Sorella Italian Rigatoni alla Vodka

Prepared in-house by our chef, and owner, Justin Wills.

Culinary Institute of America alumnus Chef Justin Wills Rigatoni tossed with vodka – tomato cream sauce, basil, and Pecorino – Romano cheese

Rigatoni, as most of you know is tube pasta with ridges.
The ridges are there for a reason – to hold the sauce. There’s a similar pasta called mostaccioli, which is more, as far as size goes, similar to penne pasta, without lines. We like pastas with texture here at Sorella so we decided to use rigatoni.

The sauce itself is very, very simple: onions, garlic, San Marzano tomatoes, basil, and vodka and then a little bit of cream.

We sauté the onions and garlic, add black pepper and salt and then we deglaze with vodka.
We light that on fire, to cookout most of the alcohol and reduce down.
Then we add San Marzano tomatoes and let that simmer for about two hours, then puree and add heavy cream and reduce that by half.

We season it again. We’ve noticed adding little bit of lemon juice with salt and pepper, heightens the flavors. Not too much lemon juice to where it’s overpowering, but just enough to increase the acidity. And that’s it for that sauce.

To order we drop our rigatoni in heavily salted water and cook until it’s perfect, heat up some of our vodka sauce, toss it, then place into a bowl. We then season with pepper and hit it with Pecorino Romano.

Prego!