Cacio e Pepe. Roman spaghetti and cheese, a simple recipe with few ingredients: pasta, grated pecorino romano, ground black pepper, salt and water. Cook the pasta, al dente, toss it in a bowl with the cheese, pepper and enough pasta water to make a sauce and BAM! You're done.
Sounds pretty easy, right? Watch someone who knows what they're doing and you'll be convinced it is easy. But it turns out you'll screw it up the first time. And the second time. And... When you finally get it right--smooth sauce evenly coating the pasta and not those little grey clumps of cheese and pepper--you'll screw it up the next few times because you don't really know how you did it right. We call that "luck". It is going to take time and practice to develop the skills, adjust to the nuances of temp, liquid and time to get to the point where you can "just do it".
If you're doing this for fun, for friends and family of the patient variety, you'll probably be OK turning out a few dozen mishaps before you finally get it right and dozens more before you get it consistently right. But if you have a restaurant you better be able to whip this out fast and perfect every time before you even consider putting it on the menu. Otherwise you won't really need to learn how to make Cacio e Pepe because you'll be out of business.
But if you're really interested, here is:
How To Make Cacio e Pepe (the long version)
Ingredients:
Cook the spaghetti in a large skillet with just enough salted water to cover. You will have to stir often to ensure the pasta doesn't stick together, but using much less water than usual increases the starchiness of the pasta water. This helps the sauce coat the pasta. You'll want to cook the pasta 1-2 minutes less than called for in the instructions.
About halfway thru the pasta cook time put a couple ladles of pasta water into a bowl swirling it around. This heats the bowl and brings down the temp of the water. Add the pepper. Add at least half the grated cheese and blend into the water with a fork.
When the pasta is done (al dente) turn off the heat and use tongs and put it in the bowl. No need to strain as you'll probably add more water anyway. Here's where things get tricky. You want to toss the pasta about, some say "furiously" but others would probably say "with purpose" and it is often best to use the tongs. As the pasta is getting coated with the sauce add more cheese and more pasta water until you have the level of cheesiness and coverage you're looking for.
Serve immediately.
What Can Go Wrong -- Will Go Wrong
Then there is cheating and cheating is, well, wrong--which doesn't keep very many folks from doing it and you'll find that most YouTube videos on this dish are cheating. Cheating usually involves adulteration by way of added oil and fat, usually EVOO and/or butter. While this does decrease the likelihood of cheese coagulation what you end up with is not Cacio e Pepe. Because you cheated. The other common cheat is to mix in a pan over heat with this cheat being combined with the oil/fat cheat. This *seems* like it should work, but improper control of heat on the pan exacerbates the cheese coagulation and you will end up with a pan that is a pain to clean.
Sounds pretty easy, right? Watch someone who knows what they're doing and you'll be convinced it is easy. But it turns out you'll screw it up the first time. And the second time. And... When you finally get it right--smooth sauce evenly coating the pasta and not those little grey clumps of cheese and pepper--you'll screw it up the next few times because you don't really know how you did it right. We call that "luck". It is going to take time and practice to develop the skills, adjust to the nuances of temp, liquid and time to get to the point where you can "just do it".
If you're doing this for fun, for friends and family of the patient variety, you'll probably be OK turning out a few dozen mishaps before you finally get it right and dozens more before you get it consistently right. But if you have a restaurant you better be able to whip this out fast and perfect every time before you even consider putting it on the menu. Otherwise you won't really need to learn how to make Cacio e Pepe because you'll be out of business.
But if you're really interested, here is:
How To Make Cacio e Pepe (the long version)
Ingredients:
- Grated pecorino romano, about a cup, you can always use leftovers.
- Salt, less than you usually use.
- Water.
Cook the spaghetti in a large skillet with just enough salted water to cover. You will have to stir often to ensure the pasta doesn't stick together, but using much less water than usual increases the starchiness of the pasta water. This helps the sauce coat the pasta. You'll want to cook the pasta 1-2 minutes less than called for in the instructions.
About halfway thru the pasta cook time put a couple ladles of pasta water into a bowl swirling it around. This heats the bowl and brings down the temp of the water. Add the pepper. Add at least half the grated cheese and blend into the water with a fork.
When the pasta is done (al dente) turn off the heat and use tongs and put it in the bowl. No need to strain as you'll probably add more water anyway. Here's where things get tricky. You want to toss the pasta about, some say "furiously" but others would probably say "with purpose" and it is often best to use the tongs. As the pasta is getting coated with the sauce add more cheese and more pasta water until you have the level of cheesiness and coverage you're looking for.
Serve immediately.
What Can Go Wrong -- Will Go Wrong
Then there is cheating and cheating is, well, wrong--which doesn't keep very many folks from doing it and you'll find that most YouTube videos on this dish are cheating. Cheating usually involves adulteration by way of added oil and fat, usually EVOO and/or butter. While this does decrease the likelihood of cheese coagulation what you end up with is not Cacio e Pepe. Because you cheated. The other common cheat is to mix in a pan over heat with this cheat being combined with the oil/fat cheat. This *seems* like it should work, but improper control of heat on the pan exacerbates the cheese coagulation and you will end up with a pan that is a pain to clean.
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