Birthday: Perciatelli Cacio e Pepe

Annie had been talking about making me a special birthday meal for about the last month or so. I was extremely excited: is there any better birthday present for a chef than to have someone else cook for him?

I assumed that she was making a pasta dish of some sort or another; after all, what does a full-blooded Italian girl from New York City cook for her man? Pasta is probably our favorite food. It turns out that she got a friend in New York to ship us several pounds of perciatelli/bucatini. Are you surprised that we cannot find such a common cut in our grocery stores? I am not; wine country may be many things, but a hotbed of culinary treasures it is not.

I call the cut perciatelli, from perciare meaning to bore (or pierce), and Ann calls it bucatini, from buco, bone. Both names come from the cut being a long thick spaghetti-like pasta with a hole down the center, like a long bone or a gun barrel that has been bored out. Of all the long pasta cuts, it is hands down my favorite. Thin, effete cuts such as capelli d'angelo are not for me.

Topping Perciatelli Cacio e Pepe with Pecorino

Just before dinner while we were enjoying a glass of Barbera d'Alba Superiore, Ann pulled a bag of perciatelli out of hiding and then pulled a bowl out of the refrigerator. She showed me the bowl of pecorino romano with a large pile of black pepper on it, asking, "What am I making?" Duh! Cacio e pepe!

Perciatelli d'Abruzzo

It's sad that to get a good cut of pasta, we would either have to drive into Portland metro or order it from somewhere. Ann got creative and got it from New York. This particular brand was very good. Ann and I are really pasta connoisseurs (fancy French term for snobs) in that we would rather have no pasta than bad pasta and sadly, there is very much bad pasta on the market.

Mixing Pecorino and Pepper with Cold Water

Ann made the cacio e pepe using a method that I had never seen before until we saw recently a video of it being made in a Roman trattoria where it was the specialità della casa. The chef mixed grated pecorino and coarse pepper with cold water and stirred it into a cream as Ann is doing above. Then, he put the hot drained pasta directly into the pecorino cream and tossed it, as Ann is doing below. Old chef learns new trick.

Tossing the Pasta

I thoroughly enjoyed the pasta and while Ann was busy being super self-critical about the results, I was busy stuffing face. It was delicious. Thank you Pasta Elf! I love you beyond all measure!

The Pasta Elf Herself