My favorite origin story for the sauce is that it was misheard, originally called alla vacca. Vacca translates to cow, referring to the heavy cream and butter you add to a simple tomato sauce. Italy isn't really known for it's vodka industry after all.
Well yeah people in Italy drank gin. Vodka wasn’t big anywhere but Poland/Russia/surrounding countries until pretty recently. Cuz it’s got no flavour and modern people don’t wanna taste their alcohol as much (that’s an opinion)
@@krusher181 vodka is the king of mixed drinks... you can mix it with anything and it barely changes the flavor like orange juice, apple juice, etc.. But yeah it has little flavor i think the US just loves all booze.
I'm a physical chemist. You did a great job on your explanation of the science of water-ethanol solutions. For anyone who is curious about some real nitty gritty: ethanol and water form what's called an azeotrope at around 91-96% abv. This means at these concentrations the boiling point of the solution is lower than the individual boiling point of either of its components individually. If you are interested in evaporation in general there are two models that are pretty interesting. They are Henry's Law and Raoult's law. Hope this sparks some curiosity!
I like alcohols superior ability to extract flavors from ingredients. As well as the ability to add significant depth of flavor that seems to hold onto your tounge. I typically cook with bourbon if I'm using an alcohol to cook with. I think I even found the best cooking bourbon! Old grand dad bonded bourbon. It's really cheap and tastes like it on the finish when sipping neat (I don't recommend for sipping) but the flavor profile of the whiskey is the baking spices type bourbon flavors. Which I find preferable to the fruity ones that taste like medicinal cherry. It's also bonded, so it's 100proof, which to me means more flavor. And being bonded it's at least 4 years old, so it's carrying in some character, enough to have that lingering thing going on the palate. And its bad aftertaste gets "lost in the sauce" so to speak. The way I use it in my cooking is to cut the acidity of the vinegar, reducing or negating my need to add a pinch or 2 of sugar to compensate. Goes great in a tomato basil sauce balanced with balsamic!
I would guess that is the reason why the most concentrated commonly affordable ethanol is 190 proof...since that is almost as concentrated as one can get it via ordinary distillation? (I read that the azeotrope forms at just over 191.2 proof.)
@@brandonhoffman4712 a fun thing you can do with whisk(e)y is tilt your glass and smell at the top of the rim of the glass and then at the bottom of the rim of the glass. You should get the fruitier smelling esters at the top and the heavier molecules responsible for flavors like vanilla and chocolate at the bottom. Thank you for the cooking recommendation!
Ethan - this new explainer format that you’re doing (like you did for vanilla and Parmesan Reggiano) is everything I’ve ever wanted. I would watch a whole channel of just THAT. Thank you for the efforts!
A little more focus on which ones of the good ones are better/best and why, and less of the "this one is the worst and this is the second worst". Also less focus on did you taste which ones were which accurately. So 2 points I came away from this video wondering: in the first round with the different amounts of vodka, was the 1% better than the 0%? and in the last round, would weaker Mezcal be better than the Gin?
Watch Good Eats, Alton Brown's intellectual child. He breaks stuff down even on scales like this, but makes it so enjoyable, even I watched when I was like 8.
@@biggu3257 I'm assuming it's the verbiage of the "flavored with grapes" part, as wine is made directly from grapes, not used in any type of flavoring process.
I think one thing missed in this experiment is that the timing of when you add the vodka to the sauce matters. In vodka sauce you’re adding at after frying off the tomato paste with the onion, which exposes the ethanol more directly to the tomato/onion and cooks off much faster. Also, because I’m weird I use dry vermouth in cooking where you’re not wanting the flavor of the alcohol and you’re just wanting the benefit that the ethanol brings to the party.
vodka basically has NO flavor except the ethanol. Ethanol and alcohol are kind of the same thing, so I can't imagine that vermouth is going to be different. Vermouth is explicitly flavored with herbs and roots. So it's going to confuse things.
The alcohol ends the frying prosses and locks in the flavors of the onions, garlics, and for you tomato paste. You naturally go on to boil away the alcohol.
@@claytonstacey Yeah that hurt a bit lol. I was hoping he'd delve into vapor pressure and why adding a volatile compound would increase the evaporation of other volatiles because distillation is super cool, but that's too far in the weeds for a cooking video
@@David_Spector27 my biochemistry degree is very-well aged and my moderate alcohol intake over the decades may have extracted some of my memories.... but am I recalling correctly that the mixture of alcohol and water boil at a different temperature than either alone?
@@bryanballot5684 Yup you are exactly correct, that's actually part of the principle distilleries work off of! Similairly, adding ethanol to food will decrease the boiling points of the volatile esters and flavor molecules, increasing their vapor pressure and the number of taste receptor collisions. Super cool stuff!
@@claytonstacey nah, as a professional chemist, I nodded with “yep, they’re both dominated by the alcohol functional group.” In the world of food chemistry, sugar and ethanol are more similar than most components of a dish.
I had vodka pasta at a restaurant with my wife and I thought it was just okay. We both agreed that gin would probably be better due to the flavors. Great to see that you thought gin was the better option too.
Really love the channels pivot to more food sciencey content, especially appreciate the practicality of your experiments. this type of content is not being made elsewhere and is genuinely helpful for home cooks
I’ve enjoyed your more straight-up, “Make XYZ food and here’s how and why you should do it,” for a while now, but I feel like you’re really finding your unique creative voice with these recent “what’s the deal with X?” videos over the last few months. Keep it up!
One thing to add, as the amount of ethanol evaporated doesnt just depend on the amount of ethanol added prior to cooking, you might actually end up with similar alcohol concentrations despite starting with different amounts - if the cooking time is long enough.
I've never seen someone mix the vodka in the sauce before cooking. I've always added the vodka after sautéing the onions, garlic, and tomato paste. The alcohol is supposed to help scrape up any delcious caramelized bits from the pan before it quickly burns off. Then i add the canned tomatoes and cream after.
Exactly. I use about two shots of good vodka at the deglazing stage and then simmer the tomato sauce, before adding the cream and cheese. Before adding those I’ll add a shot to the sauce and simmer for about 3-5 minutes then add the cream and cheese
It's super interesting and makes a ton of sense. We all knew vodka was extremely neutral and ethanol evaporates quite a bit so that neutrality is even more tuned down. We also know it can help other flavor compounds, but it was kinda always open-ended by how much. Adding in that we know the popularizer of pasta ala vodka was intentionally trying to sell more vodka and the results all sorta fit. It makes a small change, but realistically a good pasta sauce isn't going to be turned into anything special with vodka, it just perhaps slightly changes the flavor profile a tiny bit. Also means teetotalers aren't missing out on anything in this case!
The thing that wowed me is Ethan preferred gin in his pasta, and I thought going in to this test that the combination would be simply abhorrent! I mean, I like gin, but I never thought making my pasta sauce taste like a Christmas tree would improve anything!
This is probably the first time when I’m not very satisfied with testing methodic. The best tasting recipe had different time when you introduce alcohol - it is used to deglaze tomato paste, not after you add cream. And here I’m pretty sure it makes significant difference. I definitely could smell fruity aroma of deglazed tomato paste. Also, that recipe included significantly more alcohol (I’d say about 6-8%), because it was introduced earlier and most of it was evaporated. Maybe I’ll try to make pasta alla vodka without alcohol some time to taste the difference for myself
This was my thought as well. I get that you'd kind of need a very rigorous test kitchen to make a bunch of these at the same time in the same way, just with more or less vodka addd at that point. Having tried this with a few different spirits, Brandy is the best for my tastes. Also using 20-40% by weight cherry tomatoes for more pectin and intensity of flavour.
Yes, I don't understand why he did it this way. I've not seen any pasta alla vodka recipes that just simply add it at the end like this. Don't know why he's done this. I want to see him do this again with deglazing the pan and cooking it off at the right time...
Seems like deglazing with alcohol may help carmilization. I would also add a sauce that contains parmesan cheese in it or other dry difficult to mix non homogenized fat in it may change the end effect. I'm allergic to dairy now, so I can never answer this question. Maybe he will do a follow-up.
Ethan+Ethanol=Perfect Pasta! I think an interesting aspect of adding any type of ethanol is that certain flavours are alcohol soluble, rather than water soluble. Aspects of garlic are noticeably different to me depending on whether wine or vodka is added. Other flavours are fat soluble, whilst some may be be both, and will yield different results. I tend to notice the notes of bay leaf and fennel seed when I use wine or vodka in my sauce.
this might be the solution for me since i rarely taste the garlic in my food anymore even if i use like a whole head to tomato sauce, and i'm huge garlic head so it's a bummer. have been searching for a way to enhance the flavour of garlic in my food for a minute. thanks!
