What is rice wine?

What is rice cooking wine supposed to do?

• or just cooking wine, i don't know. but does it enhance flavor like a lot or is it subtle...what does it do???

• Answer:

  In Chinese cuisine, rice cooking wine does three things: 1. it neutralizes odours from fish, seafood and other meats; 2. it slightly sweetens the final dish; 3. it extracts and helps blend flavors and aromas from condiments, especially herbs and spices such as star anise. A simple recipe is San Bei Ji (which means Three-Cup-Chicken) 1 cup each of rice wine, soysauce and asian sesame oil (hence 3 Cups) 1 head of garlic finely chopped A 1-inch knob of ginger, sliced 2.2 pounds of chopped chicken (thigs and legs are great in this) a few leaves of basil (preferably Asian basil) Put all ingredients, except basil, in a pot, and simmer until it dries out, and leaves nothing but the coating of sesame oil. Then sprinkle the top with a few basil leaves. It's really that simple! Enjoy!