Cacio e pepe is a dish of only three ingredients, two of which are obvious at first glance to anyone familiar with the Roman dialect. Cacio is Romanesco for sheep’s milk cheese. In the same way pepe, or black pepper, the cheese – ideally Pecorino – combines with pasta (and a large dose of starchy cooking water) to form a rich and creamy sauce as delicious as it is difficult to perfect.
“[It’s] as delicious as it is difficult to perfect.
According to legend, the dish appeared centuries ago among shepherds spending the spring and summer months in the pastures of the Apennine mountains, which cross the Italian peninsula. While watching their flocks, the shepherds drew from personal stores of dried pasta and peppers; inexpensive, easy to transport and resistant to spoilage, these two ingredients have been combined with cheese (made from the milk of herds of herdsmen) to make a delicious and simple dish that keeps them warm on cold evenings.
“Black pepper directly stimulates heat receptors and helped the shepherds protect themselves from the cold,” said Alessandra Argiolas, marketing manager for Sardinian pecorino producers Argiolas Formaggi. “And the pasta guaranteed a lot of energy.”
But according to Angelo Carotenuto, a native Roman and owner and director of LivItaly Tours, the origin of cacio e pepe may be a little less romantic. Carotenuto and local guide Dario Bartoli recently visited the Internet with a LivTalk, “much like a TedTalk show that disappeared late at night” as described by Carotenuto, to profile this dish and other local pasta dishes.
According to them, dishes like cacio e pepe, carbonara (a rich sauce made with a combination of beaten egg and guanciale or dried pork cheek) and amatriciana (based on guanciale, tomato and cheese pecorino) probably started, not in the mountains, but in the mines and factories that once surrounded the Lazio region encompassing Rome, near where formerly low-income families once lived.
The dried cheese, dried guanciale and dried pasta were plentiful, inexpensive and not easily spoiled: perfect for a simple, inexpensive meal. And although the first two ingredients would likely have been used locally for “literally centuries,” according to Carotenuto, the invention of these dishes, now perceived as Roman classics, probably dates back to the 19th century, when pasta became popular in the Italian capital.
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“You are considering the unification of Italy, so the ability to easily transfer flavors and recipes,” he said, noting that before unification, the poor would have gotten their carbohydrates from bread and polenta, rather than pasta, which, Carotenuto explains, would have arrived in Italy through the Venetian ports.
Whatever the origin of the cacio e pepe, one thing is certain: it has won many hearts around the world, including that of the late Anthony Bourdain. In an episode of No Reservations, Bourdain even went so far as to say that the dish “could be the greatest thing in the history of the world” – and refused to reveal his favorite cacio e pepe restaurant in Rome.
Cacio e pepe has traveled far from its humble roots. It was topped with shaved truffles at the Fucina in London; this is a “secret” off-menu offer for VIPs at Rose’s Luxury in Washington DC; and it was prepared in a Pecorino wheel and served in a table-side show at the aptly named restaurant Cacio e Pepe in New York. Closer to home in Rome, the dish has become upscale, appearing on the three Michelin star menu at La Pergola.
But despite its international renown and high status, cacio e pepe remains basically an absolutely simple dish.
Like many Italian classics, the secret of its success is the purity of its ingredients. To deviate from its three-part formula is to risk angering a local.
“We are pretty strict as to how these things should taste,” said Carotenuto.
To start, the pasta. Most make cacio e pepe with spaghetti, although the real traditional recipe calls for tonnarelli, a similar local noodle with a little more chewing thanks to the addition of eggs.
“This is what I would order if I were in a restaurant,” said Elizabeth Minchilli, culinary tour guide and author of Manger Rome: live the good life in the Eternal City. “If I was at home and couldn’t get it, I would probably go with spaghetti.”
Either way, a long noodle is crucial to getting the perfect texture.
“You really want to coat each strand with the cheese, the cheese fat and the starch in the water,” said Minchilli. “It just eases the agitation very quickly.”
The next ingredient, pepe or black pepper, should be freshly ground to release all of its aromas. Many chefs, including Filippo and Giovanni Rinaldi from London’s Mammafarina pasta pop-ups, “bloom” the pepper in the pan by lightly roasting it, making it even more flavorful.
And then, of course, there is the cacio, or as the Renaldis call it, “his majesty, Pecorino!”.
“Pecorino is very important because of the flavor and palatability that this cheese brings to the dish,” they said, noting that pecorino romano or pecorino sardo (from Sardinia) can be used.
While the Rinaldis say that “it should be forbidden to make cacio e pepe without Pecorino”, some deviate a little from this standard by adding another more familiar cheese: parmesan.
Historically, this is an unusual choice, said Argiolas.
“Cacio e pepe is a recipe from the Roman tradition,” she said, noting that already in 48 BC, Virgil described the nutritional properties of local sheep’s milk cheese. Parmesan, which does not come from Rome but from Emilia-Romagna, is sweeter, more full-bodied and sweeter – the root of an Alfredo sauce, which Carotenuto calls “cacio e pepe for the American sweet tooth”.
But despite the tradition, the Americans are not the only ones with subtle Parmesan for Pecorino opposite. Massimo Bottura popularized an entirely Parmesan version in 2012, after the region of Emilia-Romagna was hit by a devastating earthquake. And other cooks, like Minchilli, cut a particularly strong piece of Pecorino with a little parmesan, to soften it.