@@Nakkiteline Wishing you satisfactory results, and more garlic flavour! I think the sweetness of the wine I add really brings out more of garlic's potential. I find I prefer red with meat or Bolognese, and white without.
@@zoulzopan it's the favourite spice of my family and we kinda have over used it ina way that i don't recognice it any more that well and if i do it's completely overpowering for other people :D
I'm not sure if it's just your editing and you're fooling us all, but damn - I'm always really impressed by your taste buds. That's kind of a weird thing to say, but it really gives you quite a lot of credibility. I'm impressed.
I might be a weirdo, but I find alcoholic cider to be a good fit for tomato sauces. One of the best baked pasta dishes I've ever made had a large splash of dry yuzu cider in it -- certainly acidic, but very fresh and fragrant :3 Loved this video!
oh my god im gonna have to try this! i put apple cider vinegar in my red sauces, so i could see how a cider would provide that same bite and acidic with a little kick!
I was at a friend’s place and once didn’t have White Wine for Bolognese and ran cider instead. I have made a full time switch from white wine to cider - although living in the U.K., which has less sweet more sour tomatoes due to the lack of sunshine/greenhouses, that extra sweetness from the cider balances out the U.K. tomatoes.
Anytime I make any kind of tomato based sauces, I always add about half a tablespoon of vodka when adding the room temperature tomatoes. That way the alcohol has a little time to extract the alcohol soluble flavors before it starts to evaporate.
I love how well thought out your deep dives are. And don't worry about how long these vids are bc the people that are watching these are into what you're testing and not just for people looking for a recipe. I really don't want you to leave anything out hence why these need to be longer than some other vids, Thanks again Ethan for these great vids.
Mhh I'm not convinced by the experiment because I would certainly not add vodka to the finished product even with intent to cook down further. To my knowledge vodka is usually added early on, with the tomato paste into garlic and onion but before tomatoes. The idea is that it gives the opportunity for solvating flavour compounds and reacting with them before adding wet mass in the form of tomatoes that will prevent alcohol evaporation.
the order that I would do it in: sautee garlic, onion, chilli flakes add tomato paste, mix it in and let it heat up for 1-2 minutes. I find this step reduces unpleasant flavours from cheap tomato paste that I buy add vodka to dissolve and collect the paste before it burns. wait for ~half of the liquid to evaporate add tomatoes and continue as in the video with the cream/butter/blending
I was hoping he would address that in the video, that was my understanding too. Makes me want to test that myself (same amount of vodka added at different stages of cooking).
I always thought using vodka for cooking was an odd choice because vodka is made to taste like nothing. When making cocktails you add vodka so there's that ethanol kick rather than changing flavor profile. Insightful stuff and love these scientific videos :)
Yeah the only legit use case of vodka is for fried food, like british fish and chips because the vodka evaporates faster then water in the oil and so the battered fish ends up more crispy
@@valhallakombi7239 there's gonna be alcohol-soluble vitamins in some foods, especially soups. Even if the flavor doesn't change entirely there can be benefits
I love the way you planned and documented this whole thig out. Here is my thoughts though, I think the alcohol might best be added while cooking down the onions, garlic, and red pepper flakes in the butter. The reason for that is those are probably the biggest flavor notes you have in the sauce and that might be the best time to add the new flavors of gin into the sauce. I will try this next time I have some gin! Thinking Bombay sapphire east might be the best, because of its additional black pepper and lemongrass flavors. Would love to see a video of you testing this theory out! Would be more work, but might be worth it.
Your supposed to add it once you cook off some of the raw tomato paste. I appreciate his videos but sometimes he does the testing applications so wrong
Yea if u had the paste all on the onions and stuff in the pan get a fond started add in vodka deglaze cook off most of it then cook the sauce cooking off most of it I’m guessing it would be mostly distilled water left carrying the flavors
Yes, as a non food scientist that is a different kind of scientist, I can confirm many of us turn into the equivalent of a food scientist in the kitchen, lol it goes both ways. Science is science and once it gets into a person, it gets into all aspects of the person.
The blind testing was super interesting, but I would have loved if you tried the sauces you found similar after each other and tried to identify differences. That would have been helpful to actually see if the alcohol changes the flavor.
Pretty cool taste test! I think especially interesting to find that gin could be the best tasting. It sort of opens up a treasure trove for experimentation, since gins can vary so much in the botanicals used.
Looking at this from a hobby chemist point of view, i suspect the ethanol itself isnt really adding much flavor but is instead acting as a solvent, dissolving different compounds from the ingredients and allowing them to react with each other forming new flavors. Cooking is just very specialized organic chemistry 😆
I actually like the taste of Brandy in a creamy tomato soup. I think the sweet offsets the bitter well enough and the heat of the alcohol (and a bit of cayenne) makes it very warm going down on a cold day. I could see how it might be weird with pasta though.
It's been said ad nauseum....but this little series and episodes in this format have been pretty fantastic from vanilla, tomatoes, this episode, etc. Really enjoy them and it seems like you enjoy making them. Looking forward to what else you think to test and compare.
I always believed that the inclusion of alcohol into the sauce was to deglaze the bottom of the pan after sauté-ing the vegetables/meats. Pulling the savoury flavours from the base of the pan and adding them to the sauce
Fantastic video. Former restaurant person here. First off, there's a lot (potentially) going on chemically; for example, depending on cooking temps, some things might reach their Maillard Reaction temperatures (browning, caramelization) etc., which could influence final flavors, depending on the point at which alcohol was added. By adding it at a relatively low-temperature moment in the recipe, I wonder to what extent things might have been altered vs. adding it early. This felt like cooking Manderin but adding mirin at the very end, which (in my experience, at least) is a mistake, because one wants the sugars to convert to caramels and one wants to boil off most of the alcohol during cooking (although it's a tricky balance, because once it's in the wok, scraping the fond into the dish while on high temps until the moisture content drops enough is quite necessary to prevent harsh notes). I suspect the white-wine version would've been significantly upgraded if the wine was added with the butter and onions early, for example, but I'm not as convinced that the gin would've worked as well (very little sugar to work with, and who knows what bitters might result from floral / pine compounds reaching higher heat). It also makes me think that perhaps one area that somebody oughtta try making a product for the trade is in extracts for certain aromatics that we wouldn't normally want to drink; for example, oregano or thyme. It looks like, from a cursory search of the Internet, that this is a thing already (found "Extracts by Annie" on Etsy, for example) and I immediately wondered, "hey, how much of thyme's notes will be preserved; is this even vaguely going to carry the notes of fresh thyme", since fresh thyme is one of those things that I, like most people, only buy at home when I know a dish won't be right with the dried version. But this is an interesting theory: an Italian restaurant could use such extracts to cut down on prep-processing time and improve consistency while achieving A+ depths of flavor. One wonders if Olive Garden's test kitchen has tried this out (and if so, if they'd be willing to talk about it on the record). There are some other serious questions there, largely revolving around what would happen chemically as the flavenoids and other aromatic compounds were released (like, is it like mirin, where sooner is better... or is this something where it's better-used when temperatures won't permit much Maillard).
A worthy question. My guess is that your theories are already in practice at an industrial level (large-scale food manufacture) where extracts in bulk are likely more easily worked with than whole ingredients. Like, say, ice cream making, sauce sold by the can in many places, etc. Also, your theories on efficiency and consistency sound a lot like what many bartenders/mixologists do. If you want to make a drink with thyme flavoring I'll bet that an extract or infusion from fresh thyme would work great. Might not be the same as fresh (like, say, muddled thyme in a cocktail) but it would have its own merits and might actually make for better consistency, mouthfeel (no solid ingredients or pieces), more practicality with shelf life and storage, etc.
@@madtonesbr Yeah, I presume large companies doing industrial-level stuff (Campbell's, for example) have probably tested a lot of these things, and there are probably some expert-level books on this material out there where I can't follow the biochemistry, lol. Probably extracts of some of these things are harder to achieve than, "throw in booze, wait" and it's either impractical or expensive vs. simply throwing in measured amounts of raws. But it's interesting to think about how extracts could be applied in ways to achieve better palate notes or at least more consistency for diners' experiences, especially for those midrange chains where that's so important (Olive Garden, Applebees, Qdoba, etc.). One imagines professional tasters evaluating "sauce base no 39" where the key note is 120-day aged Moroccan thyme extract, lol.
