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 the sauce, and was brought to France by the chefs of Catherina de' Medici in 1533. Louis de Béchamel, Marquis de Nointel, was a financier who held the honorary post of chief steward to King Louis XIV. This sauce was prominent in Italian cooking texts of the Renaissance as "salsa colla", but was renamed much later in "Le Cuisinier François", published in 1651 by François Pierre La Varenne (1615–1678), "chef de cuisine" to Nicolas Chalon du Blé, marquis d'Uxelles. The foundation of French cuisine, the "Cuisinier François" ran through some thirty editions in seventy-five years. The sauce originally was a