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NDTV
22-05-2025
- General
- NDTV
How To Make Cacio e Pepe : A Three-Ingredient Pasta With Infinite Charm
Say it out loud: Cacio e Pepe. There is a quiet elegance to the way the words roll off the tongue. It sounds effortless, almost playful, but behind this lyrical name lies a dish of timeless appeal. At its heart, Cacio e Pepe is simple - pasta, cheese, and freshly ground black pepper. No cream, no butter, no elaborate preparation! It comprises just three ingredients, yet when brought together, they create something delicious. This Roman classic does not rely on extravagance. Instead, it offers comfort and depth through balance and technique. In a world often drawn to complexity, Cacio e Pepe is a gentle reminder that sometimes, the best things in life and on your plate are the simplest. So, take a seat, pour a glass of wine, and let us explore the understated magic of this beloved Italian staple. Also Read: Cooking Tips: How To Make A Yummy Mixed Sauce Pasta At Home A Brief History Of The Classic Roman Cacio e Pepe: Cacio e Pepe hails from the heart of Rome and dates back centuries. According to legend, it originated with shepherds who roamed the countryside carrying dried pasta and aged cheese - ingredients that were both nourishing and non-perishable. When tossed with hot water from boiling pasta, these humble staples transformed into a warm, hearty meal. Black pepper, now a defining element of the dish, was a later addition. As noted in an article by Rooted Spices, by the early 15th century, Venetian spice merchants were importing 75 percent of Europe's culinary spices, more than half of which were peppercorns. Over time, black pepper found its way into the Roman kitchen and into the Cacio e Pepe we know today. What began as a humble shepherd's meal has since earned a place on Michelin-starred menus and in the hearts of food lovers around the world. Cacio e Pepe: The Pasta That Proves Less Is More: There's a reason Cacio e Pepe has become a cult favourite. It is simple, timeless, and always in style. Here's what goes into making this classic dish: Cacio: Roman dialect for cheese, specifically Pecorino Romano. It is sharp, salty, and aged to perfection. Pepe: Freshly cracked black pepper, not pre-ground, and definitely not from a shaker. Pasta: Traditionally spaghetti or tonnarelli, though bucatini or rigatoni can also work. Also Read: Kitchen Hack: 5 Easy Ways To Add Leftover Pasta Water To Your Cooking Photo Credit: Pexels How To Make Classic Cacio e Pepe | 3-Ingredient Pasta Recipe: The secret to Cacio e Pepe's creamy sauce is not cream, it is the pasta water. The starchy, salty liquid is the glue that binds cheese and pepper into a silky emulsion. Ingredients (Serves 2): 200gm spaghetti 100gm Pecorino Romano, finely grated 1.5 tsp freshly ground black pepper Salt, for the pasta water Instructions: Bring a large pot of water to a boil, along with a generous amount of salt. Cook the pasta until al dente. Reserve about 1 cup of the starchy pasta water before draining. In a large skillet over medium heat, toast the freshly ground black pepper for about a minute until fragrant. Add a spoonful of hot pasta water to the skillet with the pepper. Let it simmer for a few seconds, then reduce the heat to low. Off the heat, gradually whisk in the grated Pecorino Romano, stirring constantly to create a smooth, creamy sauce. Add more pasta water as needed. Add the drained pasta to the skillet and toss well to coat. The sauce should cling to each strand. Plate the pasta and finish with a final dusting of Pecorino and a crack of black pepper. Serve hot. Also Read: Want A New Kind Of White Sauce Pasta? Try This Creamy Cauliflower Pasta Pro-Tips For Making The Perfect Cacio e Pepe: Grate cheese finely: The finer it is, the smoother your sauce will be. Use freshly pounded pepper: This will add a richer aroma. Save your pasta water: It works as the binder. Add it slowly to create that creamy texture. Toss, don't stir: Use tongs to toss the pasta with the cheese and pepper, letting the emulsion form naturally. Don't rush: This is a dish about patience and attention. So take your time to prepare a delicious bowl of Cacio e Pepe. Cacio e Pepe is simple, elegant and speaks volumes without saying much at all. So, the next time you find yourself craving comfort food, remember that all you need is pasta, cheese, pepper and a little bit of love. Advertisement About Somdatta Saha Explorer- this is what Somdatta likes to call herself. Be it in terms of food, people or places, all she craves for is to know the unknown. A simple aglio olio pasta or daal-chawal and a good movie can make her day. For the latest food news, health tips and recipes, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter and YouTube. Tags: Cacio E Pepe Italian Pasta Classic Roman Pasta Show full article Comments