This was a fascinating taste-test. Thank you Ethan! On the subject of adding subtle flavors & aromas to cooked food with alcohol, it'd be really cool if you'd run this back with a few more spirits known for their distinct flavor/aroma profiles, namely: Sherries - (Oloroso, amontillado, and a PX for intense fruity sweetness) Whiskies - (Bourbon, a sherried scotch, and a peated scotch for the content) All of these should have quite the distinct effect on the sauce flavor, and are my preferred spirits for adding dimension to food!
Yes! I was just about to ask why no casked/aged spirits such as Brandy or Whisk(e)y, and also why not Rum? Rum has a sugar base and has a lot of "funk" to it, so that would change the flavor profile a lot.
I have been using beer, r/w wine and cider in my cooking so far, but Pasta alla Gin sounds like something I have to try now. Considering I love gin(&tonic) and the flavor of juniper and coriander in food, I don't know why I didn't try this before. Great video, I love how in-depth you went and how you analyzed the different modes of flavor. Have a like and subscribe.
One day I was cooking and we were out of vodka, so I decided to try our gin instead. I've never gone back! The herbaceous notes just adds such a nice, light complexity. Welcome to the pasta al gin train!
even though this obviously isn't a 100% accurate and objective experiment, it's really cool that you did it. I always wondered what was the deal with adding wine or other types of alcohol to food.
Рік тому+5
One more big questio, how does the ordet of adding ingredients during cooking influence the final taste? I would (potentially naively) add alcohol to the pan before I add tomato and cream. That would be an interesting taste test!
These videos are remarkably well made and edited, it’s clear you put many hours into each one. I am genuinely amazed! Thank you for producing such incredible content, it is appreciated!
I think this confirmed my initial thoughts about cooking, that it really does not matter how closely you follow a recipe. I used to measure exactly how much wine or vodka I put in dishes, but it looks like you can be off by like a factor of 2 in either direction and it's not going to make a difference. Pretty much salt and sugar are the only things which really matter that you're somewhat close, but ironically recipes rarely tell you how much of those to put and instead just say: add until you like it, which is probably way more accurate than any recipe can get.
Back when i made medicated brownies, I'd put a shot of amaretto into the herb-infused butter right at the last 5 minutes. Seemed both to add a nice hint of flavour and catalyze the absoprtion of the alkaloids into the fat
Rising up to rival Alton Brown’s science informed cooking. At this point, I’ve learned about as much from Ethan as from Alton. Thank you, Ethan, for working so hard to test and communicate the foundational variables of cooking!!
Alton got too far up his own ass. Also, he tried to claim that American GIs taught Koreans how to make fried chicken..a dish they've been making for about 500 years...
A small detail with alcho not mentioned in your video but likely not relevant is alcho vs waters wetness. which could contribute to better spread over our tongue :) love the video keep up the amazing video's
I've always had the theory ppl will add alcohol to anything given the chance, even if the flavor profile doesn't change. Also, you can use a nonalcoholic substitute in a dish and the taste is often better!
3:11 Listen guys I made that sauce, and I thank god I tried it It is absolutely THE BEST pasta sauce you'll ever make All my friends just went crazy for it
I cook with non-alcoholic wine all the time because they have all the flavour compounds with no alcohol to burn off (and they're surprisingly low on calories as any sugar that would be in them has been converted to alcohol). Super tasty and no bitter notes.
I've typically used red wines, but there are so many different types (amount of tannins, sweetness, etc...) that it's really hard to predict. Then there are all the fruity alcohols (apple, lemon), herbal liqueurs (compari?) - there's even a tomato gin. So much to experiment now!
I switched from red wines to dessert/fortified wines like port or sherry, more specifically, I braise the onion and meat in it for bolognaise, So good!. :)
That was very interesting. As I french guy it was pretty obvious that ethanol is NOT a taste you want to have in your dish. In France cooking with alcohol is very common in a lot of specialties. When you’re used to cook with alcohol you know that if you can actually taste the alcohol then you failed your recipe. What we’re looking for in the alcohol is the aromas, not the alcohol itself. Which explains easily why wines are the most used alcohols in cooking, because the process of making wine creates very complex aromas that are specially good an enriching a sauce, and the best restaurants can let their sauces simmer for HOURS, which achieves 2 things : getting rid of the alcohol all while concentrating the aromas in a lower amount of liqued. Reduction (i.e evaporation of some of the liquid) is therefore a very basic and efficient technique for making a sauce. It also makes sense that liquors and spirits are mostly used in deserts, even when added uncooked, the bitterness that can be problematic in some dishes can be on the other hand an asset to balance the sweetness of a cake for example. Although, for the same reason, it’s a good point to notice that desserts containing alcohol are way more divisive among people than salted/cooked dishes, many people don’t like them, because in a lot of desserts (crêpes suzettes, baba au rhum, tiramisu, etc.) the alcohol is mostly uncooked and therefore the bitterness of alcohol is more noticeable.
As someone who doesn't drink, I've wondered what I may be missing out on by skipping alcohol in dishes. I especially like braising, and have tried different red wine substitues several times. It is interesting to see these results. I imagine there are some alcohol analogues out there for people like me if we want to try and add flavor to our dish without adding alcohol.
There probably are other solvents that can extract tastes and then release them as a taste cloud into your mouth and nose, but then I would rather stick to the ethanol.
If you've ever eaten, say, some strawberries that were slightly overripe, you can detect an enhanced fruitiness from increased esters and very small amounts of alcohols. If you use alcoholic drinks in cooking in the proportions recommended in this video, you're not really consuming any more than that.
Fantastic vid man! Quick feedback tho: When doing comparisons like this, it would be clearer and easier to follow if you label them A, B, C, and so on if what you are comparing is numbers/percentages. So like, instead of saying “2, which is 5%-” instead say “B, which is 6%-” You get what I mean I know this vid is over a year old but yeah it’s still feedback that’s good to have. It makes it easier for visually impaired or just people who are listening and aren’t looking at the screen. Thanks
Actually, if you follow the recipe for Penne alla Vodka, the alcohol is added after the onion is well cooked and before any other ingredients and vodka is allowed to evaporate. This results in the taste of vodka and not the alcohol part.
I buy a one shot bottle of Gold 1800 Tequlia to make grilled chicken. 4 skinless chicken breast 1 shot of Tequlia and 1 shot glass of water 1 pack Sazon Goya Con Culantro Y Achiote seasoning Juice of 1 to 2 limes Salt and pepper Optional diced Jalapeño Peepers Let season over night in the fridge. You can cook this on the grill , frying pan, oven, or air fryer.
So here's a thought: Would someone who drinks a lot of hard liquor have a significantly different experience? A heavy drinker might not detect bitterness in the same way. I know when I was at my worst, whisky just tasted sweet and hot without significant bitterness.
As always I love your dedication to the method. One thing I notice is that you should use 100g of sauce every time because you are reducing the amount of the other ingredients. That would make adding each percent of alcohol a gram, no half grams and you will have a closer final weight of each of the final products.
I once made a huge batch of tomato sauce and canned it. later, I thought about adding alcohol to it when I open it. when I went to the store, I went to the cheap alcohol glasks and the cheapest they had was actually kirchwasser. *I would definitely recommend that. it made the tomato sauce so much heartier. I added like, 2 tablespoons kirch to 2 cups tomato? I don't remember, I cook mostly by eye
i think a main point for vodka specifically is to NOT add additional flavors and simply being laser focused on the existing sauce components themselves. Not to over mask the ingredients.
GIN could virtually be considered a type of “vodka”, given the flavoured vodkas they do have places like Russia and Poland. Very strong, delicious and not shy of adding some botanical ingredients. And the traditional foil of Russian vodka is not a juice chaser, but a snack like a salted pickle.
Great test tasing it raw and also cooked aswel! Good to see the alcohol less foods were the better ones, the reason why to not add alcohol into certain dishes besides red wine is explained by this video. In my opinion a great video and really valuable content, love your videos keep these up! 🔥
I imagine it's a similar process to how you would use ethanol to dissolve and draw out something like vanilla beans into extract. There are aromatics that will happily dissolve in ethanol but less happily in water, and if you're cooking the sauce you will boil off the actual alcohol.
Vodka doesn't equal vodka. The traditional vodka is made out of rye, so wheat and corn based vokas already introduce slightly different aromas. Potato based vodka, which is quite common too, also has a slightly different aroma. You might want to look into doing another "Which vodka pasta tastes best?" type of video based on the different types of vodka. ;)
What I have learned is that in making the pasta from scratch, adding a part of vodka to the egg and flour mixture helps with mixing without activating so much gluten as adding water would
2:19 here's how I satuee onions. 2tbs butter melted, chop/slice the onions and toss in. salt. let the water evaporate, and once they take on some nice color add in 1/2 cup of Marsala wine. reduce wine to a thick sauce that will coat the back of a spoon. serve.
