November 2, 2021 • 24 mins
In this episode of “Always Hungry”, Bobby lays out the four Roman classic pasta dishes. Tune in to hear what they are, what Bobby would do to change them, and of course, find out which of the four Bobby is cooking for Sophie.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
All right, guys, welcome to Always Hungry from My Heart Radio.
My name is Bobby Flay and I'm here with my
daughter and co host. I'm Flag and I'm Always Hungry.
Sophie and I gather around my stove to cook together. Well,
you cook, I asked the questions, and eat the food.
If does any food left, you come to the table
together to share a meal, connect as a family, and
tell the stories that matter to us. Okay, what are
(00:26):
we making here? So? Uh, you know we're talking about
the classic Roman pastas this four of them. We'll get
to that in a second. Uh, We're gonna make cacchio
at pepe. Do you know what that is a lot
of butter? It's actually zero butter. Cacco means cheese and
pepe means pepper. So it's basically, you don't put any
(00:49):
butter in there. No people do it, okay, but it's
not classics to do it. That's what I do. That's
why I said a lot of butter. Oh Okay, I
mean you can't, you can't with butter in it. But
it's not you know, it's not it's not the Roman
way it but it's not. It's I mean, listen, it's butter,
so it's never a better Yeah. Okay, So basically, um,
(01:10):
this this dish is both easy and not easy. It's
easy because it's it's literally a handful of not even
a handful of ingredients, a few ingredients. So I cooked
off some bugattini, which is a it's like a thicker spaghetti,
but it has a hole in the middle of it.
There's a hole running down the middle of of the
of the noodle, so it kind of absorbs the sauce.
(01:31):
And then I saved the pasta water, which is really
the key to catch you a pepe. Did you know
that I didn't? Now I do. So the pasta water
is a really important thing to save a lot of times,
almost in most of the postas, because it's it's very hot, um,
because you already have the starch from the pasta in
(01:53):
the water, so it helps mustify the sauce that you're
poking in. So we're talking about pasta's the classic Roman
pastas and it's uh, it's really interesting because you know,
not every pasta in Italy is from the same place,
of course, right, you know, every region has its own specialties, etcetera.
(02:17):
As you know, Rome is an important place to me.
I love Rome so much. And there's there's literally four
pastas that Rome is known for. They call him the
four Roman Classics. Okay, so there's something called Agricia Alagricia,
which is probably the least well known past so most
(02:37):
of them. So first of all, let me just say this.
All these pastas are incredibly simple. They have a lot
in common. There are a couple of ingredients that are
either controversial to the traditionalist, but sometimes the people who
think they're being traditionalists don't really know. Are there anchovies
(02:58):
and this one? No, there's no antia always in any
of these, No, you know, no, No. The most common
ingredient in this is guan challi. You know what gan
challi is pork? Yes, it's cured pork jowl cheeks. Is
it kind of in like cubes? Almost? Yeah, it is
(03:19):
most of the time. But I mean it comes as
like a jowl, as like a piece and then you
cut it up. But one, Charlie is a you know,
is a cured pork product. It's the it's the pork jowl.
It's very strong in flavor. It definitely gave me, you know,
it's like it has that that funk to it, you know,
and so, but that's that's the classic. Into the four
classic pastas, I'll just go through them really quickly. Is
(03:42):
Ala Gricia. Then there's Carbonara, Caccio pepe and Ala matiana. Okay,
they all have guan challie in them classically. A lot
of times you'll see panchetta instead, and then every once
in a while you'll see bacon. But like the smokiness
of bacon is not really what you should be doing there.
I use a lot when I make pasta. Is good cured,
(04:04):
you know, pork belly. Um, I have to say, like
the guan shalli for me is too strong. It's just
it's just totally overpowers really, yeah, it's totally overpowers the
pasta dish in my opinion, because there's the ingredients in
these well, well there's no guan cholli in in the
there's no pork in the where you're eating the caccio peppe.
That's just you know, peccorino cheese and black pepper and
(04:27):
some pasta water. But the other three have pork products,
and so let's go through them. So all is probably
the original because basically what it is is, you know,
some kind of pasta spaghetti could be Tonarelli, could be Bugattini, whatever, Torelli.
What is that? It's like it's a thin noodle like spaghetti. Yeah,
(04:48):
and then you know, like a lot of times there's
you know, it's garlic and black pepper, peccorino, cheese and
pasta water and then the guan challi. Some people say
they don't use garlic, you know, I don't know. I
had this conversation with Jada de Laurentis, you know, who
grew up in Rome, was born in Rome, and she's like,
we don't use garlic that often. And I said, okay,
(05:10):
but I like garlic. So and when I'm cooking Italian food,
when I'm cooking Italian food, like most of the time
is garlic in it. Yeah, but that you know again,
you know it's uh, it's all up to interpretation unless
you want to be you know, really steadfast, you know classic.
