What is the correct term for adding alcohol to your pan?

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in vino veritas, uncle bob. i'm with you.

it seems to me that since flambe is specifically a french technique, we'd need someone trained in frog cooking to specify the difference. anyone look this up in escoffier?
 
i dont use much, just like ummm 1/4 - 1/2 a cup of rum. and their is no defined recipe. its as simple as cooking up some chicken, sauté some onions and mushrooms, and when their almost done, you throw in some rum, i just take the bottle and pore some in, then let it do its whole flame thing. then add in the chicken, and some bbq sauce then eat it. but the point is, that i use the rum, not to un-sitck the fond(yeah thats a plus) but i mainly use it 2 flavor the food, spiced rum, has a verry good flavor to give, when mixed with alot of different sauces, or in another recipe i use coconut rum. bc it gives the food a great flavor, i just use it as a last little finishing thing, 2 add a little zaz to some of the food i cook.
 
I would say it is all in the intent. If you are just pouring it in for the little kick of flavor as you say then I would say there is no term for that just as there is no term of throwing in some mushrooms for flavor or some cheese or whatever. If your intent was to flame the booze and get crisp edges (for flavor) then that would be flambe. If your intent was to reduce the booze and thus concentrate the flavors then that is a reduction. If your intent was to loosen the fond and incorporate that flavor into the dish then that would be deglazing. Any and all of these things might have happened, but I think it comes down to intent IMO.
 
I would say it is all in the intent. If you are just pouring it in for the little kick of flavor as you say then I would say there is no term for that just as there is no term of throwing in some mushrooms for flavor or some cheese or whatever. If your intent was to flame the booze and get crisp edges (for flavor) then that would be flambe. If your intent was to reduce the booze and thus concentrate the flavors then that is a reduction. If your intent was to loosen the fond and incorporate that flavor into the dish then that would be deglazing. Any and all of these things might have happened, but I think it comes down to intent IMO.

This is why GB gets paid the big bucks!!!!! That whole idea was rolling around in my mind - it just wouldn't come out through my fingers in a logical way. My toque is off to you! :chef: Oh, then that would be :)
 
kk thanks, i just wasn't sure if their was a special name 4 it, bc it just seems so like different or like idk, u know what i mean. kk well thanks again
 
Going back to the original question, and the recipe progressions, and taking into account all of the excellent observations - especially GB's excellent observations about "intent", and if we weed out what the addition of rum is NOT for (as stated by the OP):

Well, since the rum is not being used to melt the fond in the pan - we can toss out deglaze as the term for the step adding the rum. If the onions and mushrooms are being sautéed in the same pan the chicken/steak was cooked in - the moisture they exude will help deglaze the pan ... but that is just a benefit of cooking them in the same pan - and wouldn't be called deglazing, either. Of course, if they are being sautéed in a seperate pan, without fond, then deglazing would be moot question.

And, since adding the rum is not the last step in the recipe - it's flaming up would be flamber (burn/blaze) ... flambé means finish or finished - although most people would probably refer to this step as flambé instead of "ignite and allow the raw alcohol to burn off".

And, flaming the alcohol on it's own is not going to be much of a reduction ... a reduction is usually reducing the volume of the liquid by about 50% for a pan sauce ... done by simmering, uncovered, for a bit. Flaming the alcohol will burn off the raw alcohol favor ... but it accounts for only a very small reduction in liquid volume.

So - in the process of cooking up some chicken or a steak, making a pan sauce by sautéing some onions and mushrooms, adding some rum for the sole purpose of adding flavor and letting it flame or not, and then adding some BBQ sauce to complete the pan sauce ... the correct term for the adding the rum step within this context would be something like (maybe one of our French or French Canadian members can help me if I translated this wrong - it's been a long time since high school French):

'ajouter qch à ingrédient et flamber ... add an ingredient and burn (blaze/flame)
 
Just another thought from my culinary education. When adding liquids to a sauce or preparation, the term is mouiller.

Just looked it up: Mouiller - to moisten, to add liquid, such as broth (or alcohol)
 
we used to do a dish at the table called "steak diane" pan fry a battened steak for a min each side then remove and then cook finely chopped onions and mushrooms till soft replace steak then pour on brandy to flambe finish with double cream and serve. always went down well as the ball of flame from the brandy was usually spectacular
 
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