Are we gonna address the fact that during the blind test Ethan found taste of the pasta with no alcohol almost the same as the one with corn vodka, and definitely stronger than wheat vodka? 🤨
In the previous blind test he said no alcohol was "also really good" meaning good like the 1% and 2% ones. he specifically blindly IDed that the higher alcohol ones tasted "not as good" but the 2% one was fairly close in flavor. So considering the other alcohols had a LOT more flavor compounds than just a low percentage of vodka it makes sense that the "no alcohol" pasta will taste closest to the vodka ones compared to win/gin/mezcal. As he said, vodkas have the most neutral flavors in comparison with other alcohol drinks, and the other types of alcohols made the pasta taste VERY different compared to the result of adding neutral alcohol alone. If they're close it make sense he would confuse them on his palate, whereas there is no mistaking, say, mezcal pasta with no-alcohol pasta.
If anything it simply proves the difference is really not that big, to the point where it can really go both ways. Also keep in mind he was not comparing it to the same thing but stronger, but different things in the same intensity that time. That will definitely influence how you perceive those tastes.
@@RiskOfBaerI think he should have tested more complex dishes. I know from other cooking shows that alcohol other things like vinegar change the molecules in a lot of different spices. They sometimes don't bring out flavors that were there but create unique new ones. The science is so complex and fascinating quite honestly. It was like my mom trying to use non alcoholic white wine for her garlic chicken dish. It just wasn't even close although they were similar.
What it really means is that the real conclusion of his experiments is vodka doesn't do shit for pasta but he doesn't want to say that because he doesn't want the foodie Mafia coming after him
Whisk(e)y and desserts often pair well, depending on the choice of spirit. I once found myself with a bottle of Knob Creek bourbon that I didn't like to drink, but when I added it to the chocolate-graham cracker-almond base layer of a dessert bar recipe it was _amazing_ and brought black cherry and vanilla and a bit of caramel to the layer. It might be a challenge to find a good pairing for a peated Islay Scotch unless you love peat smoke, but unpeated whiskies in general should pair well with anything that isn't so powerfully flavoured that it'll overwhelm the influence of the spirit.
your point about vanilla extract around 22:30 was enlightening. i understand the science, but that example really made it click for me in terms of practice. it also gives me some ideas... e.g., could you "preserve" fresh basil by creating a "basil extract" with vodka, and then cook away the ethanol? or when you peel tomatoes for a sauce, could you soak the skins in alcohol and actually recover some of the taste/color back into the dish?
Other use for vodka in sauce: If you're trying to cook a cream based sauce very quickly, the alcohol will protect the sauce from breaking through heat of evaporation. This is because the liquid can't exceed the boiling point of alcohol until after a substantial portion of it boils off
Brandy/Cognac works well for a substitute Mostly, there are flavonoids in tomatoes which are dossolved/activated with alcohol, ramping up the umami factor
My dad was a chef in Milan and he made a solution of Vodka with certain hot chilies and all kinds of peppercorns . The vodka was just a vehicle for the peppers and peppercorns. I personally prefer white vermouth for flavor. White non dry vermouth is the best for seafood too. Ask Julia Child! There is a famous Italian dish of Pasta with red wine that is not cooked out at all...I guess that's for Alcoholics...lol
Pollo e marsala is such a simple yet supertasty pasta dish. Basically a cream sauce with sage and marsala wine. It is a must try! Fry sage leaves with bits of chicken until they get colour. Add marsala wine to the hot pan, let it cook for about 20, add chicken stock and ream. Add your preboiled pasta. Done, serve with some shredded parmesan. (Note, not all marsala wines work, ask for one that is for food)
Love the video, but one thing to take into account is that alcohol is a azeotrope, so the mixture's boiling point is going to fluctuate with alcohol concentration.
I ended up doing a crazy experiment set-up with making vanilla extract using different forms of alcohol...felt like your last experiment! Between vodka, bourbon, gin, and rum--rum was the extreme winner. Adding a sweetness that smells like velvet. I appreciate your science!
Perhaps having a longer cooking time is an important factor. The goal in the end might be to ensure that most of the alcohol is burned off regardless of starting concentration. This would allow any interactions with the flavor to shine through.
i was a cocktail bartender for 12 years, won comps and made drinks for famous people. I was very passionate about the journey that different flavour combinations took my tastebuds on. I have always maintained that my favourite way to drink a Bloody Mary was to down the shot of vodka and then sip on the Virgin Mary. When mixed together the bitterness of the vodka just diminished the bright and comforting sweetness of the tomato
Pasta a la university student (any alcohol you have at hand) I found out that honey rum or vermouth work pretty well in tomato sauces during my student years.
In Russia we have fish soup called Uha (which is pretty simple) normally we would add some vodka into it when its cooked. It is believed to make a stock more transperent and taste slightly better but I never tried to check if it actually does.
I think for ester to form you need higher temperatures. In Chinese cooking we clear some ground in the middle of the pan/wok and pour shaoxing wine in. Or, we pour it around the pan/wok. Either case it directly got in touch with the hot cooking equipment. As a gin lover I guess I might start using gin in my pasta sauce from now on!
This was so interesting! I love cooking with alcohol. I normally add wine or beer into many dishes I make. I even add tequila to some things. I've never used mezcal but I love smoky stuff so I could see this being amazing. The thought of using gin really peaked my curiosity and I could see those herbal notes being great in a pasta. Or even other dishes! Thank you so much. Now my mind is spinning how exactly I'm going to get 2% into my dishes cuz I don't measure very much stuff lol
I find that DRINKING alcohol first, and THEN eating anything, makes it taste WONDERFUL!
🤣
That typically works too lol.
Try smoking a joint first too!
@@mummer7337 But I am at wortk :( Beer it is ig xDD
@@EthanChlebowski As a brewer and foodie, I have lots of experience with this. Thanks for the response, Ethan. You rock!
My favorite origin story for the sauce is that it was misheard, originally called alla vacca. Vacca translates to cow, referring to the heavy cream and butter you add to a simple tomato sauce. Italy isn't really known for it's vodka industry after all.
i could definitely see that, thats pretty interesting
Well yeah people in Italy drank gin. Vodka wasn’t big anywhere but Poland/Russia/surrounding countries until pretty recently.
Cuz it’s got no flavour and modern people don’t wanna taste their alcohol as much (that’s an opinion)
@@krusher181 vodka is the king of mixed drinks... you can mix it with anything and it barely changes the flavor like orange juice, apple juice, etc.. But yeah it has little flavor i think the US just loves all booze.
that’s really cool actually
Lmao, I think the ones who read "vodka" are just coping when they say it taste good
I'm a physical chemist. You did a great job on your explanation of the science of water-ethanol solutions. For anyone who is curious about some real nitty gritty: ethanol and water form what's called an azeotrope at around 91-96% abv. This means at these concentrations the boiling point of the solution is lower than the individual boiling point of either of its components individually. If you are interested in evaporation in general there are two models that are pretty interesting. They are Henry's Law and Raoult's law. Hope this sparks some curiosity!
It did indeed sir, thank you.
I like alcohols superior ability to extract flavors from ingredients. As well as the ability to add significant depth of flavor that seems to hold onto your tounge.
I typically cook with bourbon if I'm using an alcohol to cook with. I think I even found the best cooking bourbon! Old grand dad bonded bourbon. It's really cheap and tastes like it on the finish when sipping neat (I don't recommend for sipping) but the flavor profile of the whiskey is the baking spices type bourbon flavors. Which I find preferable to the fruity ones that taste like medicinal cherry. It's also bonded, so it's 100proof, which to me means more flavor. And being bonded it's at least 4 years old, so it's carrying in some character, enough to have that lingering thing going on the palate. And its bad aftertaste gets "lost in the sauce" so to speak.
The way I use it in my cooking is to cut the acidity of the vinegar, reducing or negating my need to add a pinch or 2 of sugar to compensate. Goes great in a tomato basil sauce balanced with balsamic!
I would guess that is the reason why the most concentrated commonly affordable ethanol is 190 proof...since that is almost as concentrated as one can get it via ordinary distillation? (I read that the azeotrope forms at just over 191.2 proof.)
@@brandonhoffman4712 a fun thing you can do with whisk(e)y is tilt your glass and smell at the top of the rim of the glass and then at the bottom of the rim of the glass. You should get the fruitier smelling esters at the top and the heavier molecules responsible for flavors like vanilla and chocolate at the bottom.
Thank you for the cooking recommendation!
Do you know of a similar show to this with more focus on chemistry?
