Hi, I'm Claudio Gargioli, head chef and
owner of Armando Al Pantheon. Today I'll show you how I make my Cacio e Pepe.
The ingredients to make Cacio e Pepe are pepper in grains, Roman Pecorino,
pasta - in this case I'm using spaghetti, salt for the water,
to boil everything. The first thing we're gonna do is to
put a pot on the flame, let's say quite scarce in water. When it boils, we're throwing
the pasta in. 100 gr of pasta are fine. It usually takes 10 minutes. The fact the
amount of water is not abundant makes it possible to extract all the
starches contained in the pasta. This starch is very important to create a cream
once we're adding Pecorino cheese and pepper. On the side,
we're taking a nonstick pan and add pepper in grains. And we're starting to
sauté it on the flame to toast it. When we see that
the pearl of pepper starts to become quite translucent, it means it's starting to
take out its oil. We're removing the pan from the flame and spread the pepper
on absorbent paper so it cools down slightly. Then we're pouring it
in the mortar and start to crush it carefully, without
reducing it to a powder, leaving a part of powder and a part of
coarsely crushed pearls. In the meantime, we're taking a pan, I'm using an aluminum one. Out of the flame,
we're pouring grated Pecorino inside 40-50 gr per portion, together with a
ladleful of hot water from the pasta cooking. I'm melting slowly the
Pecorino cheese in the water, making a cream as the heat of the water
makes the fat inside the Pecorino cheese melt without lumping.
I'm adding the pepper we crushed before. After 9-10 minutes, we're taking the pasta out of the water.
I'm not using a strainer, I'm taking it gradually with a carving fork so that the pasta stays very moist.
I'm adding it in the pan, sautéeing it out of the flame, so that the cream
sticks all around the spaghetti. We're taking the spaghetti out and
pouring them on a hot plate, then we're adding some more Pecorino on top and a generous
handful of pepper. Once it's eaten you'll regret cooking just
100 gr of pasta as it's so great... Here you go!
I wish you can try this recipe and succeed! I send you wishes
and enjoy! Ciao! Claudio Hi, I'm Cristina Bowerman. Today I'm making
an almost all-traditional Cacio e Pepe, with a slight variation that can maybe make our
Cacio e Pepe slightly better. The ingredients I'm using are just
the ones for Cacio e Pepe. Pasta, obviously water with salt,
normal pepper from Sarawac, Roman Pecorino and to finish, a touch of lemon zest.
The first thing I'm doing is using a mortar for the pepper before toasting it.
I want the pepper to come out in a quite important way. What I will
do later is taking the pepper and toasting it. I'm really not only using
cooking water. I'm making a very light meat broth. In this case I have chicken,
but you can also use a beef fond. In this way, I'm giving thickness
and depth to my Cacio e Pepe. Generally, when eating Cacio e Pepe
and meeting the peppery part, in a way, that takes over. As for me, I use a pepper broth to give
a peppery sensation, exactly, without any particular peak. Then
I'm adding what I want on top. So, once we toast it, we're adding this fond
and let it cook. In the meantime, our water is boiling.
We're adding some coarse salt. Not a lot, as it is clearly
a quite salty dish in itself with the addition of Roman
Pecorino, so we're being quite careful. I always say the great quality of
Italian cuisine is pasta, but it's also its greatest curse,
as especially in a restaurant every restaurateur, every chef know
that for pasta, all we have is a minute to serve it,
or it won't be the same. So, spaghetti. We're cooking them in half.
When throwing the pasta in, please don't stir it too often or
we could break the pasta itself. Let's wait a moment for it
to soften, then let's start stirring it. So, what we're really doing
is a pepper infusion. We're ready to move the pasta
in the pan. Let's stir continuously.
Why are we doing it? Now, in the second part of the cooking,
the starches contained in the pasta are released in the liquid.
This mechanical movement creates the emulsion between starches and liquid. Let's increase the temperature.
At this point, we're thickening with cacio. We're still waiting for a second, as
it shouldn't be too hot. We're distributing it uniformly, then start stirring, trying
to avoid as much as possible any lumps. The pasta is moist,
as you can see, and dark, as this is the feature of pepper. Some of the sauce. Great. And to finish, some
grated lemon zest. If one wants to exaggerate, but as for me,
I repeat, it's great not to have any pepper on top, but it's peppery,
you can put it on the side. I'd like to point something out. The
Cacio e Pepe I made is not entirely here, some of it is honestly in here, but
we're gonna it it ourselves! So, this is my Cacio e Pepe with a slight
touch of freshness given by lemon zest. I hope you like it!
