Food cooked with alcohol

[Anonymous]

Silly question, but it just crossed my mind. Is it ok to give kids food that's been cooked with alcohol? I'm braising beef and it had 2 cups of red wine. Been in the slow cooker for 6 hours. I'm also making risotto which calls for white wine and vermouth. Should I leave the alcohol out or will it all get cooked out?

[Anonymous]

Totally fine. It will get cooked out.

[Anonymous]

The alcohol will dissipate but not completely evaporate. If you've braised your beef for more than 3 hours, you'll be left with less than 5% of the alcohol (approx 0.6% content at that point), so an individual serving would have very little alcohol. At 6 hours, any alcohol left is probably literally negligible.

I'd double think the vermouth in the risotto, though. It won't be cooking long enough to reduce the alcohol significantly, although I suspect that original deglaze gets rid of a good chunk of it. I'd probably just make a small pot of rice for the kids

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The alcohol will dissipate but not completely evaporate. If you've braised your beef for more than 3 hours, you'll be left with less than 5% of the alcohol (approx 0.6% content at that point), so an individual serving would have very little alcohol. At 6 hours, any alcohol left is probably literally negligible.

I'd double think the vermouth in the risotto, though. It won't be cooking long enough to reduce the alcohol significantly, although I suspect that original deglaze gets rid of a good chunk of it. I'd probably just make a small pot of rice for the kids

Thanks. Just one child (3) who may or may not be interested in eating it. I love the flavor it brings to the risotto but don't want to risk him ingesting alcohol. The problem is if he's interested he wants to be eating exactly what we're eating--not something similar but different. So the way it will go is either I'll omit the alcohol in the risotto and he won't eat any or I'll include it and he'll eat a ton.

[Anonymous]

^^^^sorry, should have said he'll *want* to eat a ton

[Anonymous]

It all depends on whether it cooks for long enough or not, like PP said.

Also, if the alcohol taste is really strong, usually kids don't like it.
(except me: I ate all of my doctored rice pudding at 18 months old and then sat up in my crib well past my bedtime singing and babbling at the top of my lungs for hours. or so my parents say)

[Anonymous]

I use white wine in my risotto all the time and it has zero alcohol taste by the end. I use around 1/2-3/4 cup, deglaze with it, and by the time I've added the remaining liquid it's cooked out.

[Anonymous]

The alcohol will dissipate but not completely evaporate. If you've braised your beef for more than 3 hours, you'll be left with less than 5% of the alcohol (approx 0.6% content at that point), so an individual serving would have very little alcohol. At 6 hours, any alcohol left is probably literally negligible.

I'd double think the vermouth in the risotto, though. It won't be cooking long enough to reduce the alcohol significantly, although I suspect that original deglaze gets rid of a good chunk of it. I'd probably just make a small pot of rice for the kids


Thanks. Just one child (3) who may or may not be interested in eating it. I love the flavor it brings to the risotto but don't want to risk him ingesting alcohol. The problem is if he's interested he wants to be eating exactly what we're eating--not something similar but different. So the way it will go is either I'll omit the alcohol in the risotto and he won't eat any or I'll include it and he'll eat a ton.

White wine(any alcohol) will boil off very quickly in a shallow pan over heat being stirred. The boiling point of ethanol is 173ish at sea level. So when thing start to boil, the alcohol is pretty much gone. Any ways, the amount of alcohol, maybe a 1/2 cup of wine at 15% is not much about 1 tablespoon of alcohol. So even if the alcohol did not boil off(which it does), the alcoholic content of the risotto would be under .o6%. About the same amount found in fresh orange juice and other juices. Now orange juice that has been sitting in the refig.....that's a another story. So fire up that penne vodka! Alcohol is a solvent so it helps bring out the favors.

[Anonymous]

Thanks all. All of that and he didn't end up eating any. I used 1/4 cup white wine and 1/4 cup vermouth. It didn't have any alcohol taste by the time all the other liquid had been added and absorbed, so I think it would have been ok.