Ethan - this new explainer format that you’re doing (like you did for vanilla and Parmesan Reggiano) is everything I’ve ever wanted. I would watch a whole channel of just THAT. Thank you for the efforts!
A little more focus on which ones of the good ones are better/best and why, and less of the "this one is the worst and this is the second worst". Also less focus on did you taste which ones were which accurately. So 2 points I came away from this video wondering: in the first round with the different amounts of vodka, was the 1% better than the 0%? and in the last round, would weaker Mezcal be better than the Gin?
He's the nile red of food channels
Totally agree. I just subscribed.
Adam Ragusa?
Watch Good Eats, Alton Brown's intellectual child. He breaks stuff down even on scales like this, but makes it so enjoyable, even I watched when I was like 8.
"Wine is primarily flavored with grapes." is a sentence that will forever haunt me.
😂
I heard people like grapes
why?
@@biggu3257 I'm assuming it's the verbiage of the "flavored with grapes" part, as wine is made directly from grapes, not used in any type of flavoring process.
🤣🤣🤣🤣
I love that he's blind tasting visually identical sauces @7:30 because you absolutely cannot see the vodka in it
I think one thing missed in this experiment is that the timing of when you add the vodka to the sauce matters. In vodka sauce you’re adding at after frying off the tomato paste with the onion, which exposes the ethanol more directly to the tomato/onion and cooks off much faster. Also, because I’m weird I use dry vermouth in cooking where you’re not wanting the flavor of the alcohol and you’re just wanting the benefit that the ethanol brings to the party.
vodka basically has NO flavor except the ethanol. Ethanol and alcohol are kind of the same thing, so I can't imagine that vermouth is going to be different. Vermouth is explicitly flavored with herbs and roots. So it's going to confuse things.
@@StephenHutchison right, similar to Ethan’s favorite the gin. I was more making the point that timing is more important than how much of what.
The alcohol ends the frying prosses and locks in the flavors of the onions, garlics, and for you tomato paste.
You naturally go on to boil away the alcohol.
@@MegaBanne See this would make more sense to me, like the vanilla extract the vodka could simply be used to extract flavour from the aromatics.
@@StephenHutchison Then why do vodkas taste different? is it like... different ethanol? There's gonna be something that makes them taste different.
Ethan, as a biochemist this video really hit home with me. Anytime you namedrop a taste receptor like that I'm in heaven!
So did you cringe a little too when he said that sugar and ethanol molecules resemble each other 😂
@@claytonstacey Yeah that hurt a bit lol. I was hoping he'd delve into vapor pressure and why adding a volatile compound would increase the evaporation of other volatiles because distillation is super cool, but that's too far in the weeds for a cooking video
@@David_Spector27 my biochemistry degree is very-well aged and my moderate alcohol intake over the decades may have extracted some of my memories.... but am I recalling correctly that the mixture of alcohol and water boil at a different temperature than either alone?
@@bryanballot5684 Yup you are exactly correct, that's actually part of the principle distilleries work off of! Similairly, adding ethanol to food will decrease the boiling points of the volatile esters and flavor molecules, increasing their vapor pressure and the number of taste receptor collisions. Super cool stuff!
@@claytonstacey nah, as a professional chemist, I nodded with “yep, they’re both dominated by the alcohol functional group.” In the world of food chemistry, sugar and ethanol are more similar than most components of a dish.
I had vodka pasta at a restaurant with my wife and I thought it was just okay. We both agreed that gin would probably be better due to the flavors. Great to see that you thought gin was the better option too.
I'd probably try vermouth then.
Gin is always better 😅
Really love the channels pivot to more food sciencey content, especially appreciate the practicality of your experiments. this type of content is not being made elsewhere and is genuinely helpful for home cooks
Adam Ragusea has these kind of experiments as well, e.g., for how adding whipped cream affects volume and taste.
Love the deep dives you've been taking in cooking, Ethan! Keep it up :D
Thank you, I've been having fun making them!
@@EthanChlebowski there is nobody like you, you create a unique type of content
I’ve enjoyed your more straight-up, “Make XYZ food and here’s how and why you should do it,” for a while now, but I feel like you’re really finding your unique creative voice with these recent “what’s the deal with X?” videos over the last few months. Keep it up!
Stop
Being
Everywhere
@@EthanChlebowski you’re only 5’6” and seem like an angry man 😂
One thing to add, as the amount of ethanol evaporated doesnt just depend on the amount of ethanol added prior to cooking, you might actually end up with similar alcohol concentrations despite starting with different amounts - if the cooking time is long enough.
I've never seen someone mix the vodka in the sauce before cooking. I've always added the vodka after sautéing the onions, garlic, and tomato paste. The alcohol is supposed to help scrape up any delcious caramelized bits from the pan before it quickly burns off. Then i add the canned tomatoes and cream after.
Exactly. I use about two shots of good vodka at the deglazing stage and then simmer the tomato sauce, before adding the cream and cheese. Before adding those I’ll add a shot to the sauce and simmer for about 3-5 minutes then add the cream and cheese
The flavor in tomatoes is alcohol soluble, so you want to add the tomatoes before the alcohol evaporates.
I like how the result of testing pasta ala vodka was that you don't really need to add vodka.
It's super interesting and makes a ton of sense. We all knew vodka was extremely neutral and ethanol evaporates quite a bit so that neutrality is even more tuned down. We also know it can help other flavor compounds, but it was kinda always open-ended by how much. Adding in that we know the popularizer of pasta ala vodka was intentionally trying to sell more vodka and the results all sorta fit. It makes a small change, but realistically a good pasta sauce isn't going to be turned into anything special with vodka, it just perhaps slightly changes the flavor profile a tiny bit. Also means teetotalers aren't missing out on anything in this case!
The thing that wowed me is Ethan preferred gin in his pasta, and I thought going in to this test that the combination would be simply abhorrent! I mean, I like gin, but I never thought making my pasta sauce taste like a Christmas tree would improve anything!
@@bcubed72 Exciting! I wonder how many chefs were frantically taking notes of the gin idea lol
@@bodyofhope I'm gonna at least try it once.
@@bcubed72 i mean, rosemary has pretty strong pine notes, so it's not an outrageous idea.
0:04 if the answer is no, you didnt add enough vodka
“Would you like some pasta with your vodka?”
This is probably the first time when I’m not very satisfied with testing methodic.
The best tasting recipe had different time when you introduce alcohol - it is used to deglaze tomato paste, not after you add cream. And here I’m pretty sure it makes significant difference. I definitely could smell fruity aroma of deglazed tomato paste. Also, that recipe included significantly more alcohol (I’d say about 6-8%), because it was introduced earlier and most of it was evaporated.
Maybe I’ll try to make pasta alla vodka without alcohol some time to taste the difference for myself
This was my thought as well. I get that you'd kind of need a very rigorous test kitchen to make a bunch of these at the same time in the same way, just with more or less vodka addd at that point. Having tried this with a few different spirits, Brandy is the best for my tastes. Also using 20-40% by weight cherry tomatoes for more pectin and intensity of flavour.
Yes, I don't understand why he did it this way. I've not seen any pasta alla vodka recipes that just simply add it at the end like this. Don't know why he's done this. I want to see him do this again with deglazing the pan and cooking it off at the right time...
Seems like deglazing with alcohol may help carmilization. I would also add a sauce that contains parmesan cheese in it or other dry difficult to mix non homogenized fat in it may change the end effect. I'm allergic to dairy now, so I can never answer this question. Maybe he will do a follow-up.
I would love to come back to watch a part 2 on this with the tomato sauce deglazed and more alcohol
Caramellizing anything containing ethanol evaporates it very quickly
Ethan+Ethanol=Perfect Pasta! I think an interesting aspect of adding any type of ethanol is that certain flavours are alcohol soluble, rather than water soluble. Aspects of garlic are noticeably different to me depending on whether wine or vodka is added. Other flavours are fat soluble, whilst some may be be both, and will yield different results. I tend to notice the notes of bay leaf and fennel seed when I use wine or vodka in my sauce.
this might be the solution for me since i rarely taste the garlic in my food anymore even if i use like a whole head to tomato sauce, and i'm huge garlic head so it's a bummer. have been searching for a way to enhance the flavour of garlic in my food for a minute. thanks!
@@Nakkiteline Wishing you satisfactory results, and more garlic flavour! I think the sweetness of the wine I add really brings out more of garlic's potential. I find I prefer red with meat or Bolognese, and white without.
@@Nakkiteline why don't you taste garlic anymore?
@@zoulzopan it's the favourite spice of my family and we kinda have over used it ina way that i don't recognice it any more that well and if i do it's completely overpowering for other people :D
I'm not sure if it's just your editing and you're fooling us all, but damn - I'm always really impressed by your taste buds. That's kind of a weird thing to say, but it really gives you quite a lot of credibility. I'm impressed.
