All of the Alcohol Can Cook Out of a Dish—True or False? - CHOW Tip

If you expected all the alcohol to evaporate out of your dinner entree, then you may be in for a surprise. Mark Scarbrough, coauthor of Lobsters Scream When You Boil Them, fills in the details.

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TRANSCRIPT
One of the most common cooking myths out there is that all the alcohol cooks out of a dish. Not on your life. After five minutes at a good simmer, you've still got about eighty-five percent alcohol remaining in the skillet. If you poor that into a deep braise and leave it five hours on the stove you've still got about four percent in the dish. So if you can't have alcohol, substitute broth for more savory preparations or use unsweetened apple juice for sweeter finishes. But in the end, if you use alcohol, some of it's going to remain in the dish even after it's cooked a long time.