We recently received a question from a Mum who wanted to cook a stew for her family, using red wine as an ingredient. She wanted to know whether or not the stew would be safe for her one year old son to enjoy.
This was our reply, which may be useful for other Mums who also wonder about this…
When you cook with alcohol, most of the alcohol evaporates during the cooking process – but not all of it. The amount left in the food at the end of the cooking time varies, depending on the length of time cooked and the method of preparation.
If you want to cook a stew with red wine, then the dish will still contain 5% alcohol after being cooked for 2 1/2 hours. It’s a small amount and, as your son’s portion of the meal would probably be small too, then the amount of alcohol he would be consuming would be relatively little. Nevertheless, it would still be present and I would recommend checking with your son’s doctor before feeding him anything containing alcohol.
If you wish to avoid it altogether, try substituting the wine with a safe alternative. For every 8 fl oz of wine, you can use 7 fl oz of either:
- meat stock
- vegetable stock
- apple juice
- tomato juice
- white grape juice
If you wish to more closely replicate the flavour of alcohol, you can then add 2 tbsp of fresh lemon juice or vinegar.
