Gochujang vodka rigatoni

June 30, 2024

   

I picked up a little carton of cheap Oatly cream from Cheaper Buy Miles kind of by accident (I thought it was milk) but luckily I recalled that Meera Sodha uses it quite often in her Guardian-published vegan recipes. Here's one of them: a riff on vodka pasta sauce, which I don't see around in Australia but I recall encountering often in the United States. The traditional recipes seem to cook onions in butter or oil, combine them with tomatoes and cream, then include some vodka to help blend the latter two ingredients and give the sauce a sharp, clean finish. Sodha makes the obvious substitutions to render it vegan, then adds in gochujang for some extra heat.

My Oatly and pasta packages were larger than the recipe called for so I inflated the recipe by inexactly rounding up most of the ingredient quantities. I also swished tap water around the passata bottle and the Oatly carton to get the last bits out and into the sauce; as a consequence, I decided that I didn't really need the reserved pasta water included in the recipe. Happily, pasta is the kind of food that can take this casual attitude to measurements, although perfectionists might like to adjust the ratios more carefully.

I liked that this pasta was brightly tangy, almost fruity. I paired it with some more earthy burnt butter and black garlic Brussels sprouts.

Gochujang vodka rigatoni

(slightly adapted from a recipe by Meera Sodha published in The Guardian)

2-3 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 large onion, finely chopped

1 teaspoon salt

3 cloves garlic, minced

400g passata

1 1/2 tablespoons gochujang

1 1/2 tablespoon tomato paste

1/2 cup vodka

250mL Oatly vegan cream

500g rigatoni

Pour the oil into a large saucepan and set it over medium heat. Add the onion and salt and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onion is soft, about 8 minutes.

Add the garlic, stir for 2 minutes, then add the passata, gochujang, tomato paste and half of the vodka. Allow the mixture to bubble and reduce in volume for about 10 minutes. Stir in the remaining vodka and the cream, cook for another couple of minutes, then turn off the heat.

Bring a large pot of water to the boil and cook the pasta for 1 minute less than instructed. Save a cup of the pasta water and drain off the rest.

In whichever of the two saucepans is the best fit, stir together the pasta and the sauce and set them back on medium heat for a couple of minutes. Add some of the pasta water if needed, but aim for a thick sauce that clings to the pasta. Season to taste and serve.