Customer Reviews

Vodka Cookbook

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This is just plain fun! Who doesn't remember Jell-O shots from college parties with fondness? This adult cookbook takes that spirit to the next level. The recipes are as creative as their names are zany. It contains chapters on brunch, starters, food flights (shot-glass appetizers), salads & soups, poultry, meat, seafood, pasta, desserts, vodka pantry, preserves, infusions, and drinks. Many of the recipes appear to be the author's invention--Baked Vodka Grapefruit, Vodka and Lemon Sweet Shredded Carrots, Chicken in Vodka Orange Cream Sauce, etc. (I wonder if Gallina his wife did all the cooking--she's the only one shown in the kitchen.) The recipes are all pretty interesting, but the chapter on Infusions changed me forever. Because it is almost flavorless, it is possible to suffuse vodka with food and spice essences to use in preparing uniquely flavored foods and drinks. Here you'll learn to prepare your own homemade vanilla extract, which is superlative to anything you can buy in a store. Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla Beans have the best aroma and flavor. Split 4 or 5 and put them into a liter of vodka, store in a cool dark place, and wait a month or two as they potentize. This vanilla extract will take an average recipe and transform it into something very special. Friends will ask for the recipes but will never quite be able to reproduce them unless they have the vanilla. There are many other infusion recipes to try--orange peel vodka, lemon peel vodka, limoncello, raspberry vodka, apple vodka, espresso, chili, pineapple, chocolate-walnut, sour cherry, and basil vodkas. There are whole blogs dedicated to this form of homemade distillery, where experimenters become as fussy as wine connoisseurs. The book is fronted by Smirnoff, but you can try any brand you want--we won't tell them. Try the recipes and expand your repertory. Enjoy!

Filled with recipes from breakfast to dinner to desserts, the book captures the versatility of vodka as an unusual cooking ingredient. I especially enjoyed the "Food Flights" section, with its distinctly different approach to starting a meal with blended foods (with vodka, of course) as appetizers.

I highly recommend this book to anyone looking to add to their repertoire of dishes that will amaze and please any dinner party guests! But of course, it's also fun to experiment and enjoy yourself as well!

Our club members are doing home parties using some of the recipes from The Vodka Cookbook. Instead of Smirnoff, we're using Van Gogh flavored vodkas, which are excellent.
We will also do fundraisers for our local hospital expansion, having local chefs adapt some of the recipes on stage, cooking in front of hundreds of attendees. Large video screens will enable everyone to see the details of preparation. Excellent resource.