So that's that's up to you. Anyway. So allagriccia, so
basically Alla gricia is you know, it has you know, garlic,
(05:35):
black pepper, peccorina, guanchali and some pasta ward. It's very
very simple. Then you move on to amatichiana, which is
you know, some people put onions, some people don't put
onions in it. But it's really it's a tomato based
sauce with one shalli okay, and it has pecorino and
it has a little chili pepper, so it's a little spicy.
(05:56):
It's pork like tomato. We that's my favorite because because
I love the sweetness and the fruitiness of the tomatoes
and the acidity from the tomatoes. I think it kind
of bounces out the guancalli or the panchat or whatever
you're using. And of course the you know, the peccorino cheese.
The other thing is that the peccorino is very strong.
Pecorino is no joke, and so a lot of people
opt for parmigiano reggiano and then you know, you know,
(06:20):
true Romans will tell you that that's not classic. But basically,
eat what you want. This is just you know, I
have one of my one of my good friends, Mark Vettori,
who's got you know, great Italian restaurants, and I'm going
to talk about his pasta place in Philadelphia. He uses
a combination of parmigiano reggiano and peccorino. It's like half
(06:41):
and half, which I think is probably a nice idea.
So he's keeping with the tradition of having peccorino, but
he kind of softens with the parmigiano. So basically, I'm
(07:07):
gonna finish cooking the pasta, cooked the cook the noodles,
you know, about three quarters of the way, and then
I'm gonna finish cooking them in the in the pasta.
And what I'm gonna do is, I'm gonna take a
black pepper. Now I'm gonna put the black pepper into
(07:29):
the pasta water. This is actually a trick that my
friend Mark Vetry, who's one of the best Italian chefs
United States maybe in the world, where he where He's
got the black pepper in the pasta water and the
black pepper blossoms, so you get that black pepper flavor. Well,
it's just it's opening up the actual little sort of
(07:52):
the grinds of the black pepper so that it gives
it a more consistent flavor throughout the noodles. You see
what I'm saying. Okay, yeah, so we're gonna let that
let the noodle so finished cooking, and you know, classically
(08:13):
it's peccorino cheese, which is um you know, sheep smolk cheese,
so it's a little more it has a little more
of a stronger flavor than parmesanal Parson was a sweeter flavor. Um.
I know a lot of people nix parmesiano and pecorino,
but you can do what you want. Classic the classic
one is uh pecorino. Then of course is carbonara, Okay,
(08:39):
which you know carbonara is I'm gonna I'm gonna make
it easy for the head. So carbonara is basically bacon
and eggs with black pepper and pasta. It's you know,
it's uh, it's going chale or pin shata. And then
you know, you save the you save the bake, You
save the porch fat or the bacon fat, the pinch
(09:00):
out of fat, whatever, and then you make a mixture
of eggs and the cheese, either pecorino or if you're
cana use parmesan, or both one of those. And then
what you do is you cook the pasta. You take
some pasta water and then in a bowl or or
in the pan if you you know, off the heat.
You have to be very careful because you don't want
(09:22):
to scramble the eggs. But basically what you're doing is
you're coating the warm pasta noodles. Okay, listen to this
really carefully. You're coating the warm pasta noodles with the
raw egg so that the raw egg basically is just
cooking and glazing the pasta noodles without scrambling them. I mean,
that's got to be all about timing. It's about timing,
(09:42):
and a lot of people scramble the eggs. I mean
I do it every once in a while because you know,
I've been drinking. So the the egg isn't raw. It
is raw, no, but it cooks by the time he
cooks it. Yes, it should tally. Most people do it
in a in a bowl where they take they have
the the egg and the cheese mixture in a bowl
(10:05):
and then they and then they put the hot pasta
hot pasta with a little pasta water and they kind
of they kind of mix it up and it just
kind of glazes it. And then you know, then you
throw the throw the pin shadow or the gan cholie
over it. And the black pepper is important. It's called carbonara.
There's there's a story about it being a coal miner's
pasta and the and the black pepper signifies the carbon,
(10:28):
you know, the specks of carbon from the interesting from
the coal mines. It's a little dark, yeah, I mean basically,
you know, there's there's really there's really like interesting stories
about these pastas of being like that they were invented
by the like the shepherds, and you know that that
they always had like a hunk of peccorino cheese, They
(10:50):
always had like some guan chale, and they always had
some pasta and basic you know, it's it's a very peasant,
you know approach to pasta, you know, but then you
know there's some talk that it was from the brut see.
I mean there's there's all kinds of stories. Who knows
it's just good pasta basically when so basically you know history,
you know besides the his you know, truths and falsehoods.
(11:14):
I have no idea which is really true and what's not.
