Spaghetti Cacio e Pepe

Grate the whole 200 g of pecorino on the finest holes you own and keep it in a wide bowl.

💡 Fine grating is not fussiness — a coarse shred has too little surface area to melt evenly and will seize into strings.

Crush the peppercorns coarsely — a mortar, or the base of a heavy pan pressed down on them on a board.

Toast the crushed pepper in a dry pan over medium heat for about 1 minute, until it smells sharp and floral and you can feel it in your nose.

💡 This is where the dish gets its aroma. Stop the moment it smells alive — pepper goes from fragrant to acrid in about 15 seconds.

Boil the spaghettoni in a pan with less water than usual — just enough to cover them — and salt it lightly, if at all.

💡 Two reasons: less water means far starchier water, which is the only thing binding this sauce; and 200 g of pecorino brings all the salt the dish needs.

While the pasta cooks, ladle a little of the cloudy cooking water into the pepper pan and let it bubble down for a minute or two into a dark, fragrant infusion.

Ladle more of the cooking water into a small jug and let it cool for a minute, until it is warm but no longer scalding.

💡 Boiling water on cheese is the single mistake that ruins cacio e pepe: the proteins tighten instantly into rubbery threads. Warm water dissolves them.

Whisk that warm water into the grated pecorino a spoonful at a time, until you have a smooth cream about as thick as yoghurt. Add slowly — you may not need it all.

💡 It will look like wet sand before it looks like cream. Keep working it — that stage is normal and it passes.

Drain the spaghettoni about 2 minutes before the packet time and tip them into the pepper pan with a splash of their water.

Finish cooking the pasta in that pan over medium heat, tossing constantly and adding water a little at a time, the way you would feed a risotto. It is done when it is al dente and the pan is glossy rather than soupy.

Take the pan off the heat and wait 30 seconds — put your hand near the base; it should be hot but not fierce.

💡 This pause is the whole recipe. Cheese added to a pan still on the flame will scramble; cheese added to a pan that has calmed down turns into sauce.

Pour in the pecorino cream and toss hard and continuously, shaking the pan and stirring, until every strand is wrapped in a glossy sauce that clings.

💡 If it tightens or goes stringy, take the pan right off the heat and beat in a spoonful of warm water. Nine times out of ten it comes back.

Twist into warm bowls and finish with the last of the pecorino and a final crack of toasted pepper.

Serve at once. Cacio e pepe waits for nobody — it stiffens as it cools.