Dan's Papers - June 29, 2007 - Think Outside The Glass: Cooking With Bubbles

Champagnes And Sparkling Wines Are Good For More Than Just Drinking. Try Some In Your Next Sauce

As long as I can remember, I have been a great fan of cooking with wine. As a member of the wine industry, there are always open bottles of wine around my kitchen. After they are open a day or two, I put the open wines in my cooking wine cabinet.

I use both red and white wines to cook with, but the amount of dishes I cook that require white wine is much greater. The wines I prefer to cook with are aromatic, crisply balanced (plenty of acidity) and generally un-oaked. I feel the oak character interferes with most dishes.

Even though I often have open bottles of wine around, it is quite unusual to find a partially filled bottle of Champagne, or even a less expensive sparkling wine. But on those rare occasions when I do have a leftover sparkler, I look forward to creating a dish that will use it.

A sparkling wine can be substituted for almost any white wine called for in a recipe as most sparkling wines have all the attributes mentioned above that make a good cooking wine: no new oak characters, plenty of acidity and interesting aromatics.

There are some dishes that are actually better suited to a sparkling wine, but remember that any cooking will dissipate the bubbles, so while bubbles may be fun they aren't the key to using Champagne or sparkling wines in dishes. It is more about the flavors. Sparkling wines have a crisp apple character combined with a hint of doughiness or yeastiness (sometimes more than a hint), and some even have notes of white cherries and strawberries, all attributes well suited to cooking.

I find that sparkling wines can lighten and brighten a dish or sauce, and that is how I frequently use them. Sometimes I'll use a splash of sparkling wine to finish a sauce, even one made with red wine. For instance, one of my signature dishes is based on the Greek match of lemon, garlic, rosemary, creamy egg sauce and lamb. My version uses grilled rack of lamb served over a pink zabaglione sauce, a bit of Italy melded with Greek cuisine. (Zabaglione is made with egg yolks, plus one whole egg whipped over heat with wine.) For the zabaglione in the lamb dish I use port at the beginning and add a touch of sparkling wine to lighten it even more - this makes a light, fluffy, pink sauce that makes a great bed for the lamb rack.

An easy, elegant recipe for two for the experienced home cook. If you prefer your lamb cooked to a medium temperature, grill the rack of lamb to medium rare before removing from the grill.

For the lamb:
1 rack of lamb (about 16 ounces) grilled rare
1/2 a shallot (chopped)
2 garlic cloves (chopped)
Olive oil
1 sprig rosemary
Juice of half lemon
1 whole egg
2 egg yolks
1/2 ounce port
1/2 ounce Champagne or sparkling wine

Preheat oven to 500 degrees.
In a small saute pan, lightly saute the shallot, garlic and rosemary in a little olive oil till soft. Turn off burner. Immediately deglaze the pan with lemon, port and Champagne (do not reduce liquid), stir and allow to cool. To make the zabaglione, add the egg and egg yolks to a cool stainless steel bowl with the shallot, garlic, and wine mixture and whip over a low burner or double boiler filled with boiling water till fluffy. Place lamb on a metal ovenproof pan or sizzle plate and reheat for 1-2 minutes in the oven for medium rare. Serve over the zabaglione.

Chris Miller is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, an Advanced Sommelier with the Court of Master Sommeliers, a wine consultant for Sherry-Lehmann and wine educator. He has held the position of saucier chef at Schweizerhof in St. Moritz, Switzerland, and was a sommelier at '21' Club in Manhattan in the 1990s. He is teaching a Captain's Course at Stone Creek Inn in the fall (see page 122).