February 12 – February 18, 2024

Monday:                   Winter Minestrone with Cabbage Pesto

Tuesday:                   Weeknight Marinara with Bucatini / Ice Berg with Blue Cheese

Thursday:                 Cacio e Pepe with Green Salad

Friday:                       Glazed Salmon with Broccolini

Saturday:                  Roasted Fennel and Sausage Pizza

Sunday:                     Vinegar Chicken with Raisins and Greens / Baked Cheese with Bread and Crudités

Pepe for Pope

I apologize for the sacrilege-adjacent title, but I’ve had so many pasta-related blog posts that I’ve run out of clever on the subject.  So, I’ve settled for just being silly.  But Pepe for Pope also appeals as a possible motto for the family Welsh who consume, as a group, more pepper than all of the Baltic countries combined, and whose patriarch Tom was lovingly referred to as Pope.

“Pepe” is, of course, Italian for pepper and “cacio” means cheese in Italian.  And in Cacio e Pepe you have one of the classic dishes in Italian cuisine.  It’s a simple dish – grated hard cheese, pasta, water and pepper – but it relies on technique to marry these minimal ingredients into something rich and transcendent.

I began to try to cook a good Cacio e Pepe a long time ago.  It is a dish that I have loved since I first tasted it, a love reinforced by a dinner at the Hay-Adams some years back.  In short, a dish that will never grow old for me.  But, I have cooked so many gummy, bland, just-not-right Cacio e Pepe’s that I have been constantly on the look out for a recipe that would help me achieve success – kind of like my attitude toward women until I ran into, was gob-smacked by, and succumbed to the charms of SWMBO.

Well – I’ve found that recipe.  The folks at Milk Street have created an easy path to a Cacio e Pepe that beats the Hay-Adams.  [In fairness, that grand DC hotel was cooking for an awards banquet honoring, among others, SWMBO.  So they were cooking for a crowd with an open bar, speeches, awards, etc.  Impossible to nail a Cacio e Pepe, or poached eggs, or a rare steak under such circumstances.]

You really must try this recipe.  Please do not do this while popping into the next room to monitor the evening news or Jeopardy!  You will fail, if you don’t pay attention.  But, if you do pay attention, this is pretty easy and your equivalent of SWMBO or just that part of yourself that sits in judgment on you will be very pleased.

Cacio e Pepe

(adapted from Milk Street Magazine, March-April, 2024)

Note:  Do not try to cook a full pound of pasta for this dish.  Usually, I ignore the skimpy 8 ounce or 12 ounce directions in pasta recipes, simply upping the sauce.  But you need to be able to toss the spaghetti in this dish while it’s in the pan.  And even a very large, deep skillet won’t allow that.  A Dutch oven, on the other hand, won’t allow the water to cook down fast enough.         So follow the directions – 12 ounces of spaghetti.  Also, toast and grind whole peppercorns.  The toasting kicks up the sharpness and bitterness of the pepper and you need that to cut the richness of this dish.  Finally – get the bronze-cut spaghetti.  It’s a bit more expensive but produces the kind of rough surface that less expensive pastas (extruded through plastic dies) don’t have.  And that rough surface is necessary to develop the starchy water that, along with the cheese and water, makes the dish sing.

Timing:                                            About 30 minutes

Ingredients:                                             Serves 4

1 tablespoon black peppercorns

1 cup (2 ½ ounces) of finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano

1 cup (2 ½ ounces) of finely grated Pecorino Romano

12 ounces of bronze-cut spaghetti.

Prep:

Have serving plates or bowls and forks, napkins, etc. laid out.  Cacio e Pepe does not hold well and should be served immediately from the pan.

Cook:

In a 12-inch skillet toast the peppercorns over medium, shaking from time to time, for about 2 ½ minutes.  Transfer to a spice grinder and let cool just a bit.  Meanwhile, toss the two cheeses together in a bowl.  Now pulse the pepper in the grinder about 10 times.  Pour into a small bowl and set aside.

To the same skillet the pepper was cooked in, add the spaghetti, placing the strands parallel to each other in the center of the pan.  Add 2 tablespoons of the cheese mixture, ½ teaspoon each of salt and the pepper you have ground and then 4 ½ cups of water.  Bring this to a boil over medium-high and cook, uncovered, frequently moving the pasta about with tongs – but keeping it submerged as much as possible, until just shy of al dente (follow the instructions on the pasta package).  When the pasta is done It will no longer be fully submerged and there should an amount of starchy liquid (1 cup or more) in the pan.  [You may need to add another ½ cup or so of water during this process – we did not.]

With the pan still on medium-high, add half of the remaining cheese and toss until completely melted.  Add half of the remainder and toss until melted, then add the rest and toss until melted.  Continue tossing the spaghetti until al dente and lightly sauced (there will be a small amount of creamy sauce pooled in the skillet (about ¼ cup or 4 tablespoons).  At this point the cooking should take one or two minutes at most.

Off the heat, toss in 1 teaspoon of the remaining pepper and let stand for 1 ½ minutes.  Toss again, taste and add salt if needed.  Serve with the remaining pepper on the side. (A simple salad with vinegar and oil is a nice accompaniment and helps to cut the richness of the pasta.)