A recipe inspired by Brat cheese sauce/Cooking in Wine

Question

I followed a recipe to the effect of:

• boil Brat sausages in 24 ounces of beer
• remove sausages (do not drain the beer), pan fry or grill them
• add 2 c. sharp cheddar, and 1 package cream cheese to the remaining beer, whisk over heat until you get a nice creamy cheese sauce.**

It was very simple. Very tasty. It was like a good Welsh Rarebit sauce.

Do you think this could be adapted to wine and white cheeses, to the effect of:

• boil sausage or chicken in a dry white wine
• remove meat; grill or pan fry it
• add 2 cups motzarella, 1 cup grated parmesan to the boiled wine--whisk over heat until you have a smooth sauce.

Do you think that would work? I've never cooked in large quantities of wine. I don't recall recipes that have done so. Any recommendations on the cheeses/quantities?

** I used store brand cream cheese. It didn't melt completely. Next time I will use a higher quality cream cheese.

Answer 1

I wouldn't use mozzarella, it won't melt smoothly into a sauce. Look at recipes for white (or whitish) smooth cheese sauces, or Mornay sauces. Consider:

• Monterey Jack
• Swiss (Emmental)
• White Cheddar
• Gruyere (that would be my choice)

Instead of boiling chicken (or sausage) in the wine, consider browning the chicken in the skillet (preferably not non-stick) and then deglazing with the wine. After all of the brown goodness is mixed into the small amount of wine used for deglazing, you can add more wine (as much as you want to use for the final sauce) to allow it cook out a bit. You might want to use 1/2 or 1/3 wine, the rest chicken broth and possibly cream.

Look at white wine cheese sauce recipes to get an idea of quantities. To get a thick, smooth sauce, you might get your best results by thickening your liquid with a roux before adding shredded cheese, much like the recipes above for Mornay sauce.