- Hey, I'm John Kanell.
And today on Preppy Kitchen,
we're making an easy, amazing cacio e pepe,
so let's get started.
First off, we need four quarts of water in a large pot,
and then we're gonna be ready to boil.
Cacio e pepe literally means cheese and pepper,
and this is like an amazing mac and cheese,
but even better and easier.
There we go.
Popping that on high heat.
And of course, I'm gonna salt my water.
Five teaspoons.
The salt will infuse in the pasta
and give you so much flavor.
And the salt also changes
the boiling temperature of the water.
These are not giant pizza cutters,
as some people have asked.
They are actually lids to my pots.
You can use many kinds of pasta for this.
I love having bucatini because it's really like thick
and holds the sauce well,
but spaghetti works.
And in a pinch, yes, you could use macaroni, too.
While this comes to a boil,
I'm gonna grate about a cup of this Pecorino Romano.
That's 125 grams.
But I'm gonna grate the whole wedge,
because everyone loves a nice pile of cheese
on top at the end.
This is a nutty hard cheese that gives you a ton of flavor.
Avoid using pre-grated cheese for this.
When you have packaged grated cheese,
there's often cellulose on the ingredients.
It's just wood pulps.
They take sawdust, basically, and mix it with cheese
so it doesn't stick together.
Not the most delicious.
It's also gonna inhibit the melting you want to happen here.
So just get that grater out and go, go, go.
That's a nice amount of cheese,
little bit more than we need,
but we might use it all anyways.
Don't tell anybody.
I go through a lot of pepper in my recipes.
I have to fill my grinder back up,
because we need a tablespoon
of freshly cracked black pepper.
There we go.
If you want to be a little sneaky,
you can even add your pepper into the pot, as well,
and have like a peppery soup
that's gonna infuse flavor into the pasta.
In fact,
this is also our secret.
Just.
We'll just strain it out and we won't use it later.
My water has come to a boil.
It's a beautiful color from those optional peppercorns.
We're gonna cook this until it is al dente.
We want to have it almost ready,
because there's some additional cooking
happening after the boil.
Our bucatini wants nine to 11 minutes of cook time,
so we'll give it about eight and see where it's at.
And get a container ready,
because we're gonna reserve about two cups
of this precious, amazing pasta water.
It is not to be discarded.
So have that in your mind before you drain the pasta.
After some cook time,
you definitely wanna give your pasta a test.
That's perfect.
Actually, it's good.
It's on the firmest side of al dente anyone could ever want,
so we're gonna take this off heat.
As promised, I'm gonna reserve two cups of pasta water.
I love the color from these peppercorns.
Pepper into the pot is actually not in the blog post,
but it's something I do at home,
so I wanted to share.
Maybe I'll add it to the post.
You let me know if you think it's a must-have or a meh.
I have a colander in the sink ready.
And we're gonna drain the pasta out.
Cacio e pepe is a traditional Roman dish.
It doesn't traditionally have butter in it,
but if you know me,
you know butter makes everything better.
So I'm adding in, oh, that was a lot of butter.
I didn't mean to add the whole stick.
There we go.
That's for later.
I'm adding in six tablespoons of unsalted butter.
We're gonna melt this up over like medium low heat.
And I actually wanna brown the butter.
It's gonna give me a wonderful nutty depth of flavor
that just adds a kiss of amazingness to this dish.
If you don't wanna use the butter
and you wanna be more traditional, go ahead.
It's still gonna be delicious.
Don't burn your butter, though.
That's bitter.
There's no coming back from bitter butter.
I don't care what Betty says.
That nursery rhyme really bothers me,
just putting it out there.
Betty Botter bought some batter,
but she said this batter's bitter.
If I put some better butter in my batter,
it'll make my batter better.
It's something like that.
But there's no coming back from bitter butter,
so I'm just putting it out there,
she'd have to start over.
Okay, this butter smells amazing.
And I had peppercorns in the pasta,
so I'm gonna add a little bit less than a tablespoon.
The recipe calls for one tablespoon
of freshly cracked black pepper.
Ooh, I'm getting some lovely color.
Come take a look at this.
The butter solids will sink to the bottom.
So you see it's like a nice, wonderful amber caramel color.
That's lovely.
Now, I'm gonna add one tablespoon of black pepper in.
And the pepper will bloom with the butter.
Stir, stir, stir.
Now, we're gonna add 1 1/2 cups of that pasta water.
And our pasta wasn't done cooking.
Now, it's gonna cook in this wonderful amalgam
of butter, pepper, and pasta water.
I'm just gonna use tongs
so I can make sure not to get any peppercorns in here.
I don't wanna crunch on those.
All right, so now, we're gonna cook this up.
We're gonna add in about 1/2 a cup or so
of our shredded Pecorino Romano.
Sprinkle it in.
And we're gonna toss,
all of this cheeses is gonna melt
with that pasta water and the butter,
and you're gonna have an amazing, really easy sauce.
Just move that pasta around until all the Pecorino
is melted in with the butter and the pasta water.
You can see you have like a creamy, buttery sauce over here.
Now, we're gonna remove it from heat
and add in the remaining 1/2 cup or so of cheese.
Okay, ha.
Serve immediately.
Oh my gosh.
That is so easy, amazing.
And I have to tell you,
Lachlan and George love this recipe
more than mac and cheese.
It's that delicious,
even with the pepper.
Serve this with additional cheese on top,
as well as a sprinkle of black pepper.
If your pasta becomes dry for any reason,
just mix in some more of the reserved pasta water.
It'll come right back.
Now.
A classic for a reason.
That is so lovely.
The pepper is like a nice note throughout
with the nutty flavors
from the cheese and the browned butter
and just gorgeous, thick noodles of pasta.
I hope you get a chance to make this recipe.
And if you like this video, check out my pasta playlist.