Cacio e Pepe (Cheese and Pepper) is a simple, yet delicious way to serve pasta. It is a typical dish from Rome, and can be served with spaghetti, linguine, or even short pasta such as rigatoni.
On this occasion, I made Linguine Cacio e Pepe.
Ingredients – Linguine Cacio e Pepe for 4 people
- 500g Linguine
- 200g Pecorino Romano cheese
- Generous amount of freshly-ground black pepper
- Drop of oil and fistful of salt for the pasta cooking water
Method
Put a large pan with water, a drop of oil and a fistful of salt on the hob and bring to the boil. I usually advocate using the largest possible stockpot style pan for pasta cooking, but this recipe works best if you have very starchy water, so use a slightly smaller (but still ample) pan / less water than you usually would for pasta.
Once the water is boiling, add the pasta, stir after a minute or so, and occasionally during cooking, to ensure it doesn’t stick together.
While the pasta is cooking, finely grate the pecorino cheese. The key to this recipe is the cheese. Make sure you use a good quality pecorino romano and that you grate it as finely as you can – this will enable you to create the creamy sauce. If the cheese is too coarsely grated, it won’t go creamy and will clump instead.
Grind plenty of black pepper into the pecorino. How much you use, will depend on taste, but you are ideally aiming for a speckled look to the cheese, and for a good peppery kick to the sauce.
Once the pasta is nearly cooked (about a minute before it’s done), take a bit of water out of the pan with a ladle and stir it into the cheese with a fork. Add a bit at a time (half a ladle or less) and stir each time, until you achieve the desired creamy consistency.
Once the pasta is cooked, nicely ‘al dente’, drain it and immediately stir it through the cheese.
Serve onto pasta bowls and, if you wish, add a bit more freshly-ground black pepper.
