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The unique cooking vessel used to make "Cacio e Pepe en Vessie" :-)

The Count of Merkur Cristo

B&B's Emperor of Emojis
My Fellow Culinarians:
Thought this article was an interesting 'take' on simple and classic Roman dish (only 3 ingredients), and I had to share..."buon pranzo" ("have a good lunch") or "buona cena" ("have a good dinner").
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By Ryan Cashman - The Tasting Table - Dec 22, 2022

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"The idiom stands true — when in Rome, do as the Romans do. Though the collection of words is meant to paint with broad strokes, encouraging travelers to adopt the customs and traditions of the place in which they find themselves, there really is no better way to experience The Eternal City than to go where locals go and eat where locals eat, per Carpe Diem Tours. In this case, do as the Romans do and treat yourself to a nice, large plate of cacio e pepe. This symbol of Roman food is a simple combination of three ingredients — pasta, pecorino romano cheese, and black pepper. ("Life is about exploring pasta-bilities").👍

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The meal is an homage to the humble shepherds of Rome's countryside. According to La Cucina Italiana, the shepherds needed to bring food with them into the fields that were calorically dense and lasted a long time. Cacio e pepe was perfect for this, owing to its small number of ingredients and easy preparation. All you need to do is cook the pasta and mix it together with black pepper and cheese. That's it. Modern Italian chefs have been taking cues from these simple countryside dishes, putting their own unique spin on classic dishes, per BBC. The same is true for the cacio e pepe served at Lido 84, though the choice of the cooking vessel may surprise you.

🙌 Old technique, Ritzy location🏨

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If you were sitting at a fancy restaurant on the shores of beautiful Garda Lake in northern Italy, you likely wouldn't expect to be served cacio e pepe at all given your distance from Rome. And you certainly wouldn't expect it to be served to you encased in
a pig's bladder.

Don't run away, that would be rude. While the outward appearance of a ballooned bladder does not look nearly as appetizing as what's hiding inside, utilizing an animal's internal organs as a vessel for cooking is nothing new. The ancient Romans were among those who frequently used animal innards as food-cooking vessels. The technique is now employed by chef Riccardo Camanini at his luxury restaurant, Lido 84 (via Four Magazine).

Camanini is among a slew of Italian chefs who are bringing their nation's beloved cuisine back to its roots. And cacio e pepe cooked in an inflated pig's bladder is taking things way back.

The technique is simple. According to BBC, Camanini uses the bladder of a female pig, more roomy and flexible you see, and stuffs it with pasta, in this case, rigatoni, pecorino romano cheese, and black pepper. The bladder is sealed and set over simmering water to inflate, gently cooking the pasta as it does so.

The finished product is served table side. The bladder is peeled back to reveal a beautifully creamy, peppery, mildly acidic pasta that is sure to please even the most critical of guests".😋

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Read More: The Unique Cooking Vessel Used To Make "Cacio E Pepe En Vessie"

Chef-1.jpg"According to Romans, there's good cacio e pepe, adequate cacio e pepe, and everything else, which is of course a sin against [the culinary] Gods". Roman Culinary Mores
 
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The Count of Merkur Cristo

B&B's Emperor of Emojis
My Fellow Culinarians:
I thought this article on the simple and classic Roman dish (only 3 ingredients...w/o the Pigs Bladder), would be of very interesting and I had to share..."buon pranzo" ("have a good lunch") or "buona cena" ("have a good dinner").
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By Melissa Gaman - 13 Mar 24

"At its core, Cacio e Pepe is a stripped-down, sophisticated version of mac and cheese (cacio translates to cheese, and pepe translates to pepper). Or, perhaps it’s an example of what mac and cheese should be, but often is not (please don’t toss Italian curse words my way — hear me out!).

Cacio e pepe is all about the pasta, Pecorino Romano cheese, and the creamy sauce that binds them together — that’s it.

There is no flourish, crunchy topping, baked edge situation, or six-cheese blend to detract from its simplicity. It’s a sharp, cheesy, peppery tangle of carefully coated strands of pasta perfect for slurping. :thumbsup:

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The History of Cacio e Pepe

Cacio e pepe is a traditional Roman pasta. It’s often grouped together with carbonara, amatriciana, and pasta alla gricia as standout classics in Rome. What these pastas all have in common is that they only need a handful of ingredients and come together quickly. Because these pastas have been around a long time, there are countless opinions about the “real” way it should be made.

La Cuicina Italiana explains that cacio e pepe is an ancient dish that was born out of need and practicality. Shepherds would pack their bags with ingredients that could stand up to long journeys and offer a hearty meal after a long and active day. Dry pasta, peppercorns, and aged cheese would not perish quickly, but offer enough flavor to make something delicious and satisfying when time and supplies were limited. ;)

