Penne alla vodka facts for kids
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| Course | Pasta |
|---|---|
| Place of origin | Italy |
| Invented | 1980s |
| Cooking time | 8 minutes to 10 minutes |
| Serving temperature | hot |
| Main ingredients | Penne, vodka, cream, tomatoes, onion |
Penne alla vodka is a yummy pasta dish. It's made with penne pasta and a special sauce that includes a little bit of vodka. The sauce usually has rich cream, crushed tomatoes, and onions. Sometimes, people add sausage, pancetta, or even peas to it.
This dish became super popular in Italy and the United States in the 1980s. It was often served to people at dance clubs back then. Because of this, it became a symbol of the trendy food of that time, which often used cream in pasta dishes. Even today, penne alla vodka is a well-known dish in Italian-American cuisine.
Contents
Where Did Penne Alla Vodka Come From?
The exact story of how penne alla vodka was invented isn't completely clear. It's a bit of a mystery!
Early Ideas for Vodka Pasta
One of the first times vodka was used in a pasta dish was in 1974. An Italian actor named Ugo Tognazzi wrote a cookbook called L'Abbuffone. In it, he shared a recipe for "furious pasta." This dish was like a spicy pasta all'arrabbiata, but it included a shot of vodka. Tognazzi even suggested using a strong Polish vodka for extra spice!
Who Invented It? Different Stories
Many people claim to have invented penne alla vodka.
- Some say it was created at a restaurant called Dante in Bologna, Italy.
- Others believe James Doty, a student from Columbia University, came up with it.
- The Williams Sonoma Essentials of Italian cookbook says a chef in Rome invented it in the 1980s. This chef supposedly made it for a vodka company that wanted to make their product more popular in Italy.
- Barbara Kafka, in her book Food for Friends, wrote that the dish was common in Italy before it became famous in America in the early 1980s.
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Penne Alla Moscovita
In the 1980s, another pasta dish with penne and vodka became very popular. It was called "penne alla moscovita" (meaning "Moscow-style penne"). This version was made with smoked salmon, cream, and caviar. Sometimes, people used shrimps instead of caviar. This unique recipe was very popular in the dance clubs along the Emilia-Romagna Riviera in Italy. People often just called it "penne alla vodka."
A Symbol of Friendship
On October 25, 2016, an Italian food group brought back this 1980s recipe. They shared it at the 18th World Pasta Day event in Moscow. It was meant to be a symbol of friendship between Italy and Russia. This idea was a big hit! Studies in the U.S. showed that penne alla vodka became the second most searched-for pasta dish online, right after pasta alla Bolognese.
What's in the Sauce?
Besides the penne pasta, the sauce for this dish usually mixes cream sauce with marinara sauce or tomato paste. This combination is a bit unusual in traditional Italian cooking. That's because the sourness of tomatoes can sometimes make the oil in the cream separate.
This is where the vodka comes in! The alcohol in the vodka helps the water and fats in the sauce stay mixed together smoothly. It acts like a special helper called an "emulsifier." The vodka also helps to bring out certain yummy flavors from the tomato that you might not taste otherwise. This is why vodka is used in other vodka sauce recipes too.
