20 min Weeknight Magazine kitchen
Vegetarian
Cacio e pepe is a shepherds’ dish that became a test of a Roman kitchen. The enemy is clumping: cheese added to a pan that is too hot seizes. The trick is off-heat tossing and pasta water as the only other fat. If you add cream, you have made a different, lesser dish.
Ingredients
2
- tonnarelli or spaghetti250 g
- Pecorino Romano80 g, finely grated
- black pepper2 tsp, coarsely cracked
- saltfor the water
Method
- 1
Boil pasta in water that is salty but less copious than usual — you want starchy water.
- 2
Toast cracked pepper in a wide pan until fragrant. Splash in a ladle of pasta water to make a dark emulsion.
- 3
Move pasta in a minute early. Off the heat, rain in pecorino and toss, adding water until it becomes a cream, not clumps.
- 4
Serve immediately. It waits for no one.