Recipe corner: cacio e pepe

You may recognise this dish as having been particularly trendy - oooh, a good year ago, maybe more. Now, obviously, the cool kids have moved on but I still think it is worth posting this methodology for posterity. This is the sort of simple, quick pasta dish that I can imagine will remain on our regular meal rotation for many years to come.

This recipe comes, with a few tiny tweaks for personal taste, from the wonderful Smitten Kitchen blog. I must admit, I follow very few American food blogs and cook from them seldom. The reasons for this are neither sinister nor snobbish; when I first started really getting in to blogs, and bookmarking recipes, I soon found myself with a “to make” list that would never get made if I lived to be 500 and cooked something different every day. In order to get things to more manageable levels, I decided to restrict myself to UK sites. I recognise that I’ve probably missed out on a lot. If it hadn’t been for the fact that Smitten Kitchen somehow survived the cull I would never have learned about this fabulous foolproof method for cacio e pepe.

I would recommend warming the plates or bowls before serving. The pasta will start to cool while you’re tossing it in the sauce and if you don’t want it to be cold within a minute or so of starting to eat, a warm plate is a necessity.

Ingredients

200g dried spaghetti

90g pecorino cheese, finely grated
Half a teaspoon black peppercorns

You will also need to have some water to hand, and a small processor / chopper

Serves 2

Put a large pan of salted water on and bring to the boil.

In a pestle and mortar, grind the peppercorns. How fine you take them is up to you - I want a good flavour without crunchy bits being caught in my teeth, so I take it quite fine.

Set aside a small amount of the cheese for garnish. Then, put half the remainder into the mini processor along with a tablespoon of water and blitz - it will start to come together and clump. Add the other half of the cheese in with another tablespoon of water and half of the pepper. Blitz again. Continue to add water, a tablespoon at a time, until you have a paste roughly the consistency of cream cheese. This was about four tablespoons for me last time I did it. Add the pepper to taste (note: I would probably always end up using the full quantity but I like it peppery).

Cook the spaghetti in the boiling salted water for around 8 minutes, or until al dente. Use a mug to scoop out some of the pasta water before draining and returning to the pan.

Add about half of the cheese and pepper paste along with a couple of teaspoons of pasta water and toss vigorously (I must admit, I tend to stir vigorously rather than tossing - I am messy by nature and don’t want to end up splattered in sauce). Continue to add the paste - a generous tablespoon at a time alongside a teaspoon of pasta water, stirring again each time, until the pasta is coated in a light, silky sauce. If you add it too quickly, you will end up with gummy lumps of cheese stuck to the bottom of the pan.

Plate up and garnish with the reserved cheese and another grind or two of pepper.