out almost all the alcohol from wine leaving behind its wine taste.
• Using a wine while cooking something for short duration e.g. for deglazing then make sure you reduce it to a syrupy consistency. So the majority of alcohol is burned out.
• Never use raw wine, means don’t just add wine at the last stage before serving without cooking, it will give off flavour to food. A Good exception to this rule is when it is used for cold desserts.

 It’s okay if we use wine in Indian food, going with the modern trend is completely fine but we should not forget our roots, we should know from where we started.