- Epicurious 101
- Season 1
- Episode 26
The Cacio e Pepe Hack That Never Fails (Ft. Binging with Babish)
Released on 04/12/2023
Hey there, folks.
My name is Andrew Rea, AKA Babish
and I'm here today to show you how to make cacio e pepe,
the new school, high tech, unbelievably easy way.
This is cacio e pepe 101.
Cacio e pepe means cheese and pepper.
It seems so simple because it only has five ingredients
but it's so difficult because you're effectively
just trying to emulsify together
a hard aged cheese and water.
So it's very difficult not to break the sauce
and usually ends up with a melty, stringy, oily mess.
But I have a solution and it comes courtesy
of Luciano MMonosilio, a celebrated Italian chef.
We're gonna make a much milder sauce, a much easier sauce,
a damn near foolproof sauce thanks to a blender.
This comes together very, very quickly
only using these two cooking vessels.
This for cooking the pasta, a nice wide shallow pan.
The water's salted, and there's not too much water in there
so it gets nice and starchy.
So you've got more emulsifiers to try
and get the cheese sauce to come together.
And then this pan is pretty much just
for toasting the peppercorns
and bringing everything together.
You're hardly cooking in this pan.
Because the pasta takes...
Because the pasta takes nine to 11 minutes,
we're gonna start that boiling.
Partially bring it out like that
so you can sort of spread it out in a beautiful fan pattern.
And just keep it moving a little bit.
Make sure nobody's sticking together.
Instead of just dry roasting the peppercorns,
I'm gonna toast them in a little bit of butter.
It helps stabilize the emulsion, and it's nice
to have fat in there to round out some of those sharp edges.
While that's going, we can grate our cheese.
Pecorino Romano and Parmesan Reggiano
because Pecorino Romano is much sharper, much funkier
and Parmesan is gonna help round it out a little bit.
We're gonna put this stuff in the jar of our blender.
There we go.
We got our butter nice and foamy here.
I'm gonna add our peppercorns to it.
Gotta be generous with the pepper.
This is cacio e pepe.
It's literally in the fricking name.
I got this pot on very low
'cause I don't wanna brown the butter.
I don't wanna burn the peppercorns.
I just want it to be a nice warm place
for everybody to live.
The most scientific method for testing pasta's doneness
is to take a strand
and throw it into your mouth, not against the wall.
That's pretty good.
So now toss it with the butter and the peppercorns.
I would've just eat this the way it is
but legally speaking, we have to put cheese on.
So while the blender's running, I'm gonna slowly stream
in pasta, cooking water until we get a nice thick sauce.
[blender whirring]
All right, so we have now
an incredibly creamy, dreamy sauce.
So between the pasta water, the starch, and the blender,
it just created a near unbreakable emulsion.
Like you can see this.
We could heat this.
We could bring this to a fricking simmer
and it would not break.
I guarantee it.
It's about as creamy cacio e pepe gets.
When you're serving pasta,
it's nice to use tongs and then give it a twist
so it's got a little personality to it.
Maybe a little bit more cheese, grate it over top,
grating a pepper.
And there you have it.
Foolproof, unbreakable, unbeatable cacio e pepe.
[lively music]
Cacio e pepe normally sets up almost immediately,
turns into a block.
This stuff, super creamy, is super delicious.
It's super pepe.
[lively music] [Andrew chewing]
You could have made cacio e pepe 50 times
and you still might screw it up
because it's so sensitive, it's so persnickety.
And this is not only a method that results
in I think a better cacio e pepe
because it's creamier, it's lighter
but also a completely foolproof and very easy method.
After this thing sits for a little while,
it is gonna start to get a little gloppy
but a little splash of our hot pasta cooking water
should bring it roaring back to life.
That's why pasta cooking water is worth its weight
in not gold necessarily, but neodymium.
[lively music]
About $5 an ounce last I checked.
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