Cacio y Pepe

A six ingredient entrée couldn’t be too difficult. Or could it? This week a “simple” entrée left me with time and energy to try a couple new side dishes.

The challenge this week was to prepare a basic pasta with cheese, cream and pepper sauce without letting the sauce clump. The way CI achieved a creamy texture was by mixing some of the water used to cook the pasta in with the finely grated cheese (starch in the water from the pasta helps keep it from clumping) and by using cream instead of butter.

I did not get the same result. My sauce clumped. I’m not sure why… it all happened so fast. Maybe I didn’t whisk enough? Not enough starch in the water left over from cooking the pasta? Maybe the cheese wasn’t grated finely enough? I can’t say for sure, but I am determined to try again. Despite the clumps it still tasted really good. That may have been because I can’t remember the last time I ate pasta with a cheese/cream sauce. I certainly haven’t made one and I would not have picked this recipe (if I wasn’t systematically going through all the recipes in the magazine). I generally don’t order anything with a cream sauce in restaurants because they tend to be to rich and, let’s face it, fattening. I forgot how good these basic ingredients are together regardless of texture. (And I ran 10 miles yesterday so I can eat whatever I want tonight)

The meal was saved by the perfectly cooked al dente pasta (I used DeCecco instead of my usual Barilla, based on CI’s taste test. Ronzoni was their first choice) and the two recommended side dishes; roasted broccoli and tri-colored salad with balsamic vinaigrette. For the broccoli you simply drizzle with olive oil, toss with salt, pepper, and a half teaspoon of sugar then bake on a preheated 500 cookie sheet for 10 minutes on the lowest rack position. The tiny bit of sugar made a big difference in the usually bitter taste of broccoli. It was perfectly roasted: not to soft and not too crunchy. The tricolored salad is a combination of arugula, endive and radicchio with a balsamic vinaigrette. This salad made me realize how much of a romaine rut I have been in lately. The tricolored salad is nice combination of bitter, sweet, and arugula (how do you describe arugula?).

The ingredients for this meal were pretty straight forward. The recipe specifically calls for aged imported Pecorino, but that is not hard to find. I found the recommended red wine vinegar and balsamic vinegar for the vinaigrette at the Amish Market. Everything else I was able to order from freshdirect.com, which is a good indication that they are readily available elsewhere since their selection is not great.

Take away lessons

• In theory, adding water used to cook pasta to finely grated cheese to make sauce will make it creamier and prevent clumping due to the starch. In reality, it didn’t work that way for me; but I’m not giving up.

• Add a pinch of sugar to broccoli (in addition to olive oil, salt a pepper) before roasting to make it a bit less bitter and gives it a nice color. Cutting the heads in quarters also maximizes the area of broccoli that comes into contact with the baking sheet.

For further investigation

• If at first you don’t succeed try, try again. I am going to have to try this again and see if I can get it to not clump.