What can you use to replace marsala or madeira in a recipe?

All four are fortified wines: grape spirit has been added, which stops fermentation and brings the alcohol content well above that of ordinary wine.

The European market organisation for agricultural products counts them among the liqueur wines. That comes with a minimum alcohol content well above that of table wine, and the possibility of leaving residual sugar in the wine.

All four have also been through oxidative maturation: maturation in which the wine is deliberately brought into contact with some oxygen. That produces the caramelized, nutty direction that holds up in a sauce.

Take a dry madeira, an oloroso sherry or a tawny port, in the same amount as the recipe calls for marsala.

With madeira, look for Sercial or Verdelho; those are the dry and the medium-dry style. With sherry, oloroso is the dry, oxidatively aged style from Jerez. Tawny port is sweeter than those two, so taste along the way and adjust if the sauce turns out sweeter than you want.

Ordinary red or white wine is not a good substitute. It lacks the fortification and the oxidative ageing, and therefore cooks down differently.

For zabaione, tiramisu or a sweet sauce, use a sweet fortified wine: marsala dolce, a Boal or Malvasia madeira, or a tawny port.

The sweetness limits are stated on the label. For Marsala, dolce means more than 100 grams of residual sugar per litre and semisecco between 40 and 100 grams. For Madeira, the grape name points the way: Boal is medium sweet, Malvasia is the sweetest of the four classic grapes.

If you use a dry bottle in a sweet recipe, the dish lacks body. Do not add extra sugar, but choose a bottle that suits the recipe.

Yes, for most recipes it does, although port and sherry lack the heat treatment that gives madeira its own tone.

Madeira is heated: in heated tanks with estufagem, or for years under a warm roof with canteiro. Port and oloroso mature without that heat. In a sauce that reduces for twenty minutes that difference is small; in a glass it is clearly noticeable.

When substituting, look at the sweetness, not the name. Replace a dry madeira with oloroso, a sweet madeira with tawny port or marsala dolce.

Mix white or red grape juice with a splash of wine vinegar or lemon juice, and taste as you go until the sweet-sour balance is right.

That gets you close to the flavour direction of a fortified wine, although you miss the alcohol that dissolves and carries aromas. Expect a little less depth in the sauce.

Wilt u dichter bij het origineel blijven, kook dan een paar rozijnen of gedroogde abrikozen mee. Die geven een vergelijkbare zoetheid en wat van dezelfde gedroogdfruittoon. NIX18: alcohol wordt niet verkocht aan mensen onder de achttien.