You can if you go online, you can find thirty
different stories about it. The bottom line is that when
you go to Rome, those are the four classic pastas
that you need to know. Just go over to go
do one more time. Catchio pepe is black pepper, pecorino cheese, pasta, water,
and some pasta. That's it. Some people put butter in it, fine,
(11:35):
that's up to you. Carbonara, it's pasta with eggs and
some kind of pork product. I've done that with bacon.
That's good because it's like bacon and eggs. Possibly, but
but basically, you know, gwen chali or pen shadow and
then black pepper, okay, and pecorino cheese and that's you know,
that's the that's the art of time. And Carbonara is
(11:57):
probably the most difficult one. March Chian and Allagricia one
is sort of you know, Alagricia is without tomato sauce,
so it's again it's guan chale and black pepper, maybe
a little garlic, some peccorino cheese, that's it. And then
Matuchiana you had tomato sauce, so you have the guanchali,
the pecorino, maybe a little chili pepper, maybe some onion,
(12:17):
yes or no. I would always put onion because you
always take makes things taste good. It's just incredibly savory.
So when you go to restaurants in Rome when Trottoria is,
you know, everybody says they make the best canchio pepe.
Everybody says they make the best carbonara. You know, there's
there's and frankly, in Rome, like any other big city,
there's really amazing food and there's some food that's not great.
(12:38):
I mean, let's face it, there's a lot of places
that are just you know, I would say touristing more
than anything else. And it's you know, I there's a
place called Felicia that I love and they do the
the carbonara kind of like table side. They also have
a great they also have a great lamb dish, but
we're not talking about one today. We're talking about the
classic pastas and and you know this is these are
(13:02):
the pastas that most Roman trott reas take their pride
in and they all think that they make the best one.
So basically you can gain a lot of pounds trying
to figure out its carbonar in Rome. But it's it's
not a bad way to spend some time. But then
so you know, so there's a handful of um, you know,
(13:22):
really good trot to read is a room that that
I that I like to go to, As I was saying,
Felich is one, well, actually there's there's there's some places
in New York and l A that I like via
Carota in Back City, which is like, you know, it
feels like a Romanta. I go. I go there all
the time. Um, if you want to track me down,
go to Via Carota and I'll be there. Well, you're saying,
(13:47):
it's just it's one of my favorite restaurants in New York.
People people ask me all the time, like what you know,
what's your what's your favorite restaurant? I really I really
love that place. Um, I've taken to you that a
couple of times, right, yeah, so yeah, we've gone with Papa.
It's so good, do it. Yeah, I love I love Yakrota. Yeah. So,
like you know, they'll they'll they'll always have the those
kinds of pastas. And then in Los Angeles, um, you
(14:08):
know Felix, which actually Felix is in Venice, an Abkinney,
and he's known for his pasta's. He hand rolls every pasta, etcetera.
His training is Bologna, which is not room and there's
a completely different, you know, direction of cuisine. However, when
(14:28):
you look on Felix's menu, he has Alla macha chiana
and he has got you a pepe and they're really good.
They're really, really really good and then also a Moza,
which is Nancy Silverton's place. Again, both of those dishes
he has on the menu, so it's like they're really
I mean, they're just not Roman classics, they're really Italian classics.
Like people just just want to have them, right. What's
(14:50):
your favorite to make out of the four? My favorite
to make well is my favorite to eat, which is
I want the tomato. Yeah, me too, I just wanted to.
I think the tomato just makes it. You know. Sometimes
I find caccio peppe like after the third bite a
tiny bit like monotonous. It's heavy. Well it's cheese, but
(15:11):
they're all cheesy, but you know, the pecorino is so rich. Yeah,
the pecorinos. You ever been to Padella in London. It's
it's also a pasta bar. They make a great caccio peppe.
I mean, look, I think have you have you eaten
one Chollie before? Not that I can remember, but I'm
sure if it's that classic, I'm sure. I mean you've
(15:33):
probably had it, but it's just so incredibly strong. I mean,
I just don't think that it's it's not for everybody.
What's the easiest one to make? The carbonara? Uh, no oh,
because you don't want to scramble the egg. The actually,
actually the probably the easiest one to make is the
Mazzacian because you don't have to like the sauces tomato.
