Pasta with Cheese and Black Pepper (Spaghetti Cacio e Pepe)

To prepare spaghetti with cheese and black pepper, first thing to do is to grate 200 g of Roman Pecorino Cheese.

Continue by boiling the water in a pan (put about half of what you usually use to cook the pasta, so it will be richer in starch) and when you boil you can salt to taste. Once salted, you can cook the spaghetti.

Meanwhile, pour the whole peppercorns on a cutting board, then crush them with a pestle for meat or a pepper mill. In this way the pungent scent of the pepper will give off more.

Pour half a dose of crushed pepper into a large non-stick frying pan, toast it over low heat, stirring with a wooden scoop, then blend with a couple of ladles of pasta cooking water. The bubbles you will see appear to be due to the starch contained in the water.

Drain the spaghetti when they are very al dente (keeping aside the cooking water and pour them directly into the pan with the toasted pepper, continue cooking with condiment.
Smear the pasta continuously with kitchen tongs to make it "breathe" and add a ladle of water or two as needed, to continue cooking spaghetti like a risotto. Continue to pour a ladle of water only when needed (when you see that the pan is almost completely dry) and stir-fry with the kitchen tongs.

In the meantime, when the pasta comes to cooking, take care of the Roman Pecorino cream (do not start this operation before because the cream would grow too thick): pour about half a dose of grated Pecorino in a bowl. Add a ladle of pasta cooking water over the grated Pecorino. Stir with a whisk vigorously and add more water when needed. Then add the remaining dose of Pecorino, keeping a little aside for later seasoning. Add some more water to the need: in this phase you have to calibrate well dose of Pecorino and water to obtain a creamy consistency without lumps.

Finish cooking pasta, adding a little hot water if necessary; before adding the Pecorino Cheese cream, briefly mix the cream placing the bowl over the steam of the pan with hot water, always stir with the whisk, so as to bring the cream to a temperature similar to that of the pasta.

Turn off the heat of the pan with the spaghetti and pour the Pecorino cream. While pour the Pecorino cream on the spaghetti, stir continuously with the kitchen tongs, pour also the Pecorino that you had kept aside, stir and sauté the pasta again and then serve your spaghetti and season with the remaining pepper. Taste immediately in all their creaminess!