Dry Sherry

Cooking with dry sherry introduces a depth of flavor to your dishes, able to accentuate the tastes of other ingredients without overpowering them. However, many amateur cooks tend to misuse dry sherry. One of the major areas of confusion is differentiating between 'dry sherry' and 'cooking sherry'. Cooking sherry is cheaper and often loaded with salts and additives, creating an inferior flavor in dishes. Using a good-quality dry sherry for cooking is therefore essential. In terms of usage, sherry is often used too sparingly or at the wrong cooking stage. It's important to be generous when adding it to the dish, but also be mindful not to overpower the other flavours. Adding sherry too late in the cooking process can also result in a harsh alcohol note to the dish, so it's ideal to add it early enough to allow the alcohol to cook off. Perhaps one of the most underutilised applications of dry sherry is in deglazing pans. After cooking a protein, sherry can be added to the pan to break down the fond and create a rich, flavourful sauce known as a 'pan sauce'. This not only utilises the full potential of sherry's flavour, but also minimises kitchen waste.