Cook dinner with it. Pour it on ice cream. Why, you can even drink the stuff, writes Joe Breen
How about this for a menu? Vodka-steamed prawn cocktail. Stone-crab cakes with orange vodka pineapple salsa. Habenero-encrusted tuna with lemon vodka and thyme dressing. Lemon and lime vodka granita. No prizes for spotting the common denominator.
This is the kind of dinner you might receive were you lucky enough to be invited to John Rose's apartment in Moscow. Rose, an American who has owned an advertising company in the city since 1989, writes about food and travel in his spare time. Living in a country where vodka is a staple of every table, he found it strange that it had not infiltrated Russia's cuisine. So he set about righting matters. The result is The Vodka Cookbook, a collection of recipes for salads, soups, starters, main courses and desserts, as well as for cocktails, to pass the time while you wait for the next vodka-touched course to arrive.
And if that all sounds a little heavy on the sauce, Rose makes the point (see panel) that vodka, or any alcoholic drink for that matter, loses much of its potency in the cooking. Many of the recipes are variations on well-established themes, such as "vodka beef stroganoff with chilli sweet potato crisps". They can be quite involved and frequently require extensive preparation, but none requires any great cooking skill. "Trust me," says Rose. "If I can cook it, so can you."
Rose gives detailed instructions on how to make or source his more obscure ingredients in a chapter entitled "The Vodka Pantry". These include recipes for the chilli-dominated KGB Sauce ("The heat in the sauce, much like the former KGB, sneaks up on you."), vodka-and-onion ketchup and vodka chicken broth. Another chapter lists preserves, such as vodka apple maple jam and strawberry vodka jam. One on infusions explains how to create mixes such as lemon-peel vodka, chilli vodka or, for over ice cream, chocolate walnut vodka.
The book, predictably, is sponsored by Smirnoff.
The Vodka Cookbook by John Rose is published by Kyle Cathie, £16.99
FIVE-STAR COCKTAILS
If you'd like a more predictable take on vodka, you could try Diffords Guide to Cocktails Volume 5 (Diffords Guides, £24.99), which has recipes for more than 1,500 cocktails. Each one has a list of ingredients, a method, a pithy comment and a photograph. Leafing through the entries, it is hard not to be bamboozled by the sheer range of drinks, but the clear layout and design ease the task. Many of the cocktails are rated from one bullet (disgusting) to five bullets (outstanding), and each new entry is noted accordingly. Here are a few of the five-bullet recipes.
BLING! BLING!
8 fresh raspberries
½ shot vodka
½ shot freshly squeezed lime juice
½ shot sugar syrup
Champagne to top up
Muddle raspberries in base of shaker. Add vodka, lime and sugar syrup, shake with ice and fine-strain into shot glass. Top up with Champagne.
PINEAPPLE AND CARDOMOM MARTINI
4 pods green cardomom
2 shots vodka
2 shots pressed pineapple juice
¼ shot sugar syrup
Break away outer shells of the cardamom pods and muddle the inner seeds in the base of the shaker. Add other ingredients, shake with ice and fine-strain into a chilled glass.
NATURAL DAIQUIRI
2 shots light rum (or aged rum)
½ shot freshly squeezed lime juice
¼ shot sugar syrup
¾ shot chilled mineral water
Shake all ingredients with ice and fine-strain into a chilled glass.
HAVANATHEONE
10 fresh mint leaves
2 shots light rum
2 spoons runny honey
½ shot freshly squeezed lime juice
1 shot pressed apple juice
Lightly muddle leaves in base of shaker. Add rum and honey and stir to dissolve the honey. Add other ingredients, shake with ice and fine-strain into a chilled glass.
THE BURNING QUESTION
What happens when you use spirits, wine or beer in a recipe? The US department of agriculture has calculated what percentage of the alcohol is left after various methods and lengths of cooking
COOKING METHOD ALCOHOL RETAINED
No heat, stored overnight 70%
Stirred into hot liquid 85%
Flamed 75%
Not stirred, then baked for 25 minutes 45%
Stirred in, then baked or simmered for:
¼ hour 40%
½ hour 35%
1 hour 25%
1½ hours 20%
2 hours 10%
2½ hours 5%