Substitute for Wine in This Recipe?

Cafe Society
1

1 tsp garlic oil*
4 strips bacon
4 breast halves
1/3 cup white wine

Bacon and oil in skillet, fry til crisp, wrap bacon in foil.
Fry chicken in juices.
Move chicken to serving plate, crumble bacon in skillet, add wine, bubble a bit, pour over chicken.

Actually, looking over the recipe as I typed it out, it seems the white wine is almost the point of the thing. It’s the base of the “sauce” as it were. Maybe looking for a substitute here is a bad idea. But once someone (who I have no particular reason to think was right) said you can usually use apple juice instead of white wine–and I know that bacon plus apple plus chicken is common in recipes, so do you think it would work here? Or some other substitute?

I ask because my wife doesn’t really like it when I use wine in a recipe, probably because I’m not doing it right.

Also, regarding the asterisked ingredient above, can I just use a bit of garlic plus olive oil for that? (“Garlic oil” in this recipe book means “garlic infused olive oil.”)

2

I would use chicken broth with a little hit of balsamic vinegar, but the apple juice probably would work. And yes to your garlic question.

3

Also, do I recall correctly that, whereas steak should be cooked from room temperature, chicken should be cooked from refrigerated temperature?

ETA: @Sigmagirl, Thanks!

4

If you can find some in your area (a gourmet shop, maybe?), verjus would work perfectly.

I’m a big fan of this one, but there are others out there.

And another yes to your garlic question.

5

Won’t straight apple juice be too sweet in comparison to the wine? I think I’d add a teaspoon of vinegar to give a little more tartness.

6

I’d go with a combination of (unsalted) chicken broth and apple juice.

But you’re apparently not skipping the wine because of medical or religious reasons–just because your wife doesn’t like the way you use it. What wines have you cooked with in the past?

7

I’d actually go with a light chicken broth and just a squeeze of lemon juice. But to each his own.

8

This doesn’t answer your question exactly, but “omit and/or substitute” should be in the back of your mind whenever reading a recipe.

9

In my experience, when someone doesn’t like something cooked in wine it was one of two problems: either the wine was bad (could be age or just not a good wine to start with) or it isn’t cooked properly. Remember the golden rule of cooking with wine - don’t cook with a wine you wouldn’t drink.

10

I think white grape juice would work better than apple juice for that recipe.

11

I would go for verjuice the smarter brother of all acidic ingredients. You can use it to replace vinegar, wine, lemon/lime juice. It’s very clever stuff.

12

I don’t know what this means.

13

Thanks for the tips and info, everyone.

I used apple juice and just a few dashes of red wine vinegar (the only kind we had) and the dish was universally acclaimed. I think it probably tasted very different from what it would have had I followed the recipe, but what came out was indeed pretty tasty.

14

Yes, as I said, I think I probably just hadn’t used it right on previous occasions.

There is also the fact that my wife just doesn’t like the taste of wine in general, and also that she’s got supersensitive taste buds so even when others can’t taste things in a recipe, she picks up on it right away.

Well there’s your problem right there. I’ll drink anything. :stuck_out_tongue:

15

If she doesn’t like the taste of wine, find a recipe that doesn’t have any. Don’t waste time twisting a wine-based recipe. Chicken stock seems like a good thing to use, but it’s not the same dish after that.

16

Yes. Quoting myself:

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