Vodka Rigatoni
Pink, glossy, clinging to every ridge of the pasta, with parmesan snowed over the top: this is the most-ordered pasta in America, and the restaurant version is not better than this one. The sauce is onion, tomato paste, a splash of vodka, and cream, made in one skillet at 6:30 and left there. At 8:00 you boil pasta with a timer running and tip it into the skillet. The hard part of this dish is not eating it out of the pan before she gets there.
- Cost for two
- $27
- Active time
- 25 min
- Done ahead
- 72%
- 1 hr 55 min before 7:30
- Hands off at
- 7:25
- T-5
Allergens: Milk (cream, parmesan) · Wheat (rigatoni)·Serves: 2, generously, with a lunch·Oven: None (stovetop only)
Gear: One large skillet with a lid (or a plate over it), one big pot with a lid, a colander, a wooden spoon, tongs, a mug (for pasta water), a phone timer.
Start at 5:30. Hands off from 7:25. Stove mode follows the clock while you cook.
The 7:30 Timeline
Read it bottom-up if you like; cook it top-down.
Done before she arrives
Aisle order
Shopping list
Produce
Yellow onion
1
Garlic
you use 3 cloves
1 head
Dairy & Cheese
Heavy cream
you use ¾ cup
1 pint
Parmesan
you use about ¾ cup grated; the pre-grated tub is fine
1 wedge or tub
Pantry & Canned
Tomato paste
6 oz; you use ⅓ cup, about 5 tablespoons
1 small can
Rigatoni
16 oz; you use 12 oz, about three-quarters of the box
1 box
Red pepper flakes
small jar
Wine & Beer
Vodka
375 ml, the cheapest one; you use ¼ cup
1 small bottle
Pantry (you probably have these)
Salt, pepper, olive oil
At the stove
Method
- 1
Peel the onion and cut it into small rough pieces, about the size of a pea or a little bigger. Nobody is checking.
- 2
Smash 3 garlic cloves with the side of a knife, peel, and chop small.
- 3
If the parmesan is a wedge, grate about ¾ cup on the small holes. Set it aside in a bowl.
- 4
Put the skillet on medium heat with 3 tablespoons olive oil. Add the onion and ½ teaspoon salt.
- 5
Stir every minute or so for 6 minutes. Done when the onion is soft and translucent and not yet brown. If it browns at the edges, turn the heat down.
- 6
Add the garlic. Stir for 1 minute.
- 7
Add 5 tablespoons tomato paste. Stir it into the onion with the wooden spoon for 3 minutes. It darkens from bright red to brick red and starts to smell sweet instead of tinny. This step is where the flavor comes from; do not skip it.
- 8
Lift the skillet off the burner before you pour in the vodka; on a gas stove alcohol can flare. Add ¼ cup vodka, put the skillet back, and stir for 1 minute until the sharp smell fades.
- 9
Turn the heat to low. Pour in ¾ cup cream. Add ½ teaspoon red pepper flakes and ½ teaspoon salt.
- 10
Stir until the sauce is one smooth pale-orange color with no streaks of red. Let it bubble gently for 2 minutes.
- 11
Turn the heat off and put the lid on. The sauce holds here until 7:50.
- 12
At 7:00, fill the big pot three-quarters full with water, add 1 tablespoon salt, and put the lid on. Do not turn it on yet.
- 13
At 7:25, turn the burner under the pot to high with the lid on.
- 14
At 7:50, add 12 oz rigatoni to the boiling water and stir once. Set a timer for 1 minute less than the box says (most rigatoni: 11 minutes). Turn the skillet burner to low.
- 15
At the timer, dip the mug into the pot and take ½ cup of the cloudy water. Pour it into the skillet and stir.
- 16
Drain the pasta in the colander. Do not rinse.
- 17
Tip the pasta into the skillet. Add half the parmesan. Turn everything over with tongs for about 30 seconds until every piece is coated and glossy. If it looks tight or pasty, add a splash more pasta water. Turn the heat off.
- 18
Plate with the rest of the parmesan and a pinch of flakes.
Is it done?
The check that needs no experience
Thermometer: not needed. Nothing here is meat. No thermometer: at the timer, bite a piece of rigatoni: it should be firm but not chalky, with no white ring at the center of the wall. The sauce is done at 6:41 when it is one smooth pale-orange color that coats the back of the spoon and leaves a clean line when you drag a finger through it.
The #1 way to screw it up
At 8:03 the sauce is a thick orange paste that clumps on the pasta instead of coating it, because it sat in the skillet for an hour and tightened, and the pasta went in without enough water.
Recovery
Pasta water, ¼ cup at a time, turning with the tongs after each splash, until the sauce slides and shines. The starch in that water is what makes it cling. If you already poured the pot out, hot tap water works, and a spoon of cream on top of that. Thirty seconds and it is the restaurant version again.
- The onion caught and went dark brown at 6:34
- scrape out any black bits with the spoon and carry on; cream and tomato paste hide a lot. If it is fully black, wipe the pan and start the onion again — you have 90 minutes.
- Pasta overcooked because the conversation was good
- it is soft rigatoni in vodka sauce. Toss it, cheese it, plate it in a bowl instead of a plate. Nobody has ever sent this back.
The reveal
Plating
Warm two wide shallow bowls under the hot tap for 20 seconds and dry them, then pile the pasta high in the center of each rather than spreading it out. Grate or scatter the rest of the parmesan over the top from a foot up so it snows onto everything. Finish with a pinch of red pepper flakes and a thin thread of olive oil around the mound, and bring the bowls out together.
Vegetarian swap
It already is. ASSUMPTION: most parmesan is made with animal rennet; if she is strict about that, buy a parmesan labeled "vegetarian" (BelGioioso marks theirs) or use a pecorino that says the same. Same skillet, same timeline. For a vegan guest: a can of full-fat coconut cream in place of the heavy cream and skip the parmesan; it is a different, sweeter dish, but it is still pink and glossy.
What to pour
- Wine
- a Chianti or a soft Pinot Noir — Ruffino Chianti, about $10, or Mark West Pinot Noir, about $10. Tomato and cream want red fruit, not oak.
- Beer
- Peroni.
- No alcohol
- blood-orange San Pellegrino over ice; the bitterness cuts the cream.
Take this to the supermarket.
The First Bulletproof Dinner as a PDF, with the timelines. Free.