This is why vodka makes your pasta sauce insanely delicious
We know Gigi worldwide as a top model, but also as the person who made pasta with vodka (once again) wildly popular. By now, we could make her pasta à la vodka in our sleep. So delicious! But why exactly does vodka work so well in pasta sauce? Because vodka itself doesn’t have a particularly distinctive, pronounced taste or smell, right?
If you think Gigi also invented this heavenly dish, you’re mistaken. In fact, this dish was already a hit long before she was born. In Italy in the 1980s, it was discovered that vodka is an incredible addition to pasta sauce. The idea soon crossed the ocean to America, where people could order it while going out to discos. Wait, what?! Eating pasta sauce with vodka while out partying? Why did this trend ever disappear?!
Why vodka works so well in your pasta sauce
Even though—for whatever inexplicable reason—we can no longer order pasta with vodka at the disco bar, we can still make it at home. Thankfully. Because there’s something magical about pasta covered in vodka sauce. And we’ve figured out why! Flavor-makers such as tomatoes, pancetta and garlic in your pasta sauce contain flavor compounds that primarily dissolve in fat. You can taste those flavors perfectly well, but not everything is extracted.
Fats don’t evaporate during cooking
That has to do with the fact that fats don’t really evaporate during cooking. The smoke point is only reached at a high temperature. For butter, that’s around 150 degrees, while extra virgin olive oil reaches its smoke point at approximately 166 degrees. When you make pasta sauce, you don’t come anywhere near these temperatures. That’s usually a good thing, because otherwise the fats would break down. Not exactly delicious.
Alcohol does evaporate
But what happens when you add alcohol such as vodka? Unlike fats, alcohol does evaporate, and this already happens at a temperature of 70 to 80 degrees. Ethanol, the chemical name for alcohol, is a volatile substance. A “volatile” substance, as we’d say in more everyday English. Fats are not volatile. The volatile alcohol ensures that aromas and flavor compounds are literally carried upward to your mouth and nose. You taste and smell everything in the sauce much better. That’s why your pasta tastes so good!
Alcohol in your sauce is a good idea
Alcohol is a kind of solvent that can unlock flavor compounds that water and fat alone—without the alcohol—would not be able to release. That’s why it’s primarily the alcohol in vodka that does such a good job. Vodka itself is fairly tasteless, but that’s actually a good thing in a pasta sauce with rich ingredients. You don’t want the flavor of an alcoholic drink to overpower everything else. Tomatoes, herbs, garlic, cheese and possibly pancetta are already pretty powerful flavor bombs on their own.
I think I’ll make Gigi’s meal again today. With this over-the-top vodka cake to finish it off.
Also read:
- Is there really a difference between expensive and cheap vodka?
- Avoid a hangover? Drink vodka
- Hotheads, this one’s for you: 15 of our favorite spicy dishes
Sources: Louers Vodka, Cook’s Illustrated, ATAG, natuurdietisten.nl
