Cacio e pepe with homemade spaghetti

Cacio e pepe is Italian for (almost) all of the ingredients involved: cheese and pepper. It’s a traditional Roman favorite. Seriously, if you get the chance to go to Rome, the Colosseum is cool, the Vatican City is cool, all of that is well and good but the cacio e pepe there beats it all. Until you get the chance to try it in Italy, this homemade version is a close second.

It’s quick, simple, and creamy without the guilt that cream normally causes me. Recipe below!

What you’ll need

For the pasta:

• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup of semolina flour
• 1/2 cup of 00 flour
• (if you don’t have either of these flours, you can use a little less than a full cup of all purpose flour)

For the cacio e pepe

• A cup of home grated pecorino romano
• A half cup of a sweet white wine – whatever is in your fridge is probably fine
• Pepper
• Lemon, optional

How to make it

1. Start with the homemade pasta. You can use store bought if you’re crunched for time, but the beauty of cacio e pepe is that much of the sauce’s flavor comes from the pasta water. Combine two types of flour into a mixing bowl and make a well in the middle. Crack the egg into the well and use a fork to stir the egg.
2. Slowly begin to incorporate the flour into the egg until a dough starts to form. Once a ball of dough is formed, coat it with some additional flour, and allow it to sit for 30 min. Activate that gluten.
3. Following the 30 minutes, begin to roll out the dough, ensuring that you use ample flour throughout the process. For spaghetti, it’s particularly important to keep it well floured. Roll a rolling pin (or, in my case, empty wine bottle) over the dough to flatten it and continue to work it in a circle. You can also use a pasta machine, starting with the widest setting, usually 0, and working your dough through until it’s a 5 or 6.
4. Cut your pasta. To get something as thin as spaghetti, it’s easier to use a pasta machine but if you’re good enough to do it by hand, more power to you.
5. Bring salted water to a boil and add your fresh pasta to the water. Keep a careful eye, we’re going to want that water later.
6. In a frying pan, add your wine and let it begin to evaporate out the alcohol. If you don’t want to use wine, you can always use 1/2 a tbsp. of butter.
7. Juuuust before your noodles are cooked to your liking, use tongs to remove them from the pasta water – do. not. drain. – and add them to the frying pan. Lower your heat to low.
8. Swap between slowly incorporate cheese, spreading evenly to avoid clumping, and adding pasta water consistently. Toss your pasta in the cheese and pasta water until the sauce because creamy but not clumpy.
9. Once the sauce’s thickness is to your liking, add your desired amount of ground pepper (which for me is a lot) and top with lemon if desired.
10. Plate, serve, eat, be merry. Love cacio e pepe. Scour Rome for the best version.