Whole Grain Pasta, Alcohol in Glorious One-Pot Meals

Reader question: Hi Elizabeth, I love your book! I am a teacher and I come home each day to make meals for the family and this has made my life easier, healthier, and very tasty! Thank you! I was wondering two questions: 1) When I put wine in a dish does the alcohol evaporate like it would on the stove? I ask that because I’m cooking for little kids. Also, if you are using a whole grain pasta (fusilli) would that affect the amount of water to add?  ~ David S., Brooklyn, NY

Hi David! I’m so glad that Glorious One-Pot Meals has had such a wonderful impact on your life! I think it’s a great cookbook for teachers, too, and in fact, I have personally given copies to each of my kids’ teachers every year since 2005.  🙂

As for your questions, here’s what I can tell you:

1. While alcohol won’t evaporate during the cooking process because the food is cooking in a closed vessel, but once you remove the lid a lot of vapor is released and I believe that this is when the alcohol steams off. In my experience, no matter how much alcohol I put into my GOPM while preparing it, it never tastes alcoholic at all when I eat it. This makes me feel comfortable including alcohol at times in GOPM that I make for my family.
2. Regarding using whole grain fusilli pasta, this can be a little tricky. Each brand of whole grain pasta seems to cook a little differently in GOPMs, which is why I did not include whole grain pasta in the cookbook to begin with. In general, I would suspect for whole grain items to need 1 Tablespoon of additional water or liquid per quart of Dutch oven (i.e., 2 Tbsp. in a 2-quart Dutch oven), but you may need to do a little experimenting with your preferred brand of pasta to get it perfect. I think fusilli is a good choice of pasta shape to try this, too!

I hope this is helpful. Thanks for writing! ~Elizabeth

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