Impromptu cacio e pepe

On a Thursday evening I'm out for a few hours and rarely eat before. I function better when my digestive system isn't trying to work. I've always been like that, but noticed it becoming more of an issue in the run up to my diagnosis of Type 2 Diabetes.

So, I generally eat somewhere between nine and ten in the evening on a Thursday, as opposed to between five and six the rest of the week (when single I generally ate later, but marriage and children brought the evening meal forward somewhat).

Sometimes I have leftovers from what the rest of the family had, sometimes I have something else, on occasion I stumble into a thing that just brings absolute joy.

Thus it was this evening. Yesterday we had homeade meatballs with homemade pasta sauce - delicious. We ended up with leftover spaghetti because, although my middle daughter left home ten months ago, I still haven't worked out how not to cook pasta for five.

I haven't made cacio e pepe before, which given how I love Italian food is strange. Cacio is cheese, pepe is pepper so the dish is literally cheese and pepper. Traditionally the cheese used is pecorino, but I only had parmesan - I'll say more about this later.

I boiled some water and dropped the pasta in for a minute just to heat it up. While the water was coming to boil I grated the parmesan and got peppercorns in the mortar and ground them up. Keeping a cup of the water, I drained the pasta and dropped a good knob of butter in the saucepan, with that melted I threw in the pepper. I probably ground up more than needed for one person, but I love fresh pepper.

I gave the pepper about 30 seconds in the foaming butter, then dropped in the pasta, keeping the pan moving as I did so, still, it started to stick. A splash of the retained pasta water helped loosen things off. Now, in goes most of the parmesan. Keeping the pan moving with one hand, and using a spoon in the other, the ingredients were mixed together, a little water added to make the lovely creamy texture expected.

This only took a minute or two. Served into the bowl, the rest of the parmesan on top and some more ground pepper, and that's what you see in the picture.

A glass of Pinot Grigio is pretty much my go to wine and fits so naturally with the dish it would have been rude not to have one.

Cacio e pepe is a dish so quick and simple to make, only 5 ingredients - and one of those is water used to boil the pasta. And this is a feature of much Italian pasta cooking. It uses few ingredients, and can be made quickly - especially if you are using pre-made pasta.

And, I would contend, that such dishes are by their nature made with what ingredients are available. Is carbonara better if you can get guancale, maybe. But if you live somewhere that doesn't readily have it then using pancetta, or even bacon, is absolutely fine. And if pecorino is beyond your local supermarket, or even deli, then go for the parmesan or even the Italian Style Hard Cheese.

It should be remembered that these dishes were developed in kitchens of mammas and nonnas feeding large families on limited incomes and using what was inexpensive and available.

Today any number of youtube videos will tell you off for not using the exact ingredients available from shops in an Italian town, or French, Spanish, Thai, Chinese, Korean, or wherever the dish being described is from.

Don't listen to them.

Get the closest you can within your price range, and enjoy making food that feeds the soul. Later, sure, experiment with sourcing the exact ingredients no matter the cost. But don't be surprised if your family, friends, or even you prefer the simpler dish made with what you could get readily.

text and picture by stuartcturnbull