(15:54):
So basically it's it's tomato sauce, squat choli and then
the pecorino cheese, so you're not you don't have to
emultify the sauce and hope it doesn't separate, would you,
which which you do have to worry about, and caught
you a peppe and carbonar for sure, you know. So
it's it's actually a much easier pasta dish. I think
you should just always make a much I kind of
feel like when it comes to tomato sauce, people say
(16:17):
that like it has to take a whalk, like the
tomato sauce has to take a while for it to
be really good. Do you feel that way? Or is
a quick tomato sauce just as good? And it's a
great question. There's really two kinds of approaches. There's one
that's called marian hour, which is quicker. So that's like,
you know, forty five minutes to an hour, and you know,
(16:38):
can tomatoes maybe some oneion and some garlic boom, that's it,
and crush the tomatoes and then you have like a
marina sauce. It's got it's got sort of it's got
sort of a brighter flavor. Then there's something called like
like sugo, which is like a very long cooked you
know they where you're cooking the tomato sauce. Yeah, I'm like,
I don't know, I don't I want I'll forget too.
(16:59):
I don't know that enough time to make that. I
think for me, I like I like a Marinara sauce
because I wanted to be brighter. I think that if
you're gonna cook tomato sauce for like all day, so
to speak, I want something in it. I want like
you're like you're braising like a pork shoulder or something
in the tomato sauce or some lamb shanks or also
(17:21):
buco or something like that. Then I can completely understand
why you're cooking the tomatoes for that long. Well, you
because you're cooking, because you're picking, You're picking up the
you know, you're picking up the flavor of the pork
or whatever it is. Yeah. No, I just always wondered
because I also like a like a cherry tomato sauce,
A fresh cherry tomato sauce. Yeah, but that doesn't take
(17:42):
a long time. That takes no time. Well, I do
that in the summertime. Yeah, it's so good. So I
just what I do for that for that is I
just cut the cherry tomatoes in half and then I
burst them into olive oil like in the in the pan.
And then all you're doing is letting the juices start
to kind of you spurt out of the tomatoes to
make its own sauce. So basically the sauce is literally
(18:04):
like olive oil the tomatoes and I would sneak a
little butter and at the end, but yeah, very nice.
And then you know I usually put garlic and antchovies
or something like that and then I just wrap it
around some pasta and it's delicious. And that can that
can literally take you know, ten minutes. Come. So now
(18:41):
I'm gonna shut this off. I'm gonna add the cheese
off the heat. And then what you want to happen
is you want to the pasta water and then cheese
a multifier and if it gets too thick, as you do,
add more pasta water. Correct If you want to thicking
it up cheese, yea, and we'll be careful with the
(19:04):
salt because the cheese is salty. That looks so good. Creamy, yeah,
very creamy. Now, if you wanted to add butter to this,
you could, but you don't really need to at this point. Exactly. Yeah,
and more cheese and more pepper. Yes, that's basically it
so so easy. That was quick? Is it's supposed to
(19:27):
be that quick? Or are you just that quick? Well,
it's that quick when the pasta is already cooked, got it?
And that's it. I mean, this is this is the thing.
The thing about this dish is that this is like
you come home from work or you come home from
being out, you haven't eaten yet, and you haven't gone shopping.
Like you have this in your pantry, right, you have
some parmesan with region and cheese probably or some pepperino cheese,
you have some black pepper, you have some pasta. You
(19:48):
can make this yeah easy, Yeah, yeah, let's eat it.
Let's talk about how cato peppe has uh has influenced
food everywhere, like in some ways. What do you mean
by that? Well, because like caccio pepe is actually a dish,
it's a pasta dish, right, yeah, and it clearly means
(20:14):
where what do you think I'm going with this? Are
you going to talk about pizzas well? Everything? Okay, do
you remember that caccio peppe that we had in Vegas
the weekend that Shark was opening And it was like
one am and we were in this random speakeasy and
they gave us cacio pepe with like caviar on top.
Do you remember this? That was? That was at the Palms,
(20:36):
that was upstairs. That was Yeah, that was the very
fancy cocktail bar. Oh I thought it was a speak
easy whatever. Yeah, it was cool though, Yeah, very very cool.
Such a random So now there's there's definitely riffs on these,
you know, like any other classic dish, there's always going
to be riffs on them. I did one this summer
that I thought worked. Okay, I did a coccio corn
(20:58):
caccio pepe in the middle of the summer. So I
don't sound that interested in that. But what was it.
It's fresh corn with with you know, peccorino cheese and
black pepper. It was delicious. What I don't know because
that sounds like does the corn make it a little sweet? Yeah? Yeah,
I don't know. I don't want my catchio a pepper
like that. Okay. Yeah, I did a dish the other
(21:20):
day for Williams and Oma where I took Oh my god,
I can't belie them gonna say this califlower and white beans.
Look at that, okay, with like some aromatics, et cetera,
some chicken broth and I and I cooked it until
it was soft, and then I purate it, and then
I made a gratin, a caccio pepe gratan, so it
(21:42):
was like, you know, cheese and black pepper on crust
on top of it. Yes, and then I put it
into the broiler, so it got really nice and brown
on top. But you got that, You get that caccio
pepe flavor. And underneath it is the cali flower and
the the white beam puree and caccio pepper. Caccio catchio
(22:05):
a peppe cacio e peppe um pizza is very is
very popular. Okay. So here's a really cool thing. When
I was in Rome, went to this pizzeria and the
guy says, I'm gonna share you this caccio pepe pizza pizza.
