14-05-2025
How to cook the perfect cacio e pepe pasta (according to scientists)
Pasta has long been a subject of scientific interest. — Pexels
From adding salt to egg whites to help them rise, or ice water to fix the green colour of spinach, time-old tricks are legion in the kitchen.
And, much to the dismay of Italians, pasta preparation is also the subject of many such beliefs, starting with that famous drizzle of olive oil that some say should be added to the pot of boiling water, supposedly to ensure that spaghetti doesn't stick.
This advice has been the subject of much comment in the scientific community, including by chemist Raphael Haumont, famous associate of top chef Thierry Marx, who constantly points out that olive oil simply rises to the surface and doesn't mix with water at all.
In short, it's a waste!
All is not lost, however, as the perfect pasta is a very serious subject, and researchers from several universities have joined forces to conduct experiments to find the ultimate ingredient that will guarantee the perfect creamy texture of cacio e pepe, the famous pasta dish made with pecorino romano cheese and black pepper.
Anyone who has ever tried to make this dish at home may have encountered problems, despite the simplicity of the ingredients.
It's hard to achieve the creaminess normally produced by the pecorino without getting clumps of cheese or a sticky mess. It's true that Italians generally recommend adding a ladle of pasta cooking water to finish a pasta-in-sauce dish like cacio e pepe. And that water contains starch. But for researchers, you need to add starch rather than rely on the unknown quantity in the cooking water.
Yes, there's starch in spaghetti – but not enough. For the sauce to be as creamy as it should be, the ratio of starch to cheese needs to be around 2-3%. And this works just as well with corn or potato starch, according to study results published in the journal Physics Of Fluids. In practice, you need 4g of starch for 240g of pasta and 160g of grated pecorino.
Scientists from the University of Barcelona (Spain), the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems (Germany), the University of Padova (Italy) and the Institute of Science and Technology, Austria also add that it's important to ensure the correct temperature of the dish when assembling the pasta with the sauce. It's important not to overheat the dish, as this could result in the cheese forming clumps.
While the purpose of this study may raise a smile because of its light-hearted nature, the authors remind us that pasta – both its composition and the way it is cooked – has long been a subject of scientific interest.
'On several occasions, pasta has been a source of inspiration for physicists. The observation that spaghetti always break up into three or more fragments, but never in two halves, puzzled even Richard Feynman himself, and the explanation of this intriguing phenomenon earned Audoly and Neukirch the Ig Nobel Prize,' the researchers write. – AFP Relaxnews
