Main · 20 minutes · Serves 2
Cacio e pepe with Bright Pepper
Cacio e pepe is cheese, pepper and the water the pasta cooked in, and not much else. In Rome the cheese is pecorino. This version uses Parmesan, which is milder and nuttier, and adds a spoonful of olive oil and Bright Pepper alongside the black pepper.
The pasta is square-cut spaghetti, sold fresh as spaghetti alla chitarra or, in Puglia, as troccoli. The edges and the rough surface hold the sauce better than smooth dried spaghetti. Bright Pepper brings lemon peel, orange peel and white pepper, so the cheese tastes brighter, and a few turns of black pepper at the end give the bite the dish is named for.
The one thing to get right is heat. Cheese stirred into a pan over the flame tightens into clumps; stirred in off the heat with a little starchy water, it turns into a smooth sauce. Cook fresh pasta in less water than usual, so what is left is cloudy with starch.
On the plate beside it in the photograph: roast peppers with rocket and mozzarella.
- Serves
- 2
- Time
- 20 minutes
Ingredients
- 250 g fresh square-cut spaghetti (alla chitarra or troccoli)
- 60 g Parmesan, finely grated
- 1½ tsp Bright Pepper
- 2 tbsp olive oil, plus a little to finish
- Freshly ground black pepper
- Flake salt, only if it needs it
Method
- Bring a wide pan of water to the boil, using less water than you would for dried pasta, and salt it only lightly. The Parmesan and the blend both bring salt.
- Stir the Bright Pepper into the grated Parmesan in a bowl.
- Warm the oil in a large frying pan over a low heat with a few turns of black pepper, for about 30 seconds, then take the pan off the heat.
- Cook the pasta until just tender, 2 to 3 minutes for fresh. Before you drain it, scoop out a mug of the cooking water.
- Lift the pasta into the frying pan with tongs, add a splash of the cooking water and toss it in the oil.
- Stir 3 or 4 tablespoons of the hot cooking water into the cheese to make a loose paste.
- Off the heat, tip the cheese paste over the pasta and toss quickly, adding more water a spoonful at a time, until the sauce is smooth and glossy and clings to the pasta.
- Taste before you salt. Finish with a thread of olive oil and a few more turns of black pepper, and eat straight away.