I'm Done With Starbucks

I like vodka sauce, dammit.

I don't like vodka though.

 

There are different levels of a "burning" sensation thanks to the alcohol. There are different mouth feels (cheap ones "taste" oily, more distilled ones "taste" smooth.)

There is not any flavor. Except what is added.

The penne alle vodka thing works as a flambe -- in my opinion, the flambeeing changes the flavor of the sauce. But you could do the same thing with everclear -- the flavor doesn't come from the liquor, but rather from the high heat applied quickly to the entire surface area of the sauce when the alcohol in the sauce catches flame. It will also be thinner, because while the 40 percent of the liquid added burns off during the flambee, 60 percent of vodka is still water, which remains to thin out the sauce. Which again, changes the flavor somewhat.

My whole thing is that they should just call if flambeed tomato sauce, and be done with it. But maybe that's too French for American menus. You'll never recreate it with a jarred pasta sauce, either. Whenever I see it on a menu, my mind conjures pictures of joe and jane sixpack at home throwing a cup of White Eagle into a jar of prego -- or, better yet, blowing up the trailer if they actually remember to attempt the flambee.

Long story short -- if you like it, and you can get it in a decent restaurant, go for it, whatever they call it. Just don't think it will taste the same out of a jar or at home. The trick is in the flambee, not the ingredient.

If that makes any sense.

 

Mine wasn't made with tomato sauce when I had it.

 

Cream sauce?

 

Some kind of pink sauce...lobster related.

 

Fravored with robster craws? [/longdukdong]

 

Cream sauce and tomato sauce mixed, or rose sauce?

That I have made, with Absolut Peppar, and it was good.

 

I don't think there was any tomato sauce to it. Consistency was fabulous.
But I've never had rose sauce that i know of (before that night, if that's what it was) so I can't speak to that.

 

That's cool.

I got my rant off my chest. I feel better.

 

Sandpaper Sally on the corner at $15 a throw?

 

For $15 a throw, bitch better have a pastrami sandwich, too.

 

Hey, I think you just helped me to decide what to have for dinner.
Pastrami with mustard and some skank on the side.