He takes do you remember this? No? So he takes
(22:26):
the cheese and puts it on top, and he puts
the black pep pepper on top of the dough. And
then he says, and watch this trick, and he takes
ice cubes, oh yes, and sprinkles the ice cubes on
top of the pizza and then puts it in the
oven to bake it. Here's the question, why is he
doing that? Do you know? Okay, I just made caccio
(22:52):
peppe with you right? What were the ingredients? Es? Water?
You melt ice? What do you get water? Yes? So
basically what he's doing is he's taking you know, the
dough has flour in it, of course, so he's creating
the starchy water by melting the ice cubes on the
(23:13):
pizza as it bakes, so that the cheese becomes smooth.
It's a really brilliant idea. You know, it's very you
have a pizza oven. I haven't done it. Actually, I'm
going to try it and then um you know actually
um Pizzana in Los Angeles, his one of his famous pizzas,
has caught you a pepper? I haven't had it. We
got to try it. Yeah, I mean you can cut
(23:34):
you a pepper anything, Yeah, might as well. How about
a roasted chicken with cato peppe? Like, think about it. Down,
you have the roasted chicken and then you have this
crust of like you know, pecorino or parmergano cheese with
black pepper. I mean, who does you want to eat that?
It sounds great? Isn't that sounding? Wait? What about a turkey?
Thanksgiving is coming up? You want to cut you a
pepper turkey? Maybe make a few mashed potatoes. We caught
(23:58):
you a peper. This is the problem with destroying literally
literally destroying traditions. Yes, I think we should just go
back to the bucatinea call it a day. Okay, well,
why don't we have another? Okay? Always Hungry is created
by Bobby Flay and Sophie Flay. Our executive producer is
(24:18):
Christopher Hasiotis. Always Hungry is produced, edited, and mixed by
Jonathan hoos Dressler. Always Hungry is engineered by Sophie Flay.
For more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the I
Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
All right, guys, welcome to Always Hungry from My Heart Radio.
My name is Bobby Flay and I'm here with my
daughter and co host. I'm Flag and I'm Always Hungry.
Sophie and I gather around my stove to cook together. Well,
you cook, I asked the questions, and eat the food.
If does any food left, you come to the table
together to share a meal, connect as a family, and
tell the stories that matter to us. Okay, what are
(00:26):
we making here? So? Uh, you know we're talking about
the classic Roman pastas this four of them. We'll get
to that in a second. Uh, We're gonna make cacchio
at pepe. Do you know what that is a lot
of butter? It's actually zero butter. Cacco means cheese and
pepe means pepper. So it's basically, you don't put any
(00:49):
butter in there. No people do it, okay, but it's
not classics to do it. That's what I do. That's
why I said a lot of butter. Oh Okay, I
mean you can't, you can't with butter in it. But
it's not you know, it's not it's not the Roman
way it but it's not. It's I mean, listen, it's butter,
so it's never a better Yeah. Okay, So basically, um,
(01:10):
this this dish is both easy and not easy. It's
easy because it's it's literally a handful of not even
a handful of ingredients, a few ingredients. So I cooked
off some bugattini, which is a it's like a thicker spaghetti,
but it has a hole in the middle of it.
There's a hole running down the middle of of the
of the noodle, so it kind of absorbs the sauce.
(01:31):
And then I saved the pasta water, which is really
the key to catch you a pepe. Did you know
that I didn't? Now I do. So the pasta water
is a really important thing to save a lot of times,
almost in most of the postas, because it's it's very hot, um,
because you already have the starch from the pasta in
(01:53):
the water, so it helps mustify the sauce that you're
poking in. So we're talking about pasta's the classic Roman
pastas and it's uh, it's really interesting because you know,
not every pasta in Italy is from the same place,
of course, right, you know, every region has its own specialties, etcetera.
(02:17):
As you know, Rome is an important place to me.
I love Rome so much. And there's there's literally four
pastas that Rome is known for. They call him the
four Roman Classics. Okay, so there's something called Agricia Alagricia,
which is probably the least well known past so most
(02:37):
of them. So first of all, let me just say this.
All these pastas are incredibly simple. They have a lot
in common. There are a couple of ingredients that are
either controversial to the traditionalist, but sometimes the people who
think they're being traditionalists don't really know. Are there anchovies
(02:58):
and this one? No, there's no antia always in any
of these, No, you know, no, No. The most common
ingredient in this is guan challi. You know what gan
challi is pork? Yes, it's cured pork jowl cheeks. Is
it kind of in like cubes? Almost? Yeah, it is
(03:19):
most of the time. But I mean it comes as
like a jowl, as like a piece and then you
cut it up. But one, Charlie is a you know,
is a cured pork product. It's the it's the pork jowl.
