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Cacio e Pepe
Ingredients
- Pepper You can get the whole peppercorn and crush it like I did, or do better and wiser than I and use fresh cracked.
- Grated Peccorino Romano Cheese
- Spaghetti
- Salt For Pasta Water only. Remember the salty water becomes a base for your cream sauce, so taste and taste till you are content.
Instructions
- Place a pot of water to boil for the pasta.
- Crush or Crack Black Pepper. Toast them up in a frying pan.
- Bring pasta to a boil till "al dente". The pasta water should be starchy now, reserve some to add to cheese.
- In a separate bowl, add the pasta water to the cheese to make a creamy sauce.
- Using tongs, drop the pasta from the boiling pot into the frying pan with the pepper. This helps add a bit of pasta water since we aren't straining it.
- Mix the pepper and pasta water till well combined.
- TURN OFF the heat. (I made this mistake) Add the cheese mixture and mix it till creamy. This is where you use your own judgment. If it is not creamy enough either add more cheese or add more pasta water till you get yourself a creamy consistency.
- Plate and Serve with Extra cheese and pepper on top. Eat immediately!
Video
A Pasta in Rome Makes It’s Way Home
Two similar pastas, back to back. What can I say I am a creature of habit and I adore pasta. Growing up in a Sicilian household, my nonna (grandmother) made pasta so much that I didn’t even know other carbs existed. However, my nonna’s pasta was always in a red sauce or with butter. So, when I finally went to Rome some years ago and saw “Cacio e Pepe” on the menu at this restaurant in Trastevere (Grazia e Graziella, I believe was the name), I was quite intrigued.
For starters, the word cacio seemed relative to a cheese that my family used to eat as an appetizer – Caciocavallo. So I truthfully thought that Cacio e Pepe pasta was made with that cheese. I ordered it and had an expectation that this spicy red sauce pasta would come with cheese shavings on the top. Then, to my surprise, this creamy peppery Cacio e Pepe arrived in front of me. The cheese was actually pecorino romano – which if you know me – you know you might as well fill up an IV bag and pour it straight into my veins and I would survive! I love pecorino cheese!
Trial and Error Cacio e Pepe
So, upon coming home, I immediately pulled out my notes of the best meals I have had on vacation. Then I looked up a recipe for Cacio e Pepe, and have been making it ever since. Now, to be brutally honest, I will tell you, not every time I have made this has been a success. This video, was one of those times. See, I forgot to turn the heat off. So, once I started mixing in my cheese, some if it began to clump and I was so friggin’ sad. But, trial and error. I continued adding more cheese, more pasta water, and more love- until I got the consistency I wanted. I have probably made this pasta twenty times, of those twenty, I have messed it up about ten. But, like Aaliyah told us, if at first you don’t succeed, you can dust yourself off and try again.
2023 Updated Video!
Some changes for the new version is that I sautee the pepper with some olive oil and pasta water to coat the pasta first. I then add the creamy cheese after off the heat to make more of a cream sauce.
