Pasta, Caccio E Pepe

I’m not a fan of eating large amounts of pasta on a regular basis. When in Italy, mostly in the north, I’m served pasta in quite modest amounts as a separate course before the main. Maybe it’s different down south, but I think this is the healthier way to enjoy a bit of pasta now and then.

If you think pasta with cheese and pepper doesn’t sound like anything to write home about, well, I’m happy to say that on this occasion you’d be wrong

One of the great features of Italian gastronomy is sophistication of technique within relative, sometimes great, simplicity of ingredients. This dish, from Rome’s Lazio region illustrates this perfectly.

I’ve seen recipes adding grated cheese and a bit of pepper to pasta. Really? No! Caccio e pepe is a marriage of cheese and pepper with very lightly salted pasta water turned creamy, velvety emulsion in gastronomic heaven. It’s not hard to make, but there’s a good bit of technique. The keyword is emulsion

 

TUTORIAL SUMMARY OF THE TECHNIQUE

The pepper is just lightly crushed with a pestle, then delicately dry toasted in a pan to bring out the perfume

Pecorino is the cheese of choice, though you’ll get great results with Parmesan or any hard aged ewes’ or cow’s cheese. To the fairly salty cheese you’ll be adding a little of the “glutinous”, salty pasta water. This requires that you use

1. half the recommended amount of salt in the pasta water
2. half the recommended amount of water in order to obtain that glutinous consistency

First time I made this I used too little water for the pasta and ended up with a delicious, but slightly sticky result. Thus, I took to keeping a small saucepan of simmering water nearby, ready to come to the rescue. I rarely need it nowadays, but it helps me feel secure

The pepper is coarsely cracked in a mortar and pestle and dry toasted in your frying pan at medium heat just until its aroma is released

Start cooking your pasta, and once the water starts to look gloopy, add a ladleful to the black pepper

A couple of minutes of lively bubbling later, add this to half the cheese in a bowl, whisking vigorously to dissolve it into a thin creamy emulsion, then add the remaining cheese while the mixture is still hot to create a thicker cream

The pasta is 3/4 cooked in its original pan and finished off in the secondary shallow pan along with a ladleful or two of pasta water and the caccio-pepe emulsion until al dente in the velvety nectar

Have your table very close by and your guests ready to tuck in. This dish waits for no-one.

Ready? Here’s the recipe