Cooking with wine

Here are some ways to use wine in light cooking:

Wine helps cook and add flavor to fish. Deep-fried fish dipped in tartar sauce, albeit tasty, defeats the nutritional purpose of eating fish. One way to add flavor and moisture to fish without adding fat is to cook it with wine. You can add wine to the pan while the fish is simmering, poach the fish over a saucepan of boiling wine, or drizzle fish with a tablespoon or two of wine and bake it in a foil package.

Wine is a great ingredient in marinades. Wine is basically an acid ingredient (which helps tenderize the outside of the meat) and it has a lot of flavor. The wine-based marinade helps keep meat, poultry, or seafood moist while it cooks, too.

Wine can help cook and simmer foods. Add wine to dishes you're cooking in a skillet on the stove, in a slow cooker, or in the oven. Simmered along with the food, it adds flavor and moisture to whatever dish you're making.

Wine can be used in baking, too. For certain types of cakes, using wine or sherry in place of some of the fat not only lightens up the cake but adds complimentary flavors.

Here are some of the subtle food-like flavors that can come through in wine -- which you may want to capitalize on by adding some to dishes containing these foods:

• White wine: melon, apple, pineapple, pear, citrus, vanilla, caramel, olives, and mushrooms
• Red wine: berries, peaches, currants, plums, cherries, oranges, chocolate, and coffee