Key Ingredients in Cacio e Pepe
  • Black pepper: For the brightest flavor and to best control the size of the pieces, choose whole black peppercorns. Toasting them first brings out their deep, nutty spice. Crushing them will yield better-sized pieces and less dust, but you can grind them in a spice grinder. Be sure not to grind them too finely (just 2 to 3 pulses will be enough). The pasta should be speckled with coarse bits of pepper (and not gray from finely ground dust).
  • Pecorino Romano: While many versions also include Parmigiano Reggiano, Pecorino is the traditional choice in this recipe. It’s sharp and salty, which is exactly the flavor needed in such a simple dish to contrast the pepper and hold enough flavor when thinned with cooking water. When buying the Pecorino Romano, check the label to ensure it is sheep’s milk cheese from Italy for the right flavor and texture.
  • Pasta: There are many opinions about which pasta shape is traditional for this dish. The top three mentioned are spaghetti, bucatini, and tonnarelli. Tonnarelli is a little thicker than spaghetti and has a squared-off side. It is difficult to find, however, so I opted to test with spaghetti and bucatini instead. As this is not a heavily saucy dish, I find the bucatini’s hollow tube isn’t really a plus, but if you like a thicker bite, it will work fine. I did find bucatini more difficult to toss with the cheese due to the larger size; I ended up with noodles on my stovetop and floor. Through the development of this recipe, spaghetti became my top choice. It’s the perfect size for twirling on a fork and tossing in a skillet and has a better ratio of cheese to pasta in each bite.
  • Pasta water: It might be funny to see water as a key ingredient, but it is essential to bring everything together. You want the water to be salted, but not so heavily that it is unpalatable because you use a good amount of it while making the pasta. A few big pinches will do, but don’t go as far as making it taste like the ocean. You also want the water to be starchy, as the starch will help the emulsification of the cheese and contribute to the slick, silky texture of the finished pasta. Use a large-enough pot to hold the long noodles, but only fill it halfway for a concentrated, starch heavy cooking liquid.
How to make Cacio e Pepe
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  1. Toast and grind your peppercorns. Toast your peppercorns in a dry skillet (the same one you will finish the pasta in) to bring out their flavor. It only takes a few minutes so be careful not to burn them. Once cooled, coarsely grind or crush them so they are cracked into pieces but not dusty. If using an electric grinder, just a few short pulses will do. Too much fine pepper powder will make your throat burn and turn your pasta gray.
  2. Grate your cheese. Very finely grated cheese is important because it needs to melt using only the residual heat of the spaghetti and hot cooking water. Pecorino Romano is an aged cheese so it will melt, but not as quickly or smoothly as something younger and creamier. A Microplane grater is the best tool for this job. It will create a very fluffy mound of cheese that will quickly collapse when working into a paste with a fork.
  3. Simmer the crushed pepper, cooked pasta, and pasta water together. Simmering the pasta with the toasted pepper and some starchy water helps finish cooking the pasta while coating the noodles with slick starch. The heat of the pasta and the starch will help smoothly melt the cheese and keep the pasta from sticking to itself.
  4. Make a cheese paste. Mashing the finely grated cheese with some hot starchy cooking water helps the cheese melt better into the pasta and create a silky sauce in two ways. The first is that it warms the cheese so there is less of a temperature difference between the pasta and cheese. The second is that it breaks the cheese down a little from the big, fluffy mound into a loose paste so it blends easier into the pasta and is less likely to stick to the sides or bottom of the skillet and overheat.
  5. Gradually toss the cheese paste into the hot pasta. As with any emulsion, you have to gradually combine the elements so they form one creamy sauce and not a separated mess. That means you need to add the cheese in three to four increments to allow the cheese to properly melt and build into a creamy sauce. It is easier to combine if you add small dollops of the cheese paste around top of the spaghetti versus one larger amount in the center, as it’s less likely to clump up this way.
Read More: Cacio e Pepe Recipe


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"Life is about exploring pasta-bilities" CBJ
 

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Cacio e Pepe is one of my go-to pasta dishes for weeknight meals.

Super easy, creamy, peppery, simple ingredients and tastes amazing. Obviously during the workweek it's with store bought pasta (highest quality we.can get) but it is still so tasty.

I'll have to compare recipes but this is the base we use.

 

luvmysuper

My elbows leak
Staff member
The chef preparing this in a pig bladder may be trying to root his cooking in an historical basis, but I don't see how it necessarily fits with the narrative.
Ostensibly, the "shepherds needed to bring food with them into the fields that were calorically dense and lasted a long time. Cacio e pepe was perfect for this, owing to its small number of ingredients and easy preparation."
Did the shepherds slaughter a pig every few meals to have a bladder to cook in? A bladder is not a reusable cooking vessel. Were they herding pigs?
If, in this case, they used a sheep bladder, well then - they could have just eaten the sheep (or the pig) instead of pasta. But that means carting around a slaughtered carcass, which makes less sense than carting along a single cooking pot.
I respect the concept of harkening back to olden times for traditionally prepared foods, but in the modern case for this dish, it simply makes no sense to me to use such an off the wall cooking vessel that wasn't likely used by the shepherds anyway.
Am I missing something?
 

luvmysuper

My elbows leak
Staff member
Ahhh, ok. The original BBC article explains it further.
The Chef is using a cooking method that pre-dates dried pasta. It was used as a cooking method, but not by shepherds and not for this pasta dish.
The Chef is using this method as his own signature cooking method and to up the "unique" factor.

The article says:
The inspiration for Riccardo Camanini to cook the pasta in a pig's bladder originally came from Apicius, an ancient Roman text that includes the use of bladders in a variety of its (often essay-length) recipes. "That book influenced me a lot," Camanini said.
"So, the idea was to recreate one of Italy's most iconic dishes – pasta," he said. "As an Italian, I represent pasta, and so I saw a challenge in creating a recipe from what Mr Apicius wrote." Dry pasta wouldn't have existed when Apicius lived, Camanini added. "It was only after 1200 CE, when commerce started from Sicily, that it became necessary," he said. "But it was fun to imagine Apicius cooking this dish."


Though the BBC article says "Camanini is bringing ancient Italian recipes – like cacio e pepe – into the modern day at his restaurant." - What he is truly doing is using ancient cooking methods with a more modern day dish – like cacio e pepe.


 
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