Cacio e Pepe Pasta Pie with Arugula Salad

Happy Sunday everyone!  We have a Sunday tradition in our house of cooking a big meal – something a little special that’s more labor intensive than a weeknight endeavor. I haven’t posted any recipes on the blog yet but I always planned to. There’s so much I want to write about & share that I just don’t have time for it all. I have a huge backlog of ideas & someday when we leave the grind I plan to chip away at them. Actually, I posted one for hoppin’ john a long time ago. Anyway – I hope to get better about posting recipes.

Next Sunday I’m having my mother-in-law over for her birthday along with some friends (one of whom is very picky) so I’m trying the strike the balance of something elegant & simple while still having broad appeal. Some of my favorite meals are those spotlighting simple, high quality ingredients. Things don’t have to be complicated to be delicious. I have about 100 lemon pasta recipes in my head to prove that which I’ll definitely share with you sometime soon. For tonight’s post let’s take a look at Cacio e Pepe Pasta Pie paired with a simple arugula salad. I wanted to do a trial run of the pie before serving it to guests and it was an overwhelming success!

One thing you should know about my cooking style – I don’t follow recipes. I get inspired by them absolutely but I pretty much never follow them to the letter and tonight was no exception. I’ll give you the recipes and modifications then take it and make them your own. I’m also not a baker – baking is exact whereas cooking gives you the freedom to experiment. Not to mention we don’t need piles of baked goods around considering it’s just the two of us. I attempt to bake maybe twice a year with the majority of ingredients and pans borrowed from my neighbor (thanks T!).

Since Easter just passed I’ve been thinking about traditional family recipes I haven’t had in years. I’m the 2nd generation here in the States with my family hailing from Italy – Sicily and Calabria. My Auntie Grace who was my grandmother’s sister always made this wonderful, dense, cheesy macaroni pie every Easter that I couldn’t get enough of growing up. I love the denseness of it and how perfectly it slices. Like most old Italians, she never wrote the recipe down. They were passed to the next generation through cooking sessions – learning the tips and tricks of the old country. Unfortunately she passed on before I learned this one. I started looking for a recipe that looked most like what I remembered and found this recipe from food & wine.

Cecio e Pepe literally means “cheese and pepper.” Good quality cheeses and lots of freshly ground pepper are the key to success with this recipe.

Cacio e Pepe Pasta Pie

Ingredients

• 1 pound spaghetti
• 1 1/2 cups milk
• 3/4 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
• 3 large eggs, lightly beaten
• 2 1/2 teaspoons ground black pepper
• 2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 6 ounces Fontina cheese, shredded (2 cups)
• 6 ounces sharp white cheddar cheese, shredded (2 cups)
• Butter, for greasing — I skipped this and used olive oil from my spray bottle.

How to make this recipe

1. Preheat the oven to 425°. In a pot of salted boiling water, cook the spaghetti until al dente. Drain well.
2. In a bowl, mix the pasta, milk, Parmigiano, eggs, pepper, salt and 1 1/2 cups each of the Fontina and cheddar. Scrape into a buttered 9-inch springform pan, then sprinkle the remaining 1/2 cup each of Fontina and cheddar on top. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, until the cheese is melted and bubbling.
3. Turn on the broiler. Broil the pie 8 inches from the heat for 2 to 3 minutes, until browned on top. Transfer to 
a rack and let cool for 15 minutes. Remove the ring, cut the pie into wedges and serve.

**NOTE: I don’t own a springform pan and my trusty neighbor only had one really old one but I’d need two for the party anyway so I made it in a glass pie plate. If you go this route, check it after about 23 minutes in the oven. Mine was bubbling and browning by then and I skipped the broiling step. You don’t get the crust all around using a pie plate but you gotta work with what you’ve got. The result was amazing & we ate way too much of it.

Cacio e Pepe Pasta Pie

Next, what to pair it with. This is a heavy, indulgent main course so something light with a bite and slightly acidic is the perfect thing to to offset the cheesiness of the pie. I also recommend serving the pasta with some crushed red pepper on the table.

Arugula Salad with Olive Oil, Lemon, and Parmesan Cheese

I don’t have an official recipe for this but this one from the Food Network is very close.

Ingredients

• 2 bunches arugula, washed, dried, and torn
• 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 1/2 lemon, juiced
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• A chunk of Parmigiano-Reggiano

That’s the ingredient list as written in the recipe. Changes I make: add a little minced garlic, add the zest of a full lemon, the juice of a full lemon instead of half and cut down a bit on the olive oil. Once you mix the dressing, add it slowly while tossing the salad to get the right balance.

The end result was beautiful & so good! A nice Cabernet wouldn’t hurt either.

If you make it – let me know what how it turns out!

Until next time …

Stay warm friends!