Daily Maverick
08-05-2025
- General
- Daily Maverick
Turn leftover roast chicken into a chicken-and-bacon pasta bake
That four-hour roast chicken I told you about yesterday was such a big bird that there were at least two cups of meat left over to use in something the next day. Here's what I came up with. There are lots of things we can do with leftover chicken, such as the one I roasted yesterday, and I'm on a mission to share as many recipes with you for what to do with those leftovers as I can. So much so, in fact, that my habit is to purposefully choose a larger chicken than I need, just so that I can have fun the next day coming up with another solution for all that leftover meat that I accidentally-on-purpose bought too much of. At the very least, there's your simple chicken mayonnaise to fill sandwiches with, or serving chicken mayo as part of a larger salad. It can become the base of this autumnal chicken salad, be given a new lease of life in coronation chicken or be turned into a pie filling, Cooked chicken that has been refrigerated safely (for a maximum of four days) can be reheated, as long as its internal temperature is not below 74°C once the new dish has been cooked. The dish I came up with this week was something that looked much like macaroni cheese, but wasn't. The only cheese involved was a generous sprinkling of grated Pecorino Romano on top before baking. This is a chicken and bacon pasta bake. As well as about two cups' worth of cooked chicken (when cut into small pieces), there was fried bacon, fried onion, a béchamel sauce made with a bay leaf and rosemary sprigs, and simple seasoning. You could switch it up in a number of ways: add some crumbled blue cheese perhaps; throw in a little chilli in some form, add a cupful of fried courgette slices, or just use your imagination. But I liked the simplicity of it as described below. The substance of the bake, other than the pasta and core ingredients, was an enhanced béchamel sauce (that is, with bay and rosemary added). The pasta I used was elbow macaroni, because the shape pleases me. Tony's leftover chicken and bacon pasta bake (Serves 4) Ingredients 2 cups (or more) of leftover chicken, cubed or shredded 2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil 200 g diced bacon 1 medium onion, sliced 2 cups cooked elbow macaroni 200 g mascarpone cheese ½ cup grated Pecorino Romano Salt and black pepper to taste Butter for greasing the baking dish For the béchamel: 500 ml full-cream milk 1 bay leaf 3 rosemary sprigs 3 grindings of nutmeg Salt and black pepper to taste 4 Tbsp butter 2 Tbsp flour Method Presuming that the cooked chicken you have has been refrigerated safely, remove it from the fridge and keep it covered while you set about the following: Note that you're working with two pans/pots at the same time to start with. Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan (I used the base of a Le Creuset buffet). Also pour the milk into a saucepan, add the bay leaf and rosemary sprigs, and put it on a medium heat for it to come almost to the boil while you cook the bacon and onions. Be very watchful of the milk, and turn it off just as it starts to bubble at the edges of the pot. Meanwhile, add the bacon to the other pan. Fry it, tossing it around with a wooden spoon until it's nice and crisp all over. Add a little more olive oil and the sliced onion. Cook, stirring, until the onion has softened and taken on some colour here and there. Set aside. Turn the oven on to 200°C. Put a large pot of water on a high heat, bring it to a boil and add the elbow macaroni. Stir it immediately to prevent the pasta sticking together. (Always do this when cooking pasta – if your pasta always clumps together, that is why.) Keep an eye on the pot so that the pasta does not overcook. To the béchamel, add a few grindings of nutmeg, and salt and black pepper. Don't get carried away, it doesn't need much seasoning. Remove the bay leaf and leave the béchamel to one side for the rosemary to infuse. In a second saucepan (large enough to hold all the béchamel sauce) melt the butter, turn off the heat, add the flour and stir it briskly to form a roux. After 10 minutes (for the rosemary to infuse) pour a little of the hot milk into the pan containing the roux at a time, stirring continuously while each addition of milk is incorporated. Continue until all the heated milk has been added and the béchamel has thickened. Stir in the mascarpone, heat through and turn off the heat again once the mascarpone has been incorporated. Once the pasta is cooked, drain it through a colander and return it to the pasta pot (you're going to mix the other ingredients into it shortly). But first deal with the cooked chicken. Take all the flesh off the bones and discard all the bones, skin and sundry cartilage. Dice or shred the chicken meat and add it to the cooked macaroni in the pasta pot. Add the onions and bacon, the béchamel, and fold to combine – you need a light hand so that the pasta does not break up. Grease a 2-litre (or so) oven-proof baking dish with butter. Spoon everything into it and spread it neatly to fill the dish. Grate the Pecorino Romano over, evenly. Bake in the preheated 200°C oven for about 45 minutes, or until the topping has turned golden in places. If you like, serve it with a side salad, but I think it's perfectly fine as a simple weeknight meal in its own right. And if there are only two of you, it can always become breakfast too. DM
RTÉ News
30-04-2025
- Science
- RTÉ News
Science-backed method for the perfect cacio e pepe recipe
Cacio e pepe, a beloved pasta dish from Italy's Lazio region, is made with just three ingredients: pasta, ground black pepper, and, most importantly, authentic Pecorino Romano cheese. However, the simplicity of its ingredients can be misleading. Many assume it's easy to make, only to end up with a clumpy mess instead of the silky, creamy sauce they hoped for. Intrigued by the challenge, researchers from the University of Barcelona, the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, the University of Padova, and the Institute of Science and Technology Austria took it upon themselves to investigate the physics behind mixing cheese with water. Now, they believe they've cracked the code to perfecting this classic dish. Explaining the motives behind this study, which was published in Physics of Fluids, author Ivan Di Terlizzi said: "We are Italians living abroad. We often have dinner together and enjoy traditional cooking. "Among the dishes we have cooked was cacio e pepe, and we thought this might be an interesting physical system to study and describe. And of course, there was the practical aim to avoid wasting good Pecorino." After conducting tests that honed in on the quantities of these ingredients, the researchers determined that a 2 per cent to 3 per cent starch-to-cheese ratio created the smoothest and most consistent sauce. To achieve this level of precision, the team recommend using powdered starch – such as potato or corn starch – instead of depending on the unpredictable starch content of pasta water. "Because starch is such an important ingredient, and the amount of starch can sharply determine where you end up, what we suggest is to use an amount of starch which is precisely measured," advised Di Terlizzi. "And this can only be done if you have the right amount of powdered starch in proportion to the amount of cheese that you're using." Once the starch is added to the water, the authors' instructions say to blend it with the cheese for a uniform consistency, before adding the sauce back into the pan and slowly heating it up to serving temperature. If you've ever attempted to make cacio e pepe, you might have noticed that excessive heat can cause pieces of grated cheese to clump together, resulting in that dreaded, lumpy texture. To avoid this, the researchers experimented with different temperatures and recommend letting the water cool slightly before adding the cheese, and then to gradually warm up the sauce to reach the desired consistency. Then mix in the pepper and pasta, and eat. And after perfecting the cacio e pepe recipe, the team are keen to conduct further experiments on other popular Italian dishes. "There's a recipe called pasta alla gricia, which is cacio e pepe plus guanciale, cured pork cheek," said author Daniel Maria Busiello. "This recipe seems to be easier to perform, and we don't know exactly why. This is one idea we might explore in the future."