It's very strong in flavor. It definitely gave me, you know,
it's like it has that that funk to it, you know,
and so, but that's that's the classic. Into the four
classic pastas, I'll just go through them really quickly. Is
(03:42):
Ala Gricia. Then there's Carbonara, Caccio pepe and Ala matiana. Okay,
they all have guan challie in them classically. A lot
of times you'll see panchetta instead, and then every once
in a while you'll see bacon. But like the smokiness
of bacon is not really what you should be doing there.
I use a lot when I make pasta. Is good cured,
(04:04):
you know, pork belly. Um, I have to say, like
the guan shalli for me is too strong. It's just
it's just totally overpowers really, yeah, it's totally overpowers the
pasta dish in my opinion, because there's the ingredients in
these well, well there's no guan cholli in in the
there's no pork in the where you're eating the caccio peppe.
That's just you know, peccorino cheese and black pepper and
(04:27):
some pasta water. But the other three have pork products,
and so let's go through them. So all is probably
the original because basically what it is is, you know,
some kind of pasta spaghetti could be Tonarelli, could be Bugattini, whatever, Torelli.
What is that? It's like it's a thin noodle like spaghetti. Yeah,
(04:48):
and then you know, like a lot of times there's
you know, it's garlic and black pepper, peccorino, cheese and
pasta water and then the guan challi. Some people say
they don't use garlic, you know, I don't know. I
had this conversation with Jada de Laurentis, you know, who
grew up in Rome, was born in Rome, and she's like,
we don't use garlic that often. And I said, okay,
(05:10):
but I like garlic. So and when I'm cooking Italian food,
when I'm cooking Italian food, like most of the time
is garlic in it. Yeah, but that you know again,
you know it's uh, it's all up to interpretation unless
you want to be you know, really steadfast, you know classic.
So that's that's up to you. Anyway. So allagriccia, so
basically Alla gricia is you know, it has you know, garlic,
(05:35):
black pepper, peccorina, guanchali and some pasta ward. It's very
very simple. Then you move on to amatichiana, which is
you know, some people put onions, some people don't put
onions in it. But it's really it's a tomato based
sauce with one shalli okay, and it has pecorino and
it has a little chili pepper, so it's a little spicy.
(05:56):
It's pork like tomato. We that's my favorite because because
I love the sweetness and the fruitiness of the tomatoes
and the acidity from the tomatoes. I think it kind
of bounces out the guancalli or the panchat or whatever
you're using. And of course the you know, the peccorino cheese.
The other thing is that the peccorino is very strong.
Pecorino is no joke, and so a lot of people
opt for parmigiano reggiano and then you know, you know,
(06:20):
true Romans will tell you that that's not classic. But basically,
eat what you want. This is just you know, I
have one of my one of my good friends, Mark Vettori,
who's got you know, great Italian restaurants, and I'm going
to talk about his pasta place in Philadelphia. He uses
a combination of parmigiano reggiano and peccorino. It's like half
(06:41):
and half, which I think is probably a nice idea.
So he's keeping with the tradition of having peccorino, but
he kind of softens with the parmigiano. So basically, I'm
(07:07):
gonna finish cooking the pasta, cooked the cook the noodles,
you know, about three quarters of the way, and then
I'm gonna finish cooking them in the in the pasta.
And what I'm gonna do is, I'm gonna take a
black pepper. Now I'm gonna put the black pepper into
(07:29):
the pasta water. This is actually a trick that my
friend Mark Vetry, who's one of the best Italian chefs
United States maybe in the world, where he where He's
got the black pepper in the pasta water and the
black pepper blossoms, so you get that black pepper flavor. Well,
it's just it's opening up the actual little sort of
(07:52):
the grinds of the black pepper so that it gives
it a more consistent flavor throughout the noodles. You see
what I'm saying. Okay, yeah, so we're gonna let that
let the noodle so finished cooking, and you know, classically
(08:13):
it's peccorino cheese, which is um you know, sheep smolk cheese,
so it's a little more it has a little more
of a stronger flavor than parmesanal Parson was a sweeter flavor. Um.
I know a lot of people nix parmesiano and pecorino,
but you can do what you want. Classic the classic
one is uh pecorino. Then of course is carbonara, Okay,
(08:39):
which you know carbonara is I'm gonna I'm gonna make
it easy for the head. So carbonara is basically bacon
and eggs with black pepper and pasta. It's you know,
it's uh, it's going chale or pin shata. And then
you know, you save the you save the bake, You
save the porch fat or the bacon fat, the pinch
(09:00):
out of fat, whatever, and then you make a mixture
of eggs and the cheese, either pecorino or if you're
cana use parmesan, or both one of those. And then
what you do is you cook the pasta. You take
some pasta water and then in a bowl or or
in the pan if you you know, off the heat.