He’s pretty darn accurate on the tests (in other videos as well). I don’t think most people would be able to distinguish flavors this well.
Throat mics should be considered a warcrime on people watching food videos
I agree!
😂😂
I might be a weirdo, but I find alcoholic cider to be a good fit for tomato sauces. One of the best baked pasta dishes I've ever made had a large splash of dry yuzu cider in it -- certainly acidic, but very fresh and fragrant :3
Loved this video!
oh my god im gonna have to try this! i put apple cider vinegar in my red sauces, so i could see how a cider would provide that same bite and acidic with a little kick!
I have a ton of cider and might give it a shot! What else do you like to add it to?
Good suggestion.
sounds pretty good
I was at a friend’s place and once didn’t have White Wine for Bolognese and ran cider instead. I have made a full time switch from white wine to cider - although living in the U.K., which has less sweet more sour tomatoes due to the lack of sunshine/greenhouses, that extra sweetness from the cider balances out the U.K. tomatoes.
These types of videos are better than 99% of the content on the Food Network. Excellent production my friend I really enjoyed this.
So the 1% would be Alton Brown.
Anytime I make any kind of tomato based sauces, I always add about half a tablespoon of vodka when adding the room temperature tomatoes. That way the alcohol has a little time to extract the alcohol soluble flavors before it starts to evaporate.
I love how well thought out your deep dives are. And don't worry about how long these vids are bc the people that are watching these are into what you're testing and not just for people looking for a recipe. I really don't want you to leave anything out hence why these need to be longer than some other vids, Thanks again Ethan for these great vids.
i concur about the lenght of these deep dives. okay with everything in your post :D
Mhh I'm not convinced by the experiment because I would certainly not add vodka to the finished product even with intent to cook down further. To my knowledge vodka is usually added early on, with the tomato paste into garlic and onion but before tomatoes. The idea is that it gives the opportunity for solvating flavour compounds and reacting with them before adding wet mass in the form of tomatoes that will prevent alcohol evaporation.
the order that I would do it in:
sautee garlic, onion, chilli flakes
add tomato paste, mix it in and let it heat up for 1-2 minutes. I find this step reduces unpleasant flavours from cheap tomato paste that I buy
add vodka to dissolve and collect the paste before it burns. wait for ~half of the liquid to evaporate
add tomatoes and continue as in the video with the cream/butter/blending
I was hoping he would address that in the video, that was my understanding too. Makes me want to test that myself (same amount of vodka added at different stages of cooking).
I always thought using vodka for cooking was an odd choice because vodka is made to taste like nothing. When making cocktails you add vodka so there's that ethanol kick rather than changing flavor profile. Insightful stuff and love these scientific videos :)
Yeah the only legit use case of vodka is for fried food, like british fish and chips because the vodka evaporates faster then water in the oil and so the battered fish ends up more crispy
He should've let the onions marinate with the ethanol over night to experience the unique compounds ethanol pulls out of the vegetable. face palm
@@valhallakombi7239 there's gonna be alcohol-soluble vitamins in some foods, especially soups. Even if the flavor doesn't change entirely there can be benefits
I love the way you planned and documented this whole thig out. Here is my thoughts though, I think the alcohol might best be added while cooking down the onions, garlic, and red pepper flakes in the butter. The reason for that is those are probably the biggest flavor notes you have in the sauce and that might be the best time to add the new flavors of gin into the sauce. I will try this next time I have some gin! Thinking Bombay sapphire east might be the best, because of its additional black pepper and lemongrass flavors. Would love to see a video of you testing this theory out! Would be more work, but might be worth it.
This is correct, adding the alcohol after blending the sauce is missing the point.
Your supposed to add it once you cook off some of the raw tomato paste. I appreciate his videos but sometimes he does the testing applications so wrong
Yea if u had the paste all on the onions and stuff in the pan get a fond started add in vodka deglaze cook off most of it then cook the sauce cooking off most of it I’m guessing it would be mostly distilled water left carrying the flavors
Ethan is actually really just a scientist, it just so happens that he’s also really good at cooking
Cooking is just taste-safe chemistry (so long as you don’t fuck it up too bad)
@@tamatikentwell9861 Here I am doing a chemistry course realizing I just wanted to cook.
If you can follow the instructions in organic chemistry lab, you can use a well-written recipe to cook. Same difference.
Well he prepares this recipe in a wrong way.
Yes, as a non food scientist that is a different kind of scientist, I can confirm many of us turn into the equivalent of a food scientist in the kitchen, lol it goes both ways. Science is science and once it gets into a person, it gets into all aspects of the person.
This format is so freaking informational and addicting to watch. Thanks for all the hard work.
The blind testing was super interesting, but I would have loved if you tried the sauces you found similar after each other and tried to identify differences. That would have been helpful to actually see if the alcohol changes the flavor.
Completely agree.
Pretty cool taste test! I think especially interesting to find that gin could be the best tasting. It sort of opens up a treasure trove for experimentation, since gins can vary so much in the botanicals used.
Looking at this from a hobby chemist point of view, i suspect the ethanol itself isnt really adding much flavor but is instead acting as a solvent, dissolving different compounds from the ingredients and allowing them to react with each other forming new flavors.
Cooking is just very specialized organic chemistry 😆
I actually like the taste of Brandy in a creamy tomato soup. I think the sweet offsets the bitter well enough and the heat of the alcohol (and a bit of cayenne) makes it very warm going down on a cold day. I could see how it might be weird with pasta though.
Might be an acquired taste thing, or just preference? I personally enjoy a little bitter with sweet too
I love how Ethan methodically breaks down a problem and draws charts to clarify things. He'd make an awesome engineer. 🤠
Ethan breaks down a problem
Ethanol breaks down certain flavor compounds
A fitting symmetry.
cooling down the tomato onion base and then blending it will give you more vibrant color.
It's been said ad nauseum....but this little series and episodes in this format have been pretty fantastic from vanilla, tomatoes, this episode, etc. Really enjoy them and it seems like you enjoy making them. Looking forward to what else you think to test and compare.
I've always been using gin instead of vodka in my sauce and im glad he arrived at the conclusion that I also have.
I'm a mock tail kinda girl.
Ethan, you are like the Mythbusters of cooking! Love how rigorous you are with these videos!
I always believed that the inclusion of alcohol into the sauce was to deglaze the bottom of the pan after sauté-ing the vegetables/meats. Pulling the savoury flavours from the base of the pan and adding them to the sauce
Fantastic video. Former restaurant person here. First off, there's a lot (potentially) going on chemically; for example, depending on cooking temps, some things might reach their Maillard Reaction temperatures (browning, caramelization) etc., which could influence final flavors, depending on the point at which alcohol was added. By adding it at a relatively low-temperature moment in the recipe, I wonder to what extent things might have been altered vs. adding it early. This felt like cooking Manderin but adding mirin at the very end, which (in my experience, at least) is a mistake, because one wants the sugars to convert to caramels and one wants to boil off most of the alcohol during cooking (although it's a tricky balance, because once it's in the wok, scraping the fond into the dish while on high temps until the moisture content drops enough is quite necessary to prevent harsh notes). I suspect the white-wine version would've been significantly upgraded if the wine was added with the butter and onions early, for example, but I'm not as convinced that the gin would've worked as well (very little sugar to work with, and who knows what bitters might result from floral / pine compounds reaching higher heat).
It also makes me think that perhaps one area that somebody oughtta try making a product for the trade is in extracts for certain aromatics that we wouldn't normally want to drink; for example, oregano or thyme. It looks like, from a cursory search of the Internet, that this is a thing already (found "Extracts by Annie" on Etsy, for example) and I immediately wondered, "hey, how much of thyme's notes will be preserved; is this even vaguely going to carry the notes of fresh thyme", since fresh thyme is one of those things that I, like most people, only buy at home when I know a dish won't be right with the dried version.
But this is an interesting theory: an Italian restaurant could use such extracts to cut down on prep-processing time and improve consistency while achieving A+ depths of flavor. One wonders if Olive Garden's test kitchen has tried this out (and if so, if they'd be willing to talk about it on the record). There are some other serious questions there, largely revolving around what would happen chemically as the flavenoids and other aromatic compounds were released (like, is it like mirin, where sooner is better... or is this something where it's better-used when temperatures won't permit much Maillard).
