If you like them with cream and ham, you are ready for this Roman-inspired variation. But be careful: even this very easy recipe has its rules
Cacio e pepe tonnarelli are a masterpiece of taste and simplicity. Tasty and creamy, they represent a comfort food in which it is nice to take refuge on those evenings when the company is beautiful and you would never want to get up from the table again. And since we like it so much, why not steal some secrets from it to prepare other exceptional dishes? A good idea for v the creamy sauce with cheese and pepper that we will prepare with the same technique that we use for the traditional recipe, are the tortellini cheese and pepper. Before moving on to the recipe, however, let's review some steps to avoid mistakes.
Cooking tortellini
We are talking about a dish that focuses on perfect cooking and the balance between stuffed pasta and seasoning. In order to best bind the ingredients (and allow us a few moments of processing at the end of cooking) we will have to make sure we drain the tortellini really al dente. As a precaution therefore, we stop cooking a minute earlier than indicated on the package and we use one skimmer avoiding to crush them in the colander. Furthermore, since our cacio e pepe cream will be tied with the cooking water, we try not to totally eliminate it from our tortellini.
The cream cheese and pepper
The dressing of our tortellini must be prepared while cooking to prevent the cream from solidifying during cooking. So as a preliminary operation, finely grate our pecorino romano and add plenty of ground black pepper or cut with a knife. Once the tortellini are boiled in a pot, we will use their cooking water to bind the cream, a few seconds before draining them.
Get away from the fire
To preserve the cooking of the tortellini and prevent the cream from becoming a sticky substance, it is essential to carry out the last operations out of the heat. The only thing we will put on the stove will be the pot in which we will boil the water: everything else will be prepared by mixing the ingredients.
A thousand ideas
To prepare this recipe we have chosen the classic ham tortellini, but this condiment is also very good with pumpkin, potato ravioli, meat tortellini and the classic lean ravioli. Ravioli with vegetables filling such as artichokes, asparagus and herbs are also very suitable.
Recipe
Ingredients for 4 people
500 g ham tortellini – 150 g young Roman pecorino cheese – salt – black pepper
Method
Grate the pecorino and gather it in a bastardella, then grind abundant black pepper. Boil a pot of lightly salted water (the amount of salt in the cooking water must be about half the usual dose since the pecorino is already very tasty in itself), then cook the tortellini. Pour a couple of ladles of cooking water into the bastardella with the pecorino and mix lightly to obtain a cream. Drain the tortellini, al dente, keeping another ladle of cooking water aside; transfer them to the bastardella and mix well, adding, if necessary, a drop of the warm water kept aside. Serve the tortellini hot, completing with a minced black pepper.
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