Cacio e Pepe
Local name: Cacio e pepe
Three ingredients and a glossy pecorino cream bound with starchy pasta water, peppered right to the edge.
- Prep
- 5 min
- Cook
- 15 min
- Total
- 20 min
- Serves
- 4
- Difficulty
- Medium
Method
- Crush the peppercorns coarsely in a mortar, then toast them in a dry frying pan for 1 minute until fragrant.
- Cook the pasta in lightly salted water, using deliberately less water than usual so it becomes properly starchy.
- Ladle two spoonfuls of pasta water onto the hot pepper and let it bubble into a peppery broth.
- In a bowl, work the grated pecorino with a few spoonfuls of warm, never boiling, pasta water into a smooth paste.
- Drain the pasta a minute early and finish cooking it in the pan with the peppery broth.
- Off the heat, stir in the pecorino cream vigorously, loosening with more water a little at a time until the sauce coats and shines. Serve at once.
Pecorino seizes the instant it meets fierce heat, and that is the whole difficulty. Build the cream off the heat, in a pan that is merely warm, and it turns silky.