“It’s not blasphemous to add Parmesan cheese to Pecorino,” said Carotenuto. “Pecorino is a very strong and salty cheese. Starch water slows down this taste, so in my opinion, you don’t need Parmesan. But you can certainly do it, especially if you give it to children. “
“If all you have is a good quality Parmigiano,” replied Minchilli, “the cacio e pepe police are not going to come and arrest you!”
“It’s quite typical of an Italian dish where, behind this simplicity, hides a fairly complex technicality”
The ingredients of cacio e pepe can be simple, but the technique requires a little finesse to improve, according to Simone Zanoni, chef of the restaurant Le George in Paris.
“It’s quite typical of an Italian dish where, behind this simplicity, hides a fairly complex technicality.”
The technique, in this case, is to combine the cooking water of starchy foods with very finely grated cheese to create a rich sauce without added cream.
“If you tell someone who lives in Rome that you are putting cream in cacio e pepe …” Zanoni chuckled, “it will blow your head!”
Instead, patiently and slowly add the starchy water used to cook the pasta with the cheese and the pasta themselves until a smooth emulsion is formed.
“Everything must be at the right temperature when you add it together, otherwise you get this type of noodle plate with a piece of coagulated cheese at the bottom,” said Minchilli. “And it’s just not what you dream of.”
When you get that elusive texture, cacio e pepe becomes the perfect comfort food.
“Cacio e pepe is a challenge, but also a difficult dish to dislike,” said Meryl Feinstein, founder of the Pasta Social Club in Austin, Texas. “It sounds like an accomplishment – for me included – when this brilliant emulsified sauce emerges. In addition, it is made with few ingredients, and many you probably already have in your kitchen, so it meets the need for recipes suitable for the pantry. “
The aromatic profile of cacio e pepe has generated dozens of iterations, from gnocchi to risotto to lasagna. There are versions that make your life easier, like the cacio e pepe mac and the ricotta cheese from Rachael Ray. There are versions that make it even more exaggerated, like David Chang’s recipe with homemade fermentation this (chickpeas) instead of cacio at Momofuku Nishi; or the cacio e pepe “taco” served in a crispy chicken cutlet at New York’s Noble Kitchen. Parisian chef Taku Sekine of Paris’s Dersou and Cheval d’Or recently published a pizza cacio e pepe on his Instagram feed, noting that it is easy to prepare at home because “the ingredients are often there”.
“You can do it whenever the spirit moves you, just like the cacio e pepe,” he said. “Of course … you have to make the pizza dough.”
For Zanoni, however, the simple combination of Pecorino and pepper does not make cacio e pepe.
“We wouldn’t call the pizza cacio e pepe” cacio e pepe … “we would call it a cheese and pepper pizza,” he said. “There is a completely different vision of tradition, and abroad, it has adopted a completely different vision than the one we have in Italy.”
One thing is certain: the cacio e pepe has attracted the attention of amateur cooks around the world, especially given current containment protocols.
“It’s funny how pasta, which has always been seen as an easy-to-prepare dish abroad, is changing,” said Zanoni, who often receives requests for a gourmet version of cacio e pepe from his kitchen. of a Michelin star. in Paris. “People are starting to give it a gastronomic identity.”
And whether you go crazy with new versions or stick to the classic, it’s a tasty side dish.
“With containment, we come back to old problems: we couldn’t always access fresh produce, so we had things we could keep for a long time,” said Zanoni. “What could be better than a piece of Pecorino, spaghetti and a little pepper?”
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Spaghetti Cacio e Pepe by Simone Zanoni
Ingredients:
200g of high quality handcrafted spaghetti (Zanoni uses Neapolitan spaghetti)
4-7g of wild black peppercorns (adjust to taste, depending on the assertiveness of the pepper)
160g Pecorino Romano, plus two pieces of Pecorino bark
3l of seasoned water with 15g of kosher salt
Instructions:
Prepare your set up (the French world for having prepared and measured all your ingredients) in advance. Crush the peppercorns with a mortar and pestle. (If you don’t have a mortar and pestle, use the bottom of a pan to mash them on a cutting board.) Grate the Pecorino with a Microplane (grater).
Bring the water to a boil, season with salt and add the spaghetti. Stir gently at first to prevent the pasta from sticking to the bottom of the pan.
Meanwhile, grill ¾ pepper in a skillet over low heat until aromatic, about 1 minute. Be careful not to burn the pepper. Remove the pan from the heat and gently add 2 to 3 ladles of starchy water to the pepper pasta. Bring to a boil. Add the cheese crusts and simmer.
When the spaghetti is half cooked (after about six minutes), transfer them to the pan with the peppercorns and the water from the starchy pasta, reserving the rest of the cooking water. Transfer another ladle of water to the pan. After a few more minutes, remove the Pecorino peels and place them in a non-stick skillet over medium heat to grill on both sides. Once well grilled, remove and reserve.
During this time, continue to cook the spaghetti up to two minutes before al dente (cooked “to the tooth” with a light bite). Turn off the heat and let the pasta sit; there should be some cooking water in the pan.
After about a minute off the heat, start adding the grated cheese to the pasta from the top, shaking the pan all the time to coat. Add cooking water as needed to help the sauce bond; the sauce thickens as the pasta hardens.
Serve the pasta in a hot dish. Garnish with the remaining pepper and a little freshly grated Pecorino. Thinly slice the roasted Pecorino bark and sprinkle on top.
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