A worthy question. My guess is that your theories are already in practice at an industrial level (large-scale food manufacture) where extracts in bulk are likely more easily worked with than whole ingredients. Like, say, ice cream making, sauce sold by the can in many places, etc. Also, your theories on efficiency and consistency sound a lot like what many bartenders/mixologists do. If you want to make a drink with thyme flavoring I'll bet that an extract or infusion from fresh thyme would work great. Might not be the same as fresh (like, say, muddled thyme in a cocktail) but it would have its own merits and might actually make for better consistency, mouthfeel (no solid ingredients or pieces), more practicality with shelf life and storage, etc.
@@madtonesbr Yeah, I presume large companies doing industrial-level stuff (Campbell's, for example) have probably tested a lot of these things, and there are probably some expert-level books on this material out there where I can't follow the biochemistry, lol. Probably extracts of some of these things are harder to achieve than, "throw in booze, wait" and it's either impractical or expensive vs. simply throwing in measured amounts of raws. But it's interesting to think about how extracts could be applied in ways to achieve better palate notes or at least more consistency for diners' experiences, especially for those midrange chains where that's so important (Olive Garden, Applebees, Qdoba, etc.). One imagines professional tasters evaluating "sauce base no 39" where the key note is 120-day aged Moroccan thyme extract, lol.
This was a fascinating taste-test. Thank you Ethan!
On the subject of adding subtle flavors & aromas to cooked food with alcohol, it'd be really cool if you'd run this back with a few more spirits known for their distinct flavor/aroma profiles, namely:
Sherries - (Oloroso, amontillado, and a PX for intense fruity sweetness)
Whiskies - (Bourbon, a sherried scotch, and a peated scotch for the content)
All of these should have quite the distinct effect on the sauce flavor, and are my preferred spirits for adding dimension to food!
Yes! I was just about to ask why no casked/aged spirits such as Brandy or Whisk(e)y, and also why not Rum? Rum has a sugar base and has a lot of "funk" to it, so that would change the flavor profile a lot.
I can tell you that Brandy works very well.
I have been using beer, r/w wine and cider in my cooking so far, but Pasta alla Gin sounds like something I have to try now. Considering I love gin(&tonic) and the flavor of juniper and coriander in food, I don't know why I didn't try this before. Great video, I love how in-depth you went and how you analyzed the different modes of flavor. Have a like and subscribe.
One day I was cooking and we were out of vodka, so I decided to try our gin instead. I've never gone back! The herbaceous notes just adds such a nice, light complexity. Welcome to the pasta al gin train!
even though this obviously isn't a 100% accurate and objective experiment, it's really cool that you did it. I always wondered what was the deal with adding wine or other types of alcohol to food.
One more big questio, how does the ordet of adding ingredients during cooking influence the final taste? I would (potentially naively) add alcohol to the pan before I add tomato and cream. That would be an interesting taste test!
No you’re correct. Vodka should always go in after the onion and pancetta and before the sauces. Adding it after is the big no-no.
thats how its supposed to be done, and i was hoping that he'd test that
These videos are remarkably well made and edited, it’s clear you put many hours into each one. I am genuinely amazed! Thank you for producing such incredible content, it is appreciated!
I think this confirmed my initial thoughts about cooking, that it really does not matter how closely you follow a recipe. I used to measure exactly how much wine or vodka I put in dishes, but it looks like you can be off by like a factor of 2 in either direction and it's not going to make a difference. Pretty much salt and sugar are the only things which really matter that you're somewhat close, but ironically recipes rarely tell you how much of those to put and instead just say: add until you like it, which is probably way more accurate than any recipe can get.
Back when i made medicated brownies, I'd put a shot of amaretto into the herb-infused butter right at the last 5 minutes. Seemed both to add a nice hint of flavour and catalyze the absoprtion of the alkaloids into the fat
Just fyi, Thc isn't an alkaloid.
Rising up to rival Alton Brown’s science informed cooking. At this point, I’ve learned about as much from Ethan as from Alton.
Thank you, Ethan, for working so hard to test and communicate the foundational variables of cooking!!
Alton got too far up his own ass. Also, he tried to claim that American GIs taught Koreans how to make fried chicken..a dish they've been making for about 500 years...
"wine is flavoured with grapes" is about the most American sentence I have ever heard in my life
A small detail with alcho not mentioned in your video but likely not relevant is alcho vs waters wetness. which could contribute to better spread over our tongue :) love the video keep up the amazing video's
I've always had the theory ppl will add alcohol to anything given the chance, even if the flavor profile doesn't change. Also, you can use a nonalcoholic substitute in a dish and the taste is often better!
3:11
Listen guys
I made that sauce, and I thank god I tried it
It is absolutely THE BEST pasta sauce you'll ever make
All my friends just went crazy for it
It sounds like your mic is damaged. Still thank you for the great videos and amazing research!
I cook with non-alcoholic wine all the time because they have all the flavour compounds with no alcohol to burn off (and they're surprisingly low on calories as any sugar that would be in them has been converted to alcohol). Super tasty and no bitter notes.
I've typically used red wines, but there are so many different types (amount of tannins, sweetness, etc...) that it's really hard to predict. Then there are all the fruity alcohols (apple, lemon), herbal liqueurs (compari?) - there's even a tomato gin. So much to experiment now!
I switched from red wines to dessert/fortified wines like port or sherry, more specifically, I braise the onion and meat in it for bolognaise, So good!. :)
That was very interesting. As I french guy it was pretty obvious that ethanol is NOT a taste you want to have in your dish. In France cooking with alcohol is very common in a lot of specialties. When you’re used to cook with alcohol you know that if you can actually taste the alcohol then you failed your recipe. What we’re looking for in the alcohol is the aromas, not the alcohol itself. Which explains easily why wines are the most used alcohols in cooking, because the process of making wine creates very complex aromas that are specially good an enriching a sauce, and the best restaurants can let their sauces simmer for HOURS, which achieves 2 things : getting rid of the alcohol all while concentrating the aromas in a lower amount of liqued. Reduction (i.e evaporation of some of the liquid) is therefore a very basic and efficient technique for making a sauce. It also makes sense that liquors and spirits are mostly used in deserts, even when added uncooked, the bitterness that can be problematic in some dishes can be on the other hand an asset to balance the sweetness of a cake for example. Although, for the same reason, it’s a good point to notice that desserts containing alcohol are way more divisive among people than salted/cooked dishes, many people don’t like them, because in a lot of desserts (crêpes suzettes, baba au rhum, tiramisu, etc.) the alcohol is mostly uncooked and therefore the bitterness of alcohol is more noticeable.
As someone who doesn't drink, I've wondered what I may be missing out on by skipping alcohol in dishes. I especially like braising, and have tried different red wine substitues several times. It is interesting to see these results. I imagine there are some alcohol analogues out there for people like me if we want to try and add flavor to our dish without adding alcohol.
There probably are other solvents that can extract tastes and then release them as a taste cloud into your mouth and nose, but then I would rather stick to the ethanol.
If you've ever eaten, say, some strawberries that were slightly overripe, you can detect an enhanced fruitiness from increased esters and very small amounts of alcohols. If you use alcoholic drinks in cooking in the proportions recommended in this video, you're not really consuming any more than that.
Fantastic vid man!
Quick feedback tho:
When doing comparisons like this, it would be clearer and easier to follow if you label them A, B, C, and so on if what you are comparing is numbers/percentages.
So like, instead of saying “2, which is 5%-” instead say “B, which is 6%-”
You get what I mean
I know this vid is over a year old but yeah it’s still feedback that’s good to have.
It makes it easier for visually impaired or just people who are listening and aren’t looking at the screen.
Thanks
Actually, if you follow the recipe for Penne alla Vodka, the alcohol is added after the onion is well cooked and before any other ingredients and vodka is allowed to evaporate. This results in the taste of vodka and not the alcohol part.
I buy a one shot bottle of Gold 1800 Tequlia to make grilled chicken.
4 skinless chicken breast
1 shot of Tequlia and 1 shot glass of water
1 pack Sazon Goya Con Culantro Y Achiote seasoning
Juice of 1 to 2 limes
Salt and pepper
Optional diced Jalapeño Peepers
Let season over night in the fridge.
You can cook this on the grill , frying pan, oven, or air fryer.
So here's a thought: Would someone who drinks a lot of hard liquor have a significantly different experience? A heavy drinker might not detect bitterness in the same way. I know when I was at my worst, whisky just tasted sweet and hot without significant bitterness.
Him setting up why we don’t like the ethanol taste is like mathematicians stating a lemma before a proof
As always I love your dedication to the method. One thing I notice is that you should use 100g of sauce every time because you are reducing the amount of the other ingredients. That would make adding each percent of alcohol a gram, no half grams and you will have a closer final weight of each of the final products.
