Pink vodka sauce
This is one of my favorite pasta sauce recipes.
Ingredients:
Vodka (around a cup)
cloves of garlic (1-2 clumps, about 1.5 handfuls), thinly sliced or finely diced
butter
oil
1-1.5 cups half-and-half
salt
pepper
oregano
basil
1.5 cans of chicken broth (~16 ounce size)
2 cups of freshly grated parmesan cheese (or more)
rous (oil+flour)
small can of tomato sauce
Instructions:
In a sauce pan over medium-high heat, melt some butter in a roughly equal amount of olive oil. Put in garlic for 1 1/2 minutes or so (whisking the entire time), until the garlic has been lightly sauteed. Toss in 2-3 shots of vodka. Keep stirring until the vodka boils off. As soon as the mixture starts smelling sweet, take it off the heat and put in a sauce pan. Put salt, pepper, oregano and basil in the mix (coating the pan with oregano and basil). Put the sauce pan on medium-high heat and add the cans of chicken broth. As the mixture heats up, gradually add 1-1.5 cups of half-and-half. Heat the mixture to a slight boil and add one more shot of vodka. When it’s boiling again, toss in the parmesan cheese. Add the rous and stir until it thickens. Then, add a small can of tomato sauce and add another shot of vodka if necessary. Serve over angel hair pasta.
Notes:
Make sure to get good parmesan cheese, not the stuff in a plastic jar. I find that the sauce is actually awesome if you make it the day before and reheat it, as the flavors will have time to mix.
How to make a rous:
In a small sauce pan over medium-high heat, mix a few tablespoons of flour with olive oil (think elmer’s glue consistency). Stir rapidly until the mixture turns brown and starts to smell sweet, but not to the point where it’s burned. This is a thickening agent, so after you mix it in it might take a few minutes.
I hadn’t made this in a few years, so it was with much anticipation that I decided on it last night for dinner. (We had terrible weather and I decided that some rich comfort food was in order. This creamy sauce does the trick).
It was even better than I remembered…it might have something to do with my heavier mix of butter to olive oil when sauteeing the garlic. Or, the fact that I concocted my own half-and-half from heavy cream and whole milk. Rich AND delicious!!
[…] week, I made Pink Vodka Sauce, grilled chicken, and chocolate chip cookies for dinner with Josh G., Kelly, Ashlyn, Daniel, and […]