Lockdown led many of us to spend hours on Instagram, Twitter and TikTok. Some of us exercised, some of us binged watched TV and others continued to work from home. However, one thing that I believe a lot of people developed a skill for in the time where we were stuck inside was cooking and baking – including popular celebrities!
Gigi Hadid is known for her striking looks and featuring on the front cover and runways for many big brands from Victoria Secret to Vogue. One thing I was not aware of prior to lockdown was how much of a chef she was. She posted many of her pasta dishes online, but one of the most viral -her ‘vodka pasta’ was something that I just had to try and make myself.
The recipe can be made with or without alcohol and is super fun to try and make as a household or for a cute date night meal. It requires simple ingredients, namely: garlic, onion, passata, unsalted butter, pasta (I used rigatoni), double cream, chilli flakes, parmesan and of course vodka!
As a university student, I often enjoy cooking big meals that can then be divided into smaller portions and frozen. Due to the cream and parmesan in this recipe, I opted to make a big batch and share it out amongst friends which made the experience of cooking a whole lot more fulfilling.
The dish itself doesn’t actually take that long to make and is a simple method of merely frying off the onion and garlic, adding the passata, stirring in the double cream and chilli flakes, adding the vodka at the last minute before stirring in parmesan to finish.
But how did it taste? I did use vodka in my version of the recipe and my overall verdict was that it tasted good! I would not say I am in a rush to recreate this meal anytime soon as the ingredients can be quite costly, and it isn’t an effective meal to freeze. However, that being said the sauce was very tasty and was a change from my usual pasta options of pesto or tuna. As for the vodka, the taste was relatively strong and combined with the cream and the great mass of cheese that was in the sauce, it left me and my housemates feeling rather full and heavy on the stomach afterwards.
This being said however, it did feel cool to be cooking a recipe inspired by a celebrity as opposed to a chef and made a change to adopt a ‘trend’ that doesn’t necessarily have bad connotations around it. Cooking is a great way to try new things, explore new flavours and also have fun with friends. The feta pasta trend on Tik Tok seems to have gaged mixed views, as have various baking recipes. Social media doesn’t always shine the best light on humanity, but these new cooking techniques and recipes are certainly a way to make us all feel more connected during these somewhat disconnected times.