I once made a huge batch of tomato sauce and canned it. later, I thought about adding alcohol to it when I open it. when I went to the store, I went to the cheap alcohol glasks and the cheapest they had was actually kirchwasser.
*I would definitely recommend that. it made the tomato sauce so much heartier. I added like, 2 tablespoons kirch to 2 cups tomato? I don't remember, I cook mostly by eye
i think a main point for vodka specifically is to NOT add additional flavors and simply being laser focused on the existing sauce components themselves.
Not to over mask the ingredients.
GIN could virtually be considered a type of “vodka”, given the flavoured vodkas they do have places like Russia and Poland. Very strong, delicious and not shy of adding some botanical ingredients.
And the traditional foil of Russian vodka is not a juice chaser, but a snack like a salted pickle.
Great test tasing it raw and also cooked aswel! Good to see the alcohol less foods were the better ones, the reason why to not add alcohol into certain dishes besides red wine is explained by this video. In my opinion a great video and really valuable content, love your videos keep these up! 🔥
I imagine it's a similar process to how you would use ethanol to dissolve and draw out something like vanilla beans into extract. There are aromatics that will happily dissolve in ethanol but less happily in water, and if you're cooking the sauce you will boil off the actual alcohol.
Vodka doesn't equal vodka.
The traditional vodka is made out of rye, so wheat and corn based vokas already introduce slightly different aromas. Potato based vodka, which is quite common too, also has a slightly different aroma. You might want to look into doing another "Which vodka pasta tastes best?" type of video based on the different types of vodka. ;)
I was thinking this through the whole video
What I have learned is that in making the pasta from scratch, adding a part of vodka to the egg and flour mixture helps with mixing without activating so much gluten as adding water would
2:19 here's how I satuee onions. 2tbs butter melted, chop/slice the onions and toss in. salt. let the water evaporate, and once they take on some nice color add in 1/2 cup of Marsala wine. reduce wine to a thick sauce that will coat the back of a spoon. serve.
Are we gonna address the fact that during the blind test Ethan found taste of the pasta with no alcohol almost the same as the one with corn vodka, and definitely stronger than wheat vodka? 🤨
In the previous blind test he said no alcohol was "also really good" meaning good like the 1% and 2% ones. he specifically blindly IDed that the higher alcohol ones tasted "not as good" but the 2% one was fairly close in flavor. So considering the other alcohols had a LOT more flavor compounds than just a low percentage of vodka it makes sense that the "no alcohol" pasta will taste closest to the vodka ones compared to win/gin/mezcal. As he said, vodkas have the most neutral flavors in comparison with other alcohol drinks, and the other types of alcohols made the pasta taste VERY different compared to the result of adding neutral alcohol alone. If they're close it make sense he would confuse them on his palate, whereas there is no mistaking, say, mezcal pasta with no-alcohol pasta.
If anything it simply proves the difference is really not that big, to the point where it can really go both ways.
Also keep in mind he was not comparing it to the same thing but stronger, but different things in the same intensity that time. That will definitely influence how you perceive those tastes.
@@RiskOfBaerI think he should have tested more complex dishes.
I know from other cooking shows that alcohol other things like vinegar change the molecules in a lot of different spices. They sometimes don't bring out flavors that were there but create unique new ones.
The science is so complex and fascinating quite honestly. It was like my mom trying to use non alcoholic white wine for her garlic chicken dish. It just wasn't even close although they were similar.
What it really means is that the real conclusion of his experiments is vodka doesn't do shit for pasta but he doesn't want to say that because he doesn't want the foodie Mafia coming after him
why is he eating blind folded?
To be unbiased. Google “veil of ignorance”
blind taste test
Whisk(e)y and desserts often pair well, depending on the choice of spirit. I once found myself with a bottle of Knob Creek bourbon that I didn't like to drink, but when I added it to the chocolate-graham cracker-almond base layer of a dessert bar recipe it was _amazing_ and brought black cherry and vanilla and a bit of caramel to the layer. It might be a challenge to find a good pairing for a peated Islay Scotch unless you love peat smoke, but unpeated whiskies in general should pair well with anything that isn't so powerfully flavoured that it'll overwhelm the influence of the spirit.
Watching you blindly stuff food into your mouth is very satisfying. Great job on these videos. I really enjoy learning about these cooking nuances.
your point about vanilla extract around 22:30 was enlightening. i understand the science, but that example really made it click for me in terms of practice. it also gives me some ideas... e.g., could you "preserve" fresh basil by creating a "basil extract" with vodka, and then cook away the ethanol? or when you peel tomatoes for a sauce, could you soak the skins in alcohol and actually recover some of the taste/color back into the dish?
Other use for vodka in sauce: If you're trying to cook a cream based sauce very quickly, the alcohol will protect the sauce from breaking through heat of evaporation. This is because the liquid can't exceed the boiling point of alcohol until after a substantial portion of it boils off
Brandy/Cognac works well for a substitute
Mostly, there are flavonoids in tomatoes which are dossolved/activated with alcohol, ramping up the umami factor
Be honest, Ethan, you had a lot of fun doing this experiment because you got drunk off your mind! LMAO
Love this video a lot. Great job as always.
I always use dry vermouth in place of white wine because it is shelf stable and also has herbaceous notes.
The ethanol in vodka bonds with the acids in tomatoes to form esters. Esters are the chemicals that give fruits their aromas and flavors.
My dad was a chef in Milan and he made a solution of Vodka with certain hot chilies and all kinds of peppercorns . The vodka was just a vehicle for the peppers and peppercorns. I personally prefer white vermouth for flavor. White non dry vermouth is the best for seafood too. Ask Julia Child! There is a famous Italian dish of Pasta with red wine that is not cooked out at all...I guess that's for Alcoholics...lol
Pollo e marsala is such a simple yet supertasty pasta dish.
Basically a cream sauce with sage and marsala wine. It is a must try!
Fry sage leaves with bits of chicken until they get colour. Add marsala wine to the hot pan, let it cook for about 20, add chicken stock and ream. Add your preboiled pasta. Done, serve with some shredded parmesan. (Note, not all marsala wines work, ask for one that is for food)
This video is way too loong. Answer is at @29:58
legend
Yes alcohol does. White wine also works really well. It allows the oils in wheat do more mixing
add the vodka after sauteing the garlic and shallot, the alcohol burns off leaving the flavored water as the base to add your paste and tomatoes to.
Love the video, but one thing to take into account is that alcohol is a azeotrope, so the mixture's boiling point is going to fluctuate with alcohol concentration.
I ended up doing a crazy experiment set-up with making vanilla extract using different forms of alcohol...felt like your last experiment! Between vodka, bourbon, gin, and rum--rum was the extreme winner. Adding a sweetness that smells like velvet. I appreciate your science!
Perhaps having a longer cooking time is an important factor. The goal in the end might be to ensure that most of the alcohol is burned off regardless of starting concentration. This would allow any interactions with the flavor to shine through.
i was a cocktail bartender for 12 years, won comps and made drinks for famous people. I was very passionate about the journey that different flavour combinations took my tastebuds on.
I have always maintained that my favourite way to drink a Bloody Mary was to down the shot of vodka and then sip on the Virgin Mary. When mixed together the bitterness of the vodka just diminished the bright and comforting sweetness of the tomato
I love when cooking is just science, it's just best blend of practical and nerdy.
I was taught that the alcohol needs to go in before the 'wet' ingredients to deglaze the pan and reduce bitterness.
Pasta a la university student (any alcohol you have at hand)
I found out that honey rum or vermouth work pretty well in tomato sauces during my student years.
In Russia we have fish soup called Uha (which is pretty simple) normally we would add some vodka into it when its cooked. It is believed to make a stock more transperent and taste slightly better but I never tried to check if it actually does.
Cachaça in brasil is usually used on doughs to make them crispier, dryer or fry better with less oil 'sponge-ness'.
I think for ester to form you need higher temperatures. In Chinese cooking we clear some ground in the middle of the pan/wok and pour shaoxing wine in. Or, we pour it around the pan/wok. Either case it directly got in touch with the hot cooking equipment.
As a gin lover I guess I might start using gin in my pasta sauce from now on!
This was so interesting! I love cooking with alcohol. I normally add wine or beer into many dishes I make. I even add tequila to some things. I've never used mezcal but I love smoky stuff so I could see this being amazing. The thought of using gin really peaked my curiosity and I could see those herbal notes being great in a pasta. Or even other dishes! Thank you so much. Now my mind is spinning how exactly I'm going to get 2% into my dishes cuz I don't measure very much stuff lol
I've met many bakers who use vodka in making pastries as it mixes as water but evaporates faster
Thank you for making sure I don’t wreck my sons sobriety this Xmas ❤️