Italian Cities: Rome - Cacio e Pepe

My next food project is making and eating a dish from the 20 largest Italian cities. I love Italian food so I'm excited to explore a variety of foods from across the country. First up, Rome.

A simple dish with only 4 ingredients but very popular in Rome. Cacio e pepe translates as 'cheese and pepper'. I love the taste of black pepper so I'm looking forward to this dish. I had to go to our local speciality cheese shop (The Cheeseboard) in Harrogate for the pecorino romano.

Pecorino means 'ovine' as it's made with sheep's milk. It's hard, crumbly and smells great!

Ingredients:

300g spaghetti

1 tablespoon black pepper

125g pecorino romano

25g parmesan

Firstly, start to cook the spaghetti in lightly salted water.

Add the pepper to a frying pan and heat to let the pepper warm.

Add half a ladle of the spaghetti cooking water to the pepper and stir. Grate the pecorino and parmesan. Add the cheese to the frying pan and stir as it melts. Add more pasta water if you need to loosen the sauce.

Drain the spaghetti and add it to the frying pan, tossing the pasta in the cheese and pepper sauce. Serve with a bit more black pepper on top.

This was a perfect lunch for me, I loved it. The fiery black pepper warmed my mouth as I ate and the cheese sauce covered the spaghetti really well. I liked the pecorino cheese flavour, it was quite strong but in a nice way. JD said he thought it tasted of tuna! We've agreed to disagree 😀

This recipe is so simple and if you switch to parmesan instead of pecorino all the ingredients are things we usually have in stock so it's makeable at any time for a lovely lunch.