I think the title of this post says it all about my feelings (and others) about the famous Romans dish of pasta, traditionally spaghetti, with pecorino cheese and a good amount of freshly ground pepper.  The name says is all – cacio, meaning cheese, and pepe meaning pepper.  We’re not breaking any new ground here because I’m sure there’s about 50 other food blogs that have made this dish.  I’m just here hoping that if anyone does make it, they try to make it the freshest and best way they can. 

I’m going to get my food snob on here – please do not make this dish soley with parmigiano reggiano and that crappy, old shaker filled with pepper that you may only bust out when laying out your fine china on one or two holidays a year.  The pepper most likely has zero flavor anymore – if you do, please name the dish whatever you want.  I personally think “Pasta with Parmigiano Reggiano and Crappy Old, Non-Spicy Pepper from the Depths of My Cupboard” works great!  If you go to the store and spend $4 you can get some black peppercorns.  Just put them into a pepper grinder or, if you don’t have one, throw the peppercorns in a plastic baggie and grab a meat mallet or a hammer and get out your aggressions.  Keep hammering until you’ve produced some nice, ground pepper.  Make a lot if you’d prefer to not have to go through this exercise again and freeze the extras to prevent the pepper from going bad (ie: flavorless).

The reason I’m so passionate about this is because you can not recreate the amazing flavor of this old, traditional dish if you do not have good pepper.  When freshly ground, pepper is very spicy and full of flavor.  It is not supposed to just produce a nice contrast of color to a boring meal – although the beauty of it is it does that too!  Research taught me that in ancient Rome pepper was extremely popular and was used for medicinal reasons by the ancient Greeks.  It was revered as a very valuable spice.  As for the cheese, I’ll go a bit easier on you if you don’t use the Pecorino cheese, but I’ll give you a light tap on the bum so you’ll remember to try it with that cheese next time.  Pecorino would only be used in this dish in Rome because, well, that’s the regional cheese in that area.  If you look close at the label, it’s really called Pecorino Romano, right?  Parmigiano and pecorino are two very different tasting cheeses.  In fact, there are many varieties of pecorino in Italy ranging from soft to hard versions of the cheese.  For this discussion, we are generally talking solely about Pecorino Romano – the hard cheese that is able to be grated. If you do a comparison, I’d imagine you’d notice that pecorino is much sharper in taste where parmigiano is more nutty and mellow in flavor.  Both are pretty nice and salty, which is why you should not have to salt this dish.  Some people feel very strongly about choosing one of these cheeses over the other.  Because of this, we have chosen to use a mixture of the cheeses for this version of cacio e pepe.  This way you get a blend of the cheese.  But in Rome, you will most likely find the dish made only with pecorino. 

When made correctly, you will not believe how unbelievably creamy and spicy this dish is.  I felt like we were back in Rome (of course only if I closed my eyes VERY hard and did not open them to reveal a very closet-like, dirty Brooklyn apartment).  This dish is so quick and easy, I’m sure Rachel Ray couldn’t even make it because she’d only fill 1/8 of a show.  Give it a try – you won’t be disappointed.

Also, months ago we wrote a post on a great NYC restaurant with the same name as this dish.  If you’re ever in New York, I’d advise you to give this awesome restaurant a try… and order their signature dish made in a hollowed out wheel of pecorino!

I remembered a place I had saved to ‘My Menu Pages’ a few months ago (NOTE: Menupages is like the locals NYC directory of restaurant menu’s and reviews) called Cacio e Pepe.  The name of the restaurant struck me because it is one of our favorite Roman dishes – simple and tasty.  Cacio e Pepe, the dish, is simply pasta (traditionally it’s with spaghetti), still piping hot, mixed with a bit of the pasta water, a good heaping of freshly grated Pecorino Romano (this is key – Romans would rarely ever use Parmigiana Reggiano since Romano is, well, Roman), a LARGE helping of freshly ground black peppercorns and there ya have it.  When made correctly, it is delectable.  After reading a bit more about the restaurant, I discovered that not only was Cacio e Pepe their signature dish, but the presentation was supposedly very creative. They mixed the piping hot pasta in a whole carved out wheel of Pecorino.  Nice!  I decided that I want to try the restaurant, so we let our friends know to meet us across the street at Bar Veloce, a small, mellow, not-too-pretentious wine bar across the street (HIGHLY recommended!).

We arrived to Cacio e Pepe to a full house, busteling with people laughing, chatting, eating and drinking merrily away.  It was a scene reminiscent of most restaurants in Italy. It just had that same feeling, smell and atmosphere. Then I heard the staff all speaking Italian to each other.  They warmly greeted us with a “Buona Notte” and told us they would have a table ready in ten minutes.  Although I thought they were just pushing us off by telling us this, we soon found out they weren’t lying!  Our four-top was ready precisely ten minutes later.  Our waiter was affable, attentive and ITALIAN.  Hearing “prego” after almost every sentence brought me back to our three weeks traveling around Italy this past summer.  It made me happy and I smiled, then I started to groan as I was reminded that our trip was actually long over (that’s my way of dealing with it….I am kind of manic about our big trips being over. Reminicing initially makes me happy and then it soon makes me very depressed!).  My funk lifted as I heard the specials – beef tartar with arugula, veal with a black truffle sauce, fettuccine in a porcini cream sauce and bucatini with sardines, raisins and pinenuts.   We ordered the salami and cheese platter, the beef tartare special and the cuttlefish stew over polenta to start.  Each starter was not only amazingly authentic in taste, but the portions were pretty hefty (the prices aren’t cheap, but they do give you a good amount of food)!  The beef tartare was delicious and more simply prepared than the one I ate at A Voce.  It was over a bed of peppery arugula greens and dressed with some lemon juice and extra virgin olive oil - this all went splendidly with the tartare.  The cuttlefish stew was excellent – tender in a beautiful tomato sauce with pecorino and over a delicate, smooth polenta.  Highly recommended!  Finally, the cheese and salami platter was delish. Our guests ate most of it, so I only had a few bites. It was a big platter and could’ve been shared by all four of us!

Finally, our entrees were just as expected – authentic and phenomenal.  I had the special pasta with sardines, raisins and pinenuts, topped with breadcrumbs - a very Sicilian dish.  It reminded me a bit of the Bucatini with Pistachio Sauce we recreated from a meal we ate on Elba Island, Tuscany.  The pasta was perfectly al dente, the sauce just perfectly balanced - a delicious special.  My husband enjoyed his veal with truffle sauce, although he believed the sauce lacked a little something (perhaps not enough truffle flavor? Black truffles are not as strong as white, so this could possibly be the reason for the mildness).  Nonetheless, his large pieces of veal were extremely tender.  Our guests ordered the same thing – the pasta special of fettuccine in a porcini cream sauce.  Although I only ate a bite, it was heavenly.  The fettucini tasted homemade and the cream sauce wasn’t too heavy.  Also, they used real porcini’s… not the re-hydrated kind.  Excellent.

We topped off our meal with espresso’s and laid back, belly’s full, with a smile on our face.  The staff at Cacio e Pepe never rushed us, allowing us to sit, eat, drink and chat for over 2 1/2 hours.  Just like real Italians!  You don’t find that type of thing often enough in New York City.  It was an all-around excellent experience and Cacio e Pepe comes HIGHLY recommended.  I only wished we brought our camera so you could see the dishes for yourselves!  Ah, well… you’ll just have to trust us and check it out for yourself.

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