Cacio e Pepe

Cacio e Pepe: a great pasta classic from the Roman region! In addition to the pasta, all you need is pecorino cheese and pepper.Could it be simpler?With just a few tips, you'll get it perfectly right and be amazed time and time again at your kitchen skills :)

The quality of the pasta matters! Rummo's spaghetti is perfect and can be found in regular grocery stores. Rummo pasta is dried at a low temperature for a longer period of time to preserve nutrients and the pasta is trafilata al bronzo (pasta comes through bronze nozzles) which leaves the surface of the pasta rough and allows the sauce to absorb better. If you have the time, it's worth making the pasta yourself. The starch in the flour makes the sauce even thicker. Basic recipe for pasta dough here.

PASTA CACIO E PEPE

You'll need:
400 g pasta
100 g pecorino

Add the salt only after the water has boiled. The amount of water should be less than usual, because the starch that is released from the pasta makes the sauce creamy. Start by crushing the black pepper in a mortar and pestle or grind a few rounds of pepper from a grinder directly into the frying pan. Put the pan on the stove and heat it up. Meanwhile, grate the pecorino, you can also grate a little parmesan cheese if you like. I do this when I want to defy my Italian roots 🙂

Halfway through cooking the pasta, take a few ladles of water and put it in the frying pan where the pepper has started to smell heavenly. Halfway through the pasta's cooking time, use a spaghetti spoon to add the pasta to the pepper. Stir constantly and add more cooking water, the pasta must not dry out!
Cook the pasta in a frying pan with the pepper. Put the grated cheese in a separate bowl, add a ladleful of hot cooking water and stir until the cheese forms a creamy sauce. The sauce should not be watery. You can keep the bowl over a pasta pot with hot cooking water to help the cheese melt.

Gradually add the cheese sauce to the pasta, stirring all the time. The cheese will wrap around the pasta to form a smooth sauce.Check that the pasta is cooked to the right degree, neither too hard nor too soft, i.e. al dente!

Serve with a dollop of pasta seasoned with pepper and enjoy with a good Italian red wine!