Penne alla Vodka alla Cook's Illustrated

The new Cook's Illustrated arrived this weekend and with it some lovely recipes, including a recipe for penne alla vodka. I like to make penne alla vodka quite a bit, but for some reason I often forget about it as an option. Plus, I don't often have a bottle of vodka and/or carton of heavy cream around. My mom has a great recipe for this dish with shrimp, which I think is just off the back of a box of pasta or something like that! This one is pretty close, though.

My version was ever-so-slightly different from the Cook's Illustrated version because I used tomato puree instead of whole plum tomatoes (I grabbed the wrong can at the supermarket) and I added a few extra ingredients, which I thought it needed.

To make the dish, mince half an onion and two cloves of garlic. Sauté the onion in a few tablespoons of olive oil until soft, about three to five minutes. Add the garlic and about 1/2 a teaspoon of crushed red pepper. Sauté until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add a 28 oz. can of tomato puree (or puree canned whole plum tomatoes yourself), 1/2 tsp salt, 1 tsp dried basil, 1 tsp dried oregano, and 1/3 cup vodka. Cook on medium heat about 8-10 minutes, until the alcohol has burned off. Adjust salt level. Add 1/2 cup heavy cream. Stir, and heat about one minute until the cream has heated up in the sauce.

Toss with pasta. The pasta shown here is, of course, gluten free. It's the Trader Joe's brown rice pasta, which I have a sneaking suspicion is Tinkyada, because it tastes exactly the same.

Serve with fresh basil and Parmesan or Romano cheese.