What can I cook with this sherry?

January 19, 2012 12:29 PM

Does anyone have good recipes for using up a partial bottle of sherry?

While doing some cleaning I realized that I have a bottle of sherry that I'd like to use, but I don't really drink. I would prefer cooked recipes since alcohol generally upsets my stomach but I can handle it in sauces, etc. Any recommendations?

Also I included the label since the internet tells me different sherries have different shelf-lives and this is an older bottle ... How do I know whether to just toss it?

posted by brilliantine to food & drink (11 answers total)

There's a bunch of suggestions here. _{(Also a bunch of hilarity about re-selling opened cheap wine.)}
posted by wrok at 12:39 PM on January 19, 2012

Sherry goes nicely in mushroom soup--see the recipe in the Joy of Cooking, for example.
posted by Admiral Haddock at 12:42 PM on January 19, 2012

You can use it as the acid in any sauce that needs a bit of a kick.

If you've fried up some tasty meat or mushrooms, you can deglaze the pan with the sherry and then chuck other sauce making stuff.

Using this formula:

Kidneys or mushrooms, sherry and cream.
Chicken, sherry, tarragon and cream.
Mushrooms and garlic, sherry, stock, creme fraiche, mustard, reduce to sauce consistency and serve on a steak or as a pasta sauce.

Don't trying substituting the cream with any less fatty dairy, white sauce, etc as the acid will split the dairy.

You can also add it to a stock-based soup.
posted by emilyw at 12:57 PM on January 19, 2012

Sherry is really good for marinating meat. When I do a stir-fry, I buy pork and cut it up, then leave it overnight in the frig in a zip bag along with sherry, hoisin sauce, and some ginger. Next day, it tastes really great along with my vegetables. Just dump the contents of the bag into the wok and go to town.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 1:04 PM on January 19, 2012

Sherried Sweet Potatoes are delicious!
posted by vespabelle at 1:21 PM on January 19, 2012

Ooh, chilli sherry. Just chuck a few red chillies in, leave it for a month or so, and then add a splash to soups and stews for a fantastic little kick. Amazing.

Looks good on a kitchen shelf too, if you do it in a nice bottle.
posted by penguin pie at 1:31 PM on January 19, 2012

If it's a dry sherry you can use it pretty much any place you'd use mirin in stirfries etc. Also great for deglazing a pan after cooking a steak and just pouring it all over the steak.
posted by wwax at 1:48 PM on January 19, 2012

If it's a dry sherry you can use it pretty much any place you'd use mirin in stirfries etc.

Based on the picture provided, it's an amontillado, which in my experience is not quite a dry sherry - it's a little more butterscotchy (although I've had a different brand).
posted by LionIndex at 2:09 PM on January 19, 2012

SHERRY CAKE!

The answer is always cake.
posted by easy, lucky, free at 2:14 PM on January 19, 2012

If you're interested in something a bit exotic, you could try making your own sherry vinegar. With an Amontillado, if it works, you'll make something quite heavy and sweet, and which might have some similarity to Balsamic vinegar - it won't anywhere near as dark or intense, but it will be reminiscent.

You'll need instructions like these or these, and a vinegar mother. Basically just dilute the sherry so you get about 8% abv, add a good splash of the unpasteurised vinegar, and leave it for about 8 weeks to do its thing.
posted by cromagnon at 2:55 PM on January 19, 2012

I often make make a sort of mediterranean chicken stir fry with sherry. I dice the chicken and marinate it in this:

olive oil base
add a good chug of sherry
add a generous tbsp of honey
add plenty of minced or sliced garlic
throw in chopped fresh rosemary, thyme, sage, hard to find lovage and a bit of tarragon
salt and pepper

(Then I fry it in a pan with diced Spanish chorizo until the meat has a nice brown exterior. In parallel in a 2nd pan I fry vegetables including bell peppers, mushrooms, zucchini and beans and maybe other stuff that have also been marinated in a second batch of the same marinade. Once the meat/chorizo mix has reach optimum brownage I throw it into the vegetables. The separation of meats and veggies is really just to easily achieve a lovely tasty (probably carcinogenic) browning on the meat. Also it allows me to melt some of the fat out of the chorizo which I then discard or freeze for frying of other things later on.)
posted by Hairy Lobster at 5:32 PM on January 19, 2012