Vodka sauce Vodka sauce Vodka sauce is an American cuisine sauce made from a smooth tomato sauce, vodka, typical Italian herbs and heavy cream, which gives the sauce its distinctive orange coloration. It gained popularity in the 1970s, when a variation won a national recipe contest in Italy, although it may well have been a sauce before its popularization in the 1970s. It is a key ingredient in penne alla vodka. The vodka's function is, ostensibly, to release flavors in the tomato that are normally inaccessible; using alcoholic beverages for this purpose is common in Italian cooking, although usually accomplished with wine.
Béchamel sauce Béchamel sauce Béchamel sauce (; ), also known as white sauce, is made from a white roux (butter and flour) and milk. It has been considered, since the seventeenth century, one of the mother sauces of French cuisine. It is used as the base for other sauces (such as Mornay sauce, which is Béchamel with cheese). Balsamell or Besciamella is the Italian equivalent of the French Béchamel: a very simple white sauce of flour, butter and milk. The sauce was originally from renaissance Tuscany and was known as "Salsa Colla or Colletta" ("glue sauce") because of the gluey consistency of