Born in the ancient Roman taverns with poor products, today the pasta, cheese and pepper it is one of the best known, loved and replicated recipes all over the world. Together with pasta all’amatriciana and pasta carbonara, it is now the symbol of Italian cuisine, made with award-winning ingredients recognized as culinary excellence. Cacio e pepe pasta, traditionally made with tonnarelli or spaghetti, Pecorino romano DOP and black peppercorns, in its just three ingredients hides a real challenge: preparing the pecorino cream without lumps! Many people have attempted to cook cacio e pepe pasta and they failedbut don’t worry: with our recipe and our final advice you will be able to prepare the perfect dish of spaghetti with cheese and pepper, to be enjoyed immediately with a good glass of Morellino di Scansano.

Preparation

1

Place a large pot ¾ full of water on the heat and bring to the boil.

2

As soon as it reaches the boil, add a pinch of coarse salt and dip the spaghetti. Cook them according to the time indicated on the package.

3

While the pasta is cooking, prepare the sauce: grate the pecorino into a bowl and set aside. It is advisable to use a grater with narrow holes.

4

Finely crush the peppercorns in a mortar. If you don’t have one, you can mash them with a spoon or a meat tenderizer, placing them on a cutting board.

5

Turn on the stove on low heat and lightly toast the pepper in a pan. As soon as it is hot, add a ladle of cooking water and let it evaporate.

6

Drain the spaghetti with a slotted spoon 2-3 minutes before the end of cooking and transfer them directly to the pepper pan. Add 1 ladle of cooking water and mix with a pair of silicone tongs.

7

Prepare the pecorino cream: add a ladle of cooking water to the grated pecorino and mix quickly with a fork or a whisk.

8

Remove the pan from the heat and add the pecorino cream, mix very quickly with kitchen tongs or a fork, always moving in the same direction, and serve piping hot.

Tips and tricks

If necessary, add a further ladle of cooking water to the pan with the pasta and pepper, because the pasta must not be dry but it must remain very creamy. If you don’t have peppercorns you can also use already ground pepper. Peppercorns, however, are spicier.

Try to use little water to boil the pasta. In this way the remaining cooking water will be rich in starch, essential for cooking correct success of the pecorino cream.

We recommend adding a little salt to the cooking water as the pecorino will already be sufficiently salty.

We recommend using pecorino romano. Alternatively, you can use seasoned Sardinian pecorino.

If while preparing the pecorino cream it turns out dry and pasty, don’t worry. Place the bowl (glass or steel) in which you are creating the cream above the pan with the cooking water still hot. The heat will slightly melt the cream, making it more liquid and allowing them to reach an adequate temperature for creaming with the pasta.

The trick to avoiding lumps in cacio e pepe? Grate the pecorino with a grater with very fine holes and add a little hot cooking water at a time, whipping with a whisk, checking the consistency little by little.

The pasta traditionally used for cacio e pepe is Roman tonnarelli or, alternatively, spaghetti. If you are not a fan of long pasta you can use short pasta such as rigatoni, rigatoni or helicoidal mezze sleeves. Alternatively you can also take advantage of fresh and regional pasta such as Tuscan pici and the Venetian bigoli.

storage

It is advisable consume immediately spaghetti with cheese and pepper. It is not recommended to store them in the refrigerator and it is not possible to freeze them.

History

Pasta alla cacio e pepe is a dish typical of the Lazio region, although it is now widely consumed and loved throughout Italy and, particularly, in central regions such as Tuscany, Marche and Abruzzo. It is a preparation of ancient origin, born in the inns of the Roman countryside as a stratagem: the innkeepers used to serve very salty pasta in order to sell more wine. Although the name refers to “Cacio”, a sweet and semi-mature cheese, in reality for this preparation Pecorino romano DOP is used, a hard cheese with a slightly spicy flavour. The term “cacio” refers generically to all cheeses and derives from central Italy.