Battle of the Celebrity Chef Vodka Cream Sauce recipes

For "food with liquor," I made penne with vodka cream sauce from a recipe by Giada de Laurentiis.* Wait, you might say (especially if you were Anastasia), didn't Anastasia just make that? Well, yes, but in my defense, there is not technically a rule against making exactly the same thing as someone else. Um. Also, it's exciting because we can compare celebrity chef recipes for the same thing. It's RACHEL RAY vs. GIADA DE LEURENTIIS!! Here goes:

Baseline trust level: Giada 9, Rachel 3. Rachel is a bigger star (I think), but I think it's because her inhuman perkiness makes her terrifying and thus impossible to look away from, which is not the same thing as wanting her to cook for you. Giada is Italian, which gives her cred, and while her cookbook does include an unnecessary number of pictures of her ta-tas, they do not frighten me.


Recipe reasonableness: Giada 5, Rachel 8. Sorry, G, but the whole thing of saying "use 3 cups of the marinara sauce you made earlier on page 32 (and which involves simmering for an hour)" is annoyingly reminiscent of The Joy of Cooking. However, she does get credit for pointing out that the cream has to be at room temperature or it will curdle--good tip! It could have helped Myrtle last week, perhaps.

Rachel's recipe is easier, but she gets points off for "1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, once around the pan in a slow stream"--snort--and, obviously, for the name "You Won't Be Single For Long Vodka Cream Pasta."

Taste: Giada: 9, Rachel 8. This is hard to judge, since I didn't taste Rachel/Anastasia's. The Giada recipe was really good--it looked and tasted delicious, with the promised vodka-induced "kick in the throat." I was dubious about the fact that the marinara sauce had carrots and celery in it, but that ended up being totally fine. Anastasia's sounded delicious too, but I give Rachel's recipe one point off for getting Stazio drunk--sounds like the recipe didn't give the vodka long enough to cook off.

Giada wins! Admittedly, I am not sure that that means I wouldn't use Rachel's recipe.

*I used Giada's recipe from the book "Everyday Italian," which is similar to, but for some reason not exactly the same as, this version of the recipe from her TV show of the same name. Both of them have you make a base tomato sauce first, then add vodka, cream, and Parmesan cheese, but the one in the book includes salt and pepper in the vodka sauce recipe, calls the base sauce "marinara" instead of "simple tomato sauce," and does not include basil or butter in the marinara sauce.

Brief Intermission: Hanukkah!

HAPPY HANUKKAH!

Sorry, to briefly stray from Cooking With Alcohol, but I just wanted to do a quick post about my recent experiment with latkes. Yummy mummy in my tummy!






I made mine super easy -- 3 grated potatoes, 2 eggs, 1 finely chopped onion, bunch of salt. It was classic, and since it was the first time I tried to make them, I didn't want to mess it up by going too overboard with the gourmet.



Frying them in the olive oil is the scariest part. But fry them in olive oil I did, in honor of the Hanukkah miracle of 8 nights of light in the Temple of Jerusalem (when there was only enough oil for 1 night). (Go holiday cooking lessons!).

Here are the oily little potato wonders, drying out a bit on a paper towel.

And here is the finished product, with a dollup of apple sauce.

Just like (Arie's) mom used to make 'em!

Chanukah Sameach, yo.

Tequila!

After getting stumped on what to make for the Cooking with Alcohol challenge, I got the idea for cooking with tequila from my Dad. I searched around and found this recipe for Pasta with Tequila Lime Cream Sauce on several different web sites. If it's all over the web, it must be good--right?

During the first stage of the cooking process, I had really high hopes. The tequila and lime reducing made my whole apartment smell like toasty Margarita. Mmm.

Things started to go a little wrong when I added the cream. It curdled instantly. Not terribly, but enough that I thought I might have to toss the whole attempt. I was worried that I would have to switch to my backup recipe No Bake Margarita Cheesecake (is it just me, or does this sound like a glorified jello shot?) Thankfully, this effect went away as the cream reduced, and once I added the butter the sauce was nice and creamy. Phew.

But that still left me with one major problem. Way too limey. A little white pepper and a lot of salt helped (no salt called for in this recipe? That wasn't going to work.), but it was still all about the lime.

I completely skipped the corn starch step because once I had reduced the sauce by 1/2 it was definitely thick enough for pasta.

The recipe suggested adding chicken or seafood, so I decided to sautée portabello mushrooms to go on top.

After the pasta overkill incident of Pasta Sauce Not From A Jar, I played it safe and only made enough pasta for the night and dished the sauce out on top.

The tomatoes and green onions helped balance the lime, and the portabella mushroom was a huge improvement. And I added a lot of Parmesan cheese on top. But, sigh, still too much lime.

I still felt like it had potential. I think this sauce could be really good 1) with about half as much lime juice, 2) with fresh lime juice--I regret wussing out and going with RealLime, 3) on fish (and even then maybe with less lime).

Clearly I am better at drinking alcohol than cooking with it.

Update: The next night I tried making it with way less lime (only about 1/8 cup because that was what I had) and it turned out MUCH better. Yay!

Cooking with alcohol

Turning boozy booze into food.