In my area, cooking wine does not exist. I can only easily find Sherry (for drinking) at 15% alcohol. I was told it should have 20% to be shelf-stable for ~6—24 months.
There is white port at 19½% alc. Not sure if that differs much from sherry in taste, but I suppose 19½% is close enough for shelf-stability.
Should I add table salt to the sherry to make it shelf stable? Or add brandy? Or switch to white port? Or even just brandy?
My main use: less than ~½—¾ shot mixed with corn starch as the thickening basis for stir-fries. I don’t really use sherry for anything else. I don’t even drink it because I so commonly use it in stir-fries that as a straight drink it’s like drinking Kung Pao Chicken because I can’t mentally dissociate it.
I also wonder if I should be looking for dry sherry, or simple sherry. I want the stir-fries to have the sweetness of strong sherry, so I guess dry variants would be contrary to that.
update -- still unclear
Folks are saying ~12—15% is enough for shelf-stability. The non-fortified wines I have are in that range. So I’m baffled because I believe normal wine turns to vinegar if left at room temp after opening.
I also wonder if Sherry is only very slightly fortified since 15% isn’t much more than normal wine.
Isn't "cooking wine" just a word for the cheapest wine you can find in the store? Or the bottle of wine you just opened and don't like? So any place in the world with wine should do? But I'm afraid I don't have a good answer to sherry, I've just tried the non-alcoholic substitutes, apple/grape juice and a bit of vinegar. In doubt just try, but make it a small batch of food in case it tastes bad.
But I'm fairly sure we here in Germany don't have "cooking wine" printed on the labels either, and you're just supposed to buy a cheap bottle from the bottom shelf.
There is a specific category of "cooking wine" in the states for legal reasons. These wines have a small amount of salt added to them, rendering them undrinkable, and as such, they go on the shelf next to vinegars, usw, with no age restriction on purchases.
Table wine vs. cooking wine isn't really a topic outside of a fancy dinner party. But yeah, bottom shelf for cooking, then whatever my wallet can take for drinking.
Cooking wine is indeed cheaper and lower quality. But more importantly it is shelf-stable. You can open a bottle of cooking wine and keep it in the cupboard. The stuff is labelled “cooking wine” in the US so that it is treated as such. It probably gets around some of the tight liquor controls there.
Europe does not seem to have a product with preservatives specifically for that purpose. So you would use substandard wines for cooking. If champaign goes flat because an open bottle sat out overnight, it’s still good for risotto. But I would still chill it if I weren’t making risotto the next day. In the case at hand, I don’t want to be keeping a bottle of sherry in the fridge.
When using a whole bottle in a day, then of course there is no issue. But it takes me a year to get through a bottle of Sherry.
Ah alright. I mean there is a cultural difference with how we balance convenience and things like additives in food... My local Aldi or Lidl has bottles with 200ml of wine. And I've seen people recommend freezing the wine into ice cubes. You'd just pick out one ice cube a time and throw it in the pan. I'm not really answering your question here, sorry, just in case you need some alternatives. I've also been annoyed by the wine bottle in the fridge taking up space for months, and I had regular wine sitting on the counter and seems it's okay for like >1-3 weeks. I think in the future I might go for the ice cubes, freeze the next leftover "cooking" wine and put them in a ziplock bag. But yeah, beverages with more alcohol or added preservatives should add to shelf-stability.
Ice cubes would be interesting for non-fortified wine. But I suppose sherry might not freeze at 15% alc. (not sure).
Anyway, someone just said only 12% alc is needed for shelf-stability and someone else said 15% is fine for the shelf, so that solves the problem. Sherry can simply be kept at room temp.