Cooking with vodka

Culinary recipes using vodka

Readers of The Rockettman blog know that there are two food staples in our household – pasta and poultry.  Regarding the latter (poultry), a classic winter comfort food dish is a simple roast chicken, but our repertoire of chicken dishes is becoming more varied.  Also, the Thanksgiving menu experiments with other types of fowl such as duck and Cornish game hen.  To the former (pasta), the possibilities are endless due to our reliable Lello Pasta Maker. 

I recently came across several recipes incorporating gin into these favorites and quickly assembled them into a blog post that has become very popular among my readers.  So, I turned to vodka as an alternate ingredient and searched for intriguing prospects – I did not have to look very far!

Gnocchi in vodka tomato sauce

We are big fans of gnocchi and often make our own.  The making of fresh potato gnocchi can be tedious, so my wife has experimented with a simpler version using potato flakes that may be just as good as the traditional method.  Pair the gnocchi with a rich tomato and vodka sauce and you have a fantastic comfort food dish for a wintry evening.

The sauce is dead easy to make by sweating yellow onions, garlic and red pepper flakes in olive oil (but not browning), and then adding tomato paste and canned tomatoes until thickened.  Incorporate heavy cream into this mixture and then blend it all in a blender until smooth.  Return to a pot, add the vodka and simmer gently over medium heat.  Add cooked gnocchi and increase heat to medium-high, allowing the gnocchi to mix well with the sauce. Serve with fresh parmesan – we like a blend of Reggiano, Locatelli and Pecorino.

Three martini chicken using vodka

A fun recipe involving chicken and vodka is a three martini chicken that involves skin-on chicken thighs, which are braised in oil in a Dutch oven and then removed.  Sliced onion and smashed garlic cloves are added to the oil, followed by pepper, vodka and bay leaves.  The chicken thighs are then returned to the vodka mixture to braise for another 15 minutes or so.

Once the chicken is cooked, remove with a slotted spoon and discard the bay leaves.  Add more vodka to the mixture along with the zest of two lemons and simmer.  Whisk in cold butter pats while simmering until incorporated in the sauce.  Follow this by whisking in mascarpone cheese and freshly grated garlic cloves.  Return the chicken to the sauce with crushed Castelvetrano olive halves and warm for 3-4 minutes.  Serve with fresh lemon zest and parsley over top.

Flame-grilled chorizo sausage

We lived in Portugal for an extended period in the early 1990s and continue to return there on a yearly basis.  Apart from enjoying the Old-World charm that Portugal still possesses, we delight in continuing to learn more about the gastronomy and viticulture of this country every time we visit.  A discovery on a recent trip involved a dish called chouriço bombeiro, which translates as fireman’s chorizo sausage, but is best described as a flaming chorizo sausage in a clay dish.  The sausage is flame broiled in the clay dish using vodka until the outside is bubbling and only slightly charred.  Then it is served in sliced rounds as an appetizer with pieces of crusty bread.

Bon Appétit!