Cooking with wine

Just wondering... I know the alcohol content can change when you cook with wine but does it affect the calories at all?

I made a supposedly low-cal marsala last night and can't get over the amount of calories it added up to, even with such a small amount of sauce that I ended up with after it was reduced.

So do the calories burn off with the alcohol or are they just condensed? thanks!!

I think they would be condensed.  It would be nice if we could cook away calories, though!!

I Googled it and found this link (from a previous CC thread, actually!) http://www.ochef.com/165.htm

Alcohol does evaporate when you cook with it, but not entirely. There's a chart at the bottom of the article that gives the percentage of alcohol that remains after various cooking times. It's a little more complicated than that, though - wine isn't all alcohol, after all, and not all of its calories come from alcohol.

Here's the other CC thread - someone explains how to calculate how many calories you'd lose, as long as you know what percent alcohol your liquid started with: http://caloriecount.about.com/happens-alcohol -calories-cook-wine-ft92505

Thanks guys! I can't seem to wrap my head around the math so I think next time I'll just compensate by skipping the pasta. I can't be trusted around anything with mushrooms or marsala sauce. Thanks again :)

Alcohol isn't the only thing in wine that has calories.  There are sugars too.  When logging or entering a recipe in the analyzer I count the original calories in the wine.  I don't know if it's exact, but then calorie counting is never exact because of all the variables in different batches of even ordinary fresh ingredients.  For instance, one batch of carrots might have more sugar than another batch.  There's really no way to account for it.

If you can't bother to do the exact math, just cut the calories from the wine in half. You will probably be a little over on a long-simmered sauce, and a little under on a quick-made sauce. It's hard to find exact calorie counts for Marsala, so I use the ones for "Dessert wine:" 47 calories per fl oz. Half of that is 24, which is a reasonable estimate.

If you are making a traditional Marsala, a lot of calories are coming from the flour. The Marsala I make http://caloriecount.about.com/chicken-marsala -recipe-r262333 uses no flour and comes out at 311 Calories for a 1/3 pound serving.

I'm not sure what you are aiming for, but the Marsala I make get's rave reviews and is reasonable within my diet. The only complaint I get is that it doesn't make enough sauce. It really only makes enough to coat the chicken, and maybe a spoonful each to put on pasta. This lack of sauce may be what keeps it reasonable for a cream-based sauce.

The original recipe can be found with detailed pictures and instructions at http://www.cookingforengineers.com/recipe/59/ Chicken--Mushroom-Marsala  

All I know about cooking with wine is that never cook with wine you won't drink.

UD

Hey thanks for the recipe! I'll have to try that next time. It turns out so much better when you add the prosciutto and I've been leaving it out to make it lighter but it's definitely a noticable difference. I think in the future I'll just have to account for it in my daily range since I like to go heavy on the sauce.

And yes, I think I would drink Marsala wine straight outta the bottle