You have to be very careful because you don't want
(09:22):
to scramble the eggs. But basically what you're doing is
you're coating the warm pasta noodles. Okay, listen to this
really carefully. You're coating the warm pasta noodles with the
raw egg so that the raw egg basically is just
cooking and glazing the pasta noodles without scrambling them. I mean,
that's got to be all about timing. It's about timing,
(09:42):
and a lot of people scramble the eggs. I mean
I do it every once in a while because you know,
I've been drinking. So the the egg isn't raw. It
is raw, no, but it cooks by the time he
cooks it. Yes, it should tally. Most people do it
in a in a bowl where they take they have
the the egg and the cheese mixture in a bowl
(10:05):
and then they and then they put the hot pasta
hot pasta with a little pasta water and they kind
of they kind of mix it up and it just
kind of glazes it. And then you know, then you
throw the throw the pin shadow or the gan cholie
over it. And the black pepper is important. It's called carbonara.
There's there's a story about it being a coal miner's
pasta and the and the black pepper signifies the carbon,
(10:28):
you know, the specks of carbon from the interesting from
the coal mines. It's a little dark, yeah, I mean basically,
you know, there's there's really there's really like interesting stories
about these pastas of being like that they were invented
by the like the shepherds, and you know that that
they always had like a hunk of peccorino cheese, They
(10:50):
always had like some guan chale, and they always had
some pasta and basic you know, it's it's a very peasant,
you know approach to pasta, you know, but then you
know there's some talk that it was from the brut see.
I mean there's there's all kinds of stories. Who knows
it's just good pasta basically when so basically you know history,
you know besides the his you know, truths and falsehoods.
(11:14):
I have no idea which is really true and what's not.
You can if you go online, you can find thirty
different stories about it. The bottom line is that when
you go to Rome, those are the four classic pastas
that you need to know. Just go over to go
do one more time. Catchio pepe is black pepper, pecorino cheese, pasta, water,
and some pasta. That's it. Some people put butter in it, fine,
(11:35):
that's up to you. Carbonara, it's pasta with eggs and
some kind of pork product. I've done that with bacon.
That's good because it's like bacon and eggs. Possibly, but
but basically, you know, gwen chali or pen shadow and
then black pepper, okay, and pecorino cheese and that's you know,
that's the that's the art of time. And Carbonara is
(11:57):
probably the most difficult one. March Chian and Allagricia one
is sort of you know, Alagricia is without tomato sauce,
so it's again it's guan chale and black pepper, maybe
a little garlic, some peccorino cheese, that's it. And then
Matuchiana you had tomato sauce, so you have the guanchali,
the pecorino, maybe a little chili pepper, maybe some onion,
(12:17):
yes or no. I would always put onion because you
always take makes things taste good. It's just incredibly savory.
So when you go to restaurants in Rome when Trottoria is,
you know, everybody says they make the best canchio pepe.
Everybody says they make the best carbonara. You know, there's
there's and frankly, in Rome, like any other big city,
there's really amazing food and there's some food that's not great.
(12:38):
I mean, let's face it, there's a lot of places
that are just you know, I would say touristing more
than anything else. And it's you know, I there's a
place called Felicia that I love and they do the
the carbonara kind of like table side. They also have
a great they also have a great lamb dish, but
we're not talking about one today. We're talking about the
classic pastas and and you know this is these are
(13:02):
the pastas that most Roman trott reas take their pride
in and they all think that they make the best one.
So basically you can gain a lot of pounds trying
to figure out its carbonar in Rome. But it's it's
not a bad way to spend some time. But then
so you know, so there's a handful of um, you know,
(13:22):
really good trot to read is a room that that
I that I like to go to, As I was saying,
Felich is one, well, actually there's there's there's some places
in New York and l A that I like via
Carota in Back City, which is like, you know, it
feels like a Romanta. I go. I go there all
the time. Um, if you want to track me down,
go to Via Carota and I'll be there. Well, you're saying,
(13:47):
it's just it's one of my favorite restaurants in New York.
People people ask me all the time, like what you know,
what's your what's your favorite restaurant? I really I really
love that place. Um, I've taken to you that a
couple of times, right, yeah, so yeah, we've gone with Papa.
It's so good, do it. Yeah, I love I love Yakrota. Yeah. So,
like you know, they'll they'll they'll always have the those
kinds of pastas. And then in Los Angeles, um, you
(14:08):
know Felix, which actually Felix is in Venice, an Abkinney,
and he's known for his pasta's. He hand rolls every pasta, etcetera.
