I mentioned this in my previous post but figured it deserved its own explanation (along with a full recipe): Lady Gaga’s tomato sauce – as explained in a recent Vanity Fair piece by Lisa Robinson. The description in the article was rather brief, so think of this as an inspired reconstruction…

Tomato Sauce a la Gaga

You will need (for 2-4 people):

8 oz pasta
4-6 tomatoes, halved and grated into a pulp (all but the skins)
1 bunch of leeks, cleaned and chopped finely
2 tablespoons alfredo sauce
2 tablespoons tomato paste
A splash of vodka
1 tsp each of fennel seeds, rosemary, and oregano, all dried, all crushed
Salt and pepper
Olive oil and butter

Make the pasta per instructions. Drain and set aside.

Start by sauteeing the leeks in butter and olive oil on very low heat – be careful not to burn them, as they’ll be quite thin. Cook them till they become soft.

Once the leeks are nice and cooked, toss in the dried herbs and add the grated tomato insides, the tomato paste, and the vodka. Mix well and cook until it starts to reduce. At that point add salt and pepper (but wait to add the salt till it’s reduced a bit).

Lastly add a bit of alfredo sauce and swirl around to make it nice and creamy.  Cook till reduced to desired consistency, mix together and serve well-mixed with the pasta.

If you feel like it, you can also mix in a few delicious Lebanese meatballs per a recipe I posted a while back (which is totally justified because of a line in Lady Gaga’s song Born This Way (“you’re Lebanese, you’re Orient.” We don’t need to unpack why those two terms, exactly, as that is a matter for another day. For now we can just be satisfied adding tasty kefta style meatballs into our pasta I think).