Sunday, January 12, 2014

Vodka Sauce

There are hundreds of recipes out there for vodka sauce. I have made it 3-4 times and I don't think I have ever used the same recipe. This batch turned out so well that I was seriously considering eating it like a bowl of soup. My inspiration was a recipe from The Gourmandmom.com, I didn't follow her recipe particularly closely but I liked the method she used and I figured it was a good place to start. As a general rule I do like to start any tomato based sauce with whole tomatoes, or as close too it as possible. Most Vodka sauce recipes I see start with a pre-made (hopefully home made) tomato sauce and build from there. Sadly I didn't have enough in my freezer to make vodka sauce in the time I had available so I had to punt. As a result I think I may have settled upon a very quick and very easy vodka sauce recipe.



Cook time 40-45 minutes
Prep time 10 minutes
Ingredients
  • 1 onion
  • 3 cloves garlic
  • 1 cup (or more) vodka
  • 1/4 cup olive oil
  • 1 28 oz can tomato puree
  • 1 cup heavy cream
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 1 tsp basil
  • 1 tsp oregano
  • 1/2 stick butter
  • 1/2 cup parmesan cheese
Chop the onions and garlic, heat your olive oil in a pan, any sauce pot will do, I like my calphalon everyday pan, and saute the onions for a couple of minutes until they soften, then add your chopped garlic and cook for a couple more minutes. Carefully pour the vodka in the pan and cook it for about 5 minutes. I found that the smell changed pretty drastically when it was ready, it went from smelling like, well like alcohol, to something much more pleasant. Once most of the alcohol had cooked off I added about 1/2 of the butter, I don't know why I added it then, I just did. Next stir in your tomato puree and heat it to a simmer, I simmered the sauce for 8-10 minutes and tasted it, I thought the vodka flavor was lost and added more, perhaps an ounce, you may not need it. Once the tomatoes started to lose some of the canned tomato flavor I added the basil and oregano and some more salt. Have I mentioned tasting as you go yet? You really need to do it for this recipe. Simmer for another couple of minutes to incorporate the herbs and give it a taste, adjust if needed and add in the cream, bring the sauce back up to a gentle simmer and let it cook for another 10 minutes. Taste and adjust, I added still more vodka here. Next up add the cheese and let it come back to a simmer, simmer another 10-15 minutes on low, stirring so it doesn't stick.  Right at the end add the rest of your butter and swirl it in. You could let it cook longer if you wanted to, I was out of time and it tasted delicious so I called it good. We actually brought this over to a friends house for a pasta bar night and it got reheated for 15-20 minutes but that was more for temperature than flavor. It tuned out wonderfully and I think I have found my go to vodka sauce recipe, and one I can make in under an hour.

2 comments:

The Beans said...

I literally just had dinner, and looking at that sauce makes me wish I had some room for pasta. *drools*

-Barb

Unknown said...

Just my sort of pasta sauce! SD
http://notesonaspanishvalley.com/