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.
Espagnole sauce Espagnole sauce Espagnole sauce () is a basic brown sauce, and is one of Auguste Escoffier's five mother sauces of classic French cooking. This sauce was already compiled in different Spanish cooking handbooks of the late 19th century, and Escoffier popularized the recipe, which is still followed today. Espagnole has a strong taste, and is rarely used directly on food. As a mother sauce, it serves as the starting point for many derivatives, such as sauce africaine, sauce bigarade, sauce bourguignonne, sauce aux champignons, sauce charcutière, sauce chasseur, sauce chevreuil, and demi-glace. Hundreds of other derivatives are in the classical