[Image description: a blue bowl with fettuccini pasta with meatballs in an orange sauce, topped with grated parmesan and diced sage.]
Rough recipe:
-Start your pasta (I used fettuccine) and broil your meatballs. I was lazy and used pre-cooked meatballs from Costco that just need a little browning.
-Saute thinly sliced shallots in oil until they started to brown, added in diced garlic, pepper, and some dried Italian seasoning blend.
-Once those cooked to golden, I pushed them to the edge of my pan. I'm using a pan that's really too big for the burner, but by moving where the heat is at, it allows me to keep the onion/garlic mixture warm without cooking further. A normal recipe would say remove from pan, but I'm lazy and don't want to clean the extra dish.
-On the hot side of the pan, add a bunch of oil and a small can of tomato paste. Fry the paste in the oil until the excess water is driven out. You'll know it's ready when you start seeing little brown caramelization patches as you stir the paste.
-Start adding splashes of vodka to the paste, stirring and adding until the mixture has cooled enough that the alcohol isn't immediately boiling off.
-Turn the heat down and add chopped fresh sage, oregano, thyme, and a little bit of rosemary, and mix back in the onion/garlic.
-Add a splash of heavy cream until it reaches the right shade of orange.
-Once your pasta is al dente, add it to the pan and mix into the sauce. Add ladles of the pasta water to loosen the sauce as needed.
-Add the meatballs and serve, topped with grated parmesan and diced sage.
Looks wonderful. Roughly how much vodka do you end up using?
About 4-5 tablespoons.