BreakingNews.ie
30-04-2025
- Science
- BreakingNews.ie
Scientists reveal top tips to perfect your cacio e pepe recipe
Cacio e pepe, a beloved pasta dish from Italy's Lazio region, is made with just three ingredients: pasta, ground black pepper, and, most importantly, authentic Pecorino Romano cheese. However, the simplicity of its ingredients can be misleading. Many assume it's easy to make, only to end up with a clumpy mess instead of the silky, creamy sauce that they hoped for. Advertisement Intrigued by the challenge, researchers from the University of Barcelona, the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, the University of Padova, and the Institute of Science and Technology Austria took it upon themselves to investigate the physics behind mixing cheese with water. Now, they believe they've cracked the code to perfecting this classic dish. All you need is pasta, Pecorino Romano cheese, pepper and some starch (Alamy/PA) Explaining the motives behind this study, which was published in Physics of Fluids, author Ivan Di Terlizzi said: 'We are Italians living abroad. We often have dinner together and enjoy traditional cooking. 'Among the dishes we have cooked was cacio e pepe, and we thought this might be an interesting physical system to study and describe. And of course, there was the practical aim to avoid wasting good Pecorino.' After conducting tests that honed in on the quantities of these ingredients, the researchers determined that a 2% to 3% starch-to-cheese ratio created the smoothest and most consistent sauce. Advertisement Use powdered starch, suggest the researchers (Alamy/PA) To achieve this level of precision, the team recommend using powdered starch – such as potato or corn starch – instead of depending on the unpredictable starch content of pasta water. 'Because starch is such an important ingredient, and the amount of starch can sharply determine where you end up, what we suggest is to use an amount of starch which is precisely measured,' advised Di Terlizzi. 'And this can only be done if you have the right amount of powdered starch in proportion to the amount of cheese that you're using.' Once the starch is added to the water, the authors' instructions say to blend it with the cheese for a uniform consistency, before adding the sauce back into the pan and slowly heating it up to serving temperature. If you've ever attempted to make cacio e pepe, you might have noticed that excessive heat can cause pieces of grated cheese to clump together, resulting in that dreaded, lumpy texture. Advertisement To avoid this, the researchers experimented with different temperatures and recommend letting the water cool slightly before adding the cheese, and then to gradually warm up the sauce to reach the desired consistency. Then mix in the pepper and pasta, and eat. And after perfecting the cacio e pepe recipe, the team are keen to conduct further experiments on other popular Italian dishes. 'There's a recipe called pasta alla gricia, which is cacio e pepe plus guanciale, cured pork cheek,' said author Daniel Maria Busiello. 'This recipe seems to be easier to perform, and we don't know exactly why. This is one idea we might explore in the future.' Advertisement
Daily Mail
29-04-2025
- Science
- Daily Mail
Italian scientists reveal the 'perfect' recipe for Cacio e pepe pasta - and how to avoid the dreaded clumps
It's the beloved Italian dish that tastes delicious but is frustratingly difficult to cook. At first glance Cacio e pepe looks like a simple recipe containing only three ingredients – pasta, Pecorino Romano cheese and black pepper. Professional pasta chefs and Italian grandmothers have the ability to turn out a smooth, creamy sauce time and time again. But as anyone who has tried to make it will know, the cheese will often clump when added to hot pasta water, turning it into a stringy, sticky mess. Now, Italian scientists reveal how to make the perfect Cacio e pepe – without any of the dreaded clumps. 'We are Italians living abroad,' said Dr Ivan Di Terlizzi, from the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems in Germany, said. 'We often have dinner together and enjoy traditional cooking. 'Among the dishes we have cooked was Cacio e pepe, and we thought this might be an interesting physical system to study and describe. And of course, there was the practical aim to avoid wasting good pecorino.' So, will you give their recipe a try? Most people attempting to create the dish will collect their drained pasta water before stirring in the cheese. While fatty substances like cheese cannot mix with water, the starch from the pasta helps bridge that gap. In tests, the researchers discovered that a 2-3 per cent starch-to-cheese ratio produced the smoothest, most uniform sauce. And the best way to ensure this proportion is to make your own starchy water, rather than relying on drained water from pasta, they said. They recommend using powdered starch like potato or corn starch, and weighing out a quantity that is 2-3 per cent of the amount of cheese being used. 