Molly Makes Rigatoni with Vodka Sauce
Get the recipe: Pasta Alla Vodka
Released on 09/11/2018
Andrew.
Those are so delicious.
So good.
Oh my God.
Those are insane, I'm just snacking on a couple tomates.
(bright music)
This is a recipe from our sister site, Basically.
It is rigatoni with the easiest peasiest vodka sauce.
There are very few ingredients in this dish.
This particular recipe calls for only tomato paste
and no canned tomatoes or whole peeled tomatoes.
I did some research this morning and found out
that there are six tomatoes in every ounce of tomato paste.
Which means there are 27 tomatoes in this
and we're gonna add the entire thing to the pasta.
All right, first we dice an onion.
This is the aromatic base of our sauce, onion and garlic,
pretty classic Italian ingredients.
Also, don't be throwing out those butts,
they're just as good just chop 'em on up.
Hold on to your butts people.
Will you guys actually hand me a bench scraper?
A bench scraper? My favorite tool.
Molly, what do you do with a bench scraper?
You scrape up the bench, actually no you don't do that.
Poor benches.
There's no benches here.
It's used a lot in pastry but I like to use it
to scrape up all my ingredients and throw them into a bowl.
Then we have four garlic cloves that are still
in their skins and smashing them with the back of a knife
to release the skins and then I'm gonna smash them
just a little bit more to break them down
into smaller pieces, smashy smash.
All right, bench scrape that on in
and then we'll go over to the stove
and start to build the sauce.
Okay doke, so starting with a couple tablespoons
of olive oil in a large pot over medium.
I'm gonna add my garlic and onions.
We're not looking to get much color here
just to mellow them out so they're actually sweating
as we call it, it'll take about five
to seven minutes, stirring occasionally.
Meantime, I have my pasta water going.
I'm going to take a quarter cup of this hot water
and add it to my cold half and half.
This is going to temper the half and half
and make it a little bit warmer
so that when I add it to the pot,
it doesn't split and become a broken sauce.
Ratatouille?
Oh Jesus.
(laughs)
B-cam out.
Okay, I'm gonna season my pasta water
so that it's nice and salty like the ocean
before the rigatoni go in.
All right, looking good in here.
Me, I'm not really one for corny jokes like you are.
I'm over here. (laughs)
God damn it.
Okay, so there's a little bit of browning happening
on the edges of the onions which means
they've sweat out all of their liquid
and they have nothing left to give right now.
So, we're going to add our tomato paste,
the entire tube goes in.
There's something very satisfying about finishing
a tube of tomato paste 'cause it rarely happens.
Red chili flake as well.
I'm going to cook the tomato paste
for another five or six minutes
until it turns a really dark rust color,
the tomato paste is gonna start to stick
to the bottom of the pot and get really dark,
that's what we're looking for.
In the meantime, my water's boiling
and I'm gonna drop my rigatoni.
Hey, Ben.
Pasta la vista baby.
Oh my God, you guys are so corny.
The tomato paste is sticking to the bottom of the pot here
you can see and now comes the time where we add the vodka.
There we go, scraping to loosen up any of those bits
and cook off the alcohol.
I'm gonna take now my tempered cream
and slowly stir it in into a nice creamy sauce.
Okay, so the cream is now all incorporated
into the sauce, it's a bright rusty red color
and now we will drop our pasta right into it.
It's okay if a little bit of the water
from the pasta piggy backs and ends up in the sauce
'cause that's gonna actually help loosen it up a bit
so I think it needs a little bit of extra pasta water
so I'm gonna it little by little to loosen it just enough
and then in goes half of my Parmesan cheese
so this is four ounces of Parm, I'm gonna put two in
and reserve the rest for later for serving.
It's all about a balance of pasta water and cheese
in these final moments and we're looking good.
It's a beautiful rich red color,
all the rigatoni are perfectly coated.
What a great pasta shape, the rigatoni.
It's like penne but better. One of the best.
Which is why it's rigatoni alla vodka
instead of penne alla vodka as you might otherwise see.
I'm gonna sprinkle it with a little bit of extra Parm
and some torn basil right off the plant
'cause you can't get any fresher than that
and a little drizzle of olive oil 'cause why not?
Nice, nice, nice, nice.
There you have it, easiest peasiest rigatoni alla vodka.
I make it a pasta!
It's a magical confluence of easy pantry ingredients
that are probably already in your kitchen.
So, hop to it, very good.
Arrivederci!
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