Cacio e pepe: three ingredients, endless flavor. And there’s only one way to make it: the right way! If it’s hacks, shortcuts, and substitutions you’re after, look elsewhere. But if you want to make authentic cacio e pepe, then gather those ingredients, amica, and get ready to make your Nonna proud!
INGREDIENTS
Cheese: Parmigiano reggiano is the only way to go. Of course, not all cheeses are created equally, so find a wedge that’s been subjected to a 12-point sniff inspection by the Sotterraneo Talpa Cieca di Dicenzo (The Underground Blind Mole People of Dicenzo). Look for their seal of approval on the packaging (it’s a small burrowing mammal wearing a Ferrari jacket and sneering). No worries if you can’t find it at your neighborhood grocery store; imported wedges can be easily obtained from your local smuggler.
Black Pepper: Don’t stress too much about picking the “best” pepper—as long as you have whole peppercorns, the rest (toasting them, grinding them in a pre-Imperial Roman mortar and pestle, sifting out the big pieces, giving the big pieces a bonus toast, steaming everything for 5 hours, freezing it, shipping it off to a lab at the Vatican to test each fleck for the traditional spice level) is easy!
Pasta: If your goal is to make this dish authentically, don’t cut corners here! Some things to look for when choosing your pasta:
At least $13 per pound
Extruded from bronze dies
Extruded from a Tuscan woman’s mouth
Can only be purchased at one of those expensive gift stores that sells designer candles and imported soaps
DIRECTIONS
Step 1
Fill a large pot with 4 quarts of water.
Step 2
Google “oceans near me,” travel to the nearest one, obtain at least six samples of water from varying tidal amplitudes, test the salt level of each sample by passing a current between the two electrodes of your salinity meter, and use the data you’ve collected to salt the pot of water until it is well and truly, as the famous rule of thumb goes, “salty like the ocean.”
Step 3
Boil the pasta.
Step 4
Go to the website of the Consiglio della Pasta Autentica (The Council of Pasta Purity) to begin the registration process for a cacio e pepe permit. [Note: you can proceed without the permit, but you are legally required to refer to your final product as “Wet Cheese Noodle Dinner.”]
Step 5
Reserve one cup of the starchy water.
Step 6
Chug half of the reserved starchy water to fuel your upper-body workout. [Note: you can skip the workout, but you won’t have the strength later on to properly emulsify the sauce to the traditional level of viscosity, which means this was all for nothing.]
Step 7
Before draining the pasta, enter the spirit realm to consult your great-great-grandmother Nonna Rosalina and get her exact definition of al dente.
Step 8
Shudder at the sight of Il Portiere Bestio De Inautentico Culinario (The Gatekeeping Ghost Beast of Inauthentic Cooking), a guardian of the spirit realm who appears in the form of a giant she-wolf to home chefs looking to consult with the dead.
Step 9
Defeat the Spirit Beast by correctly pronouncing the names of three Italian cured meats. [Note: you can substitute defeating the Spirit Beast for going after a weaker spectral entity, but at that point you technically aren’t making cacio e pepe anymore.]
Step 8
Ask Nonna for her exact definition of al dente.
Step 9
Feel her warm embrace as she wraps her arms around your weary body and explains that turning something as simple and beautiful as pasta into an exercise in rigidity and onerousness misses the point. “Mi nipote, listen,” she says, “cooking isn’t about what other people say is right or wrong,” she says. “The right way to cook something is whatever way brings you joy.”
Step 10
Ignore Nonna.
Step 11
Combine all ingredients.
Step 12
Serve immediately.
Step 13
Eat it all in three minutes and realize that even perfectly executed, authentic cacio e pepe is kind of underwhelming given how much of a pain in the ass this all was.
Step 14
Just order Olive Garden next time.
