Tonnarelli cacio e pepe

Directions

1. At its simplest, literally all you do is boil the pasta in well salted water, drain it (but not very well) and pour it into a heated bowl. Then add a generous amount of pecorino cheese and lots of freshly ground pepper, and mix well. The hot water that clings to the pasta should meld with the cheese to make a kind of creamy sauce.
2. If the dish is too dry, you can add a bit more of the pasta water. If, on the other hand, you can still see water at the bottom of the bowl, add more cheese.
3. Then top with more pecorino and another healthy grinding of pepper. That's it!
4. NOTE: Like many simple dishes, cacio e pepe is easy to make passably well, but hard to master. You need to mix the pasta quickly but thoroughly, making sure that the cheese melts properly into a cream rather than clumping up into bits. The key is to balance water and cheese—and that can only really be done by eye as you mix. What I like to do is to keep a generous amount of grated pecorino on hand, about half as much as there is pasta by weight, and use as much as I need. Any leftover cheese can be sprinkled on top or kept for another use. But as often is the case with this sort of thing, no amount of coaching will substitute for practice, practice, practice.
5. For step-by-step photo instructions on making tonnarelli, click on the link below.