Hi everyone, I'm Enrico Recanati. We're in my restaurant in Loreto, great Marian city, restaurant Andreina. And here is where a story that is today 65 years old start, a story about wood, coals, animals, vegetables and pasta, also
a pasta made on the coals. Today I'm telling you my
traditional cacio e pepe recipe, but of course I'm gonna tell you how you can
make cacio e pepe on the coals. We're now going to the kitchen
straight away where we'll find Ricky, a very strong and skilled guy, and the first passage, fundamental, is exactly taking a great pasta, a product like Felicetti, an Italian
top level product. From there creating around all that is exactly cacio e pepe. We'll start from Sarawak pepper,
a very intense pepper with intoxicating aromas.
With a mortar, we'll start crushing our pepper slowly, careful not to heat it up. From here we'll start cooking our pasta. From there, we're toasting, not burning our pepper. As soon as it expresses all of its aromas, its intensity, we're soaking it with water, cooking water. We'll add our spaghetti, we'll keep cooking our spaghetti in our pan. From there we'll lower its temperature. We'll make the creaming. Here, as well we're using a parmigiano cheese aged 36 months from white cows and a pecorino di fossa and from there we'll create our cream. Let's be careful and when the pasta gets too thick, let's not be scared and add a bit of water and let's keep stirring until we obtain a pasta that is stringy and well creamed. At this point we'll help ourselves with a carving fork, with a spoon and we're plating it at the center of the dish. Obviously another tip is to always keep the dish at a temperature that is hot enough for a pasta, because it naturally helps maintaining it, it helps cuddling our spaghetto. I'm adding a little grating of lemon, but just because it goes well with Sarawak and it allows me to create a longer lasting taste.
Come with me to the embers and I'm going to explain you
spaghetti with cacio and 7 peppers. I wanted to remind you I'm also featured
in ItaliaSquisita's book Original and Gourmet with my cacio and 7 peppers together with all of my Italian colleagues. At the embers, Diego is waiting for us,
another guy that is of course passionate and got his passion
for the embers with me and he helps me everyday making all of our preparations,
from the hanging animals to the cooking under the ashes. So the spaghetti is a spaghettone, not a spaghetti. We'll cook our pasta for about 6 minutes. Second passage a water that is about 60 degrees. When we're moving a product, of course in salted water, we're trying
to balance a bit the impact with a different water. So, we're adding
some salt in here, as well. OK, we're melting it lightly. Our pasta is still raw, it's not cooked. OK, as you can see
it still has bite. We're taking it out and we're immersing it paying careful attention in water. Here we're helping ourselves, going very very slowly. We're allowing it to keep cooking in this water. Let's wait for 6 minutes take our spaghetto and place it in our cloth. At this point we're dabbing it and allowing it to dry this way without creating pressure, forces or anything like that.
Let's wait for some more minutes and then proceed
with the cooking on the embers. OK, as you can see we modified all of our grills for our cooking, because we adapted to any kind of product, from guinea-fowl to ducks to peppers, to spaghetti, we dedicated a grill to it.
We're placing it on top of the grill.
You can hear the noise, we have a hat of every kind and hats of different thickness, of course, diameter. We'll need this, as well, to capture the invisible element that is fire, indeed. We're adding, in this case, a liquid part,
olive oil. The concept, to show you, was exactly to capture smoke, because as you can see,
the smoke that comes out is smoke I don't care for, the smoke that I'm interested in is this one, that stays trapped under the hat. Timut pepper, this fragrance that is almost citrus, grapefruit, more than a pepper we can call it a berry. Long pepper, its beauty is impressive, inside we're almost touching the smell of cinnamon. My favorite, I shouldn't say it
in front of all seven, but it's Madagascar. It has an inebriating fragrance, an impressive hint of vanilla. White pepper is nothing other than a pepper without its bark. Green pepper, which nothing other than wild pepper. Another passion, it's impressive, its beauty, it's almost as if it was a pearl, a diamond, it's exactly Sichuan pepper. It's very spicy, and finally, it. Sarawak, black pepper. The magic that these peppers create is that, indeed, no one should
overpower the others, but instead they should all blend
with this flavor of embers, with this smoke that I showed to you.
Let's start from Sarawak, this way. Here we are, we're getting to a powder
consistency. This is the first, and same goes for the others. So, all of the peppers incorporate the pepper mix, because in the stone, with pressure, they're collecting
the other peppers. These are the seven peppers. OK, this is our cooked spaghetti. We're collecting them and keeping our hat here, with our tongs. I'm taking my pepper and I'm going to show you the last passage of the recipe. Pot, peppers mixture. Without taking a chance to burn it, we're allowing it to toast. Let's add the cooking water
to our seven peppers. OK. At this point we're giving back body and cooking to our pasta. OK, we're moving it away from the fire.
We're turning the flame off and as I was saying before,
we're caressing it and lowering its temperature. Parmigiano 36 months pecorino let's start creating the sauce. We're adding liquid. Here we are. Here it is, nice, smooth, creamy. We're plating it, the spaghetti. We're helping ourselves with a spoon. We're placing it here. Great. First, pecorino, with your hands, this way. OK, then parmigiano 36 months. At this point we're missing a bit of our seven peppers mixture. We're adding a bit of it, because
we already creamed it. At last, explanations, meaning our cacio with seven peppers.
And on the other side is the drawing of how it is developed.
We're placing it down here, in this way. And I would say, buon appetito,
enjoy, everyone! I showed you classic cacio and pepper,
my cacio pasta cooked on the embers with seven different peppers.
Try and make it at home, have fun throwing away a bit of pasta,
burning a bit of pasta. I'm waiting for you here
in my restaurant, Andreina in Loreto. We have a table
that is dedicated to the embers, indeed, where we can talk and exchange all kinds of ideas. Huge greetings to all friends
of ItaliaSquisita and again, more fire
and more flames for everyone!