'Because starch is such an important ingredient, and the amount of starch can sharply determine where you end up, what we suggest is to use an amount of starch which is precisely measured,' Dr Di Terlizzi said. 'And this can only be done if you have the right amount of powdered starch in proportion to the amount of cheese that you're using.' Once the starch is added to the water, the authors' instructions say to blend it with the cheese for a uniform consistency, before adding the sauce back into the pan and slowly heating it up to serving temperature. How to make the perfect Cacio e pepe For two hungry people: Ingredients - 300g pasta (tonnarelli is preferred, though spaghetti or rigatoni also works well) - 200g cheese (traditionalists would insist on using Pecorino Romano DOP) - 5g powdered starch (potato starch or corn starch) - 150g water - Black pepper (toasted whole black peppercorns, which are then grounded, are best) Step 1: Dissolve the powdered starch in 50g water, heating the mixture gently until it thickens and turns from cloudy to nearly clear. Step 2: Add 100g cold water to this mixture to cool it down. Step 3: Using a blender, add the cheese to the starchy sauce. Step 4: Add a generous amount of black pepper to the mixture. Step 5: Meanwhile, cook the pasta in slightly salted water until it is al dente and leave to cool for a minute. Save some of the pasta cooking water before draining. Step 6: Add the sauce back into the pan, stir in the pasta and heat it up very slowly to serving temperature. Step 7: You can adjust the consistency by gradually adding the saved pasta water as needed. Step 8: Garnish with grated cheese and pepper before serving. This brings the researchers to another key element of the perfect Cacio e pepe sauce – heat, or rather, a lack of it. They warned too much heat denatures the proteins inside the cheese, causing it to stick together and leading to the dreaded clumps. Instead, the authors advise letting the starchy water cool before mixing in the cheese and bringing the sauce up to temperature as slowly as possible. Then, the final steps are to mix in the pepper and pasta, and eat. Writing in the journal Physics of Fluids the team said: 'A true Italian grandmother or a skilled home chef from Rome would never need a scientific recipe for Cacio e pepe, relying instead on instinct and years of experience. 'For everyone else, this guide offers a practical way to master the dish. 'Preparing Cacio e pepe successfully depends on getting the balance just right, particularly the ratio of starch to cheese. 'The concentration of starch plays a crucial role in keeping the sauce creamy and smooth, without clumps or separation.' They said their method is 'particularly useful for cooking large batches of pasta, where heat control can be challenging and requires extra care'. The team also included researchers from the University of Barcelona, the University of Padova and the Institute of Science and Technology in Austria. For future work they plan to look at other recipes including pasta alla gricia, which is Cacio e pepe plus cured pork cheek. 'This recipe seems to be easier to perform, and we don't know exactly why,' co-author Daniel Maria Busiello said. 'This is one idea we might explore in the future.' HOW CAN YOU MAKE SPAGHETTI SNAP IN TWO? Spaghetti's unusual shattering process has stumped science's best brains for years, including Nobel Prize winning physicist Richard Feynman. However, researchers from MIT have finally shown how and why it can be done. Two MIT students, Ronald Heisser and Vishal Patil, built a mechanical fracture device to uncontrollably twist and bend sticks of spaghetti. Two clamps on either end of the device held a stick of spaghetti in place. A clamp at one end could be rotated to twist the dry noodle by various degrees, while the other clamp slid toward the twisting clamp to bring the two ends of the spaghetti together, bending the stick. They used the device to bend and twist hundreds of spaghetti sticks and recorded the entire fragmentation process with a camera, at up to a million frames per second. They found that by first twisting the spaghetti at almost 360 degrees, then slowly bringing the two clamps together to bend it, the stick snapped exactly in two. They found that if a 10-inch-long spaghetti stick is first twisted by about 270 degrees and then bent it will snap in two. The snap-back, in which the stick will spring back in the opposite direction from which it was bent, is weakened in the presence of twist. And, the twist-back, where the stick will essentially unwind to its original straightened configuration, releases energy from the rod, preventing additional fractures.