His training is Bologna, which is not room and there's
a completely different, you know, direction of cuisine. However, when
(14:28):
you look on Felix's menu, he has Alla macha chiana
and he has got you a pepe and they're really good.
They're really, really really good and then also a Moza,
which is Nancy Silverton's place. Again, both of those dishes
he has on the menu, so it's like they're really
I mean, they're just not Roman classics, they're really Italian classics.
Like people just just want to have them, right. What's
(14:50):
your favorite to make out of the four? My favorite
to make well is my favorite to eat, which is
I want the tomato. Yeah, me too, I just wanted to.
I think the tomato just makes it. You know. Sometimes
I find caccio peppe like after the third bite a
tiny bit like monotonous. It's heavy. Well it's cheese, but
(15:11):
they're all cheesy, but you know, the pecorino is so rich. Yeah,
the pecorinos. You ever been to Padella in London. It's
it's also a pasta bar. They make a great caccio peppe.
I mean, look, I think have you have you eaten
one Chollie before? Not that I can remember, but I'm
sure if it's that classic, I'm sure. I mean you've
(15:33):
probably had it, but it's just so incredibly strong. I mean,
I just don't think that it's it's not for everybody.
What's the easiest one to make? The carbonara? Uh, no oh,
because you don't want to scramble the egg. The actually,
actually the probably the easiest one to make is the
Mazzacian because you don't have to like the sauces tomato.
(15:54):
So basically it's it's tomato sauce, squat choli and then
the pecorino cheese, so you're not you don't have to
emultify the sauce and hope it doesn't separate, would you,
which which you do have to worry about, and caught
you a peppe and carbonar for sure, you know. So
it's it's actually a much easier pasta dish. I think
you should just always make a much I kind of
feel like when it comes to tomato sauce, people say
(16:17):
that like it has to take a whalk, like the
tomato sauce has to take a while for it to
be really good. Do you feel that way? Or is
a quick tomato sauce just as good? And it's a
great question. There's really two kinds of approaches. There's one
that's called marian hour, which is quicker. So that's like,
you know, forty five minutes to an hour, and you know,
(16:38):
can tomatoes maybe some oneion and some garlic boom, that's it,
and crush the tomatoes and then you have like a
marina sauce. It's got it's got sort of it's got
sort of a brighter flavor. Then there's something called like
like sugo, which is like a very long cooked you
know they where you're cooking the tomato sauce. Yeah, I'm like,
I don't know, I don't I want I'll forget too.
(16:59):
I don't know that enough time to make that. I
think for me, I like I like a Marinara sauce
because I wanted to be brighter. I think that if
you're gonna cook tomato sauce for like all day, so
to speak, I want something in it. I want like
you're like you're braising like a pork shoulder or something
in the tomato sauce or some lamb shanks or also
(17:21):
buco or something like that. Then I can completely understand
why you're cooking the tomatoes for that long. Well, you
because you're cooking, because you're picking, You're picking up the
you know, you're picking up the flavor of the pork
or whatever it is. Yeah. No, I just always wondered
because I also like a like a cherry tomato sauce,
A fresh cherry tomato sauce. Yeah, but that doesn't take
(17:42):
a long time. That takes no time. Well, I do
that in the summertime. Yeah, it's so good. So I
just what I do for that for that is I
just cut the cherry tomatoes in half and then I
burst them into olive oil like in the in the pan.
And then all you're doing is letting the juices start
to kind of you spurt out of the tomatoes to
make its own sauce. So basically the sauce is literally
(18:04):
like olive oil the tomatoes and I would sneak a
little butter and at the end, but yeah, very nice.
And then you know I usually put garlic and antchovies
or something like that and then I just wrap it
around some pasta and it's delicious. And that can that
can literally take you know, ten minutes. Come. So now
(18:41):
I'm gonna shut this off. I'm gonna add the cheese
off the heat. And then what you want to happen
is you want to the pasta water and then cheese
a multifier and if it gets too thick, as you do,
add more pasta water. Correct If you want to thicking
it up cheese, yea, and we'll be careful with the
(19:04):
salt because the cheese is salty. That looks so good. Creamy, yeah,
very creamy. Now, if you wanted to add butter to this,
you could, but you don't really need to at this point. Exactly. Yeah,
and more cheese and more pepper. Yes, that's basically it
so so easy. That was quick? Is it's supposed to
(19:27):
be that quick? Or are you just that quick? Well,
it's that quick when the pasta is already cooked, got it?
And that's it. I mean, this is this is the thing.
The thing about this dish is that this is like
you come home from work or you come home from
being out, you haven't eaten yet, and you haven't gone shopping.
Like you have this in your pantry, right, you have
some parmesan with region and cheese probably or some pepperino cheese,
you have some black pepper, you have some pasta. You
(19:48):
can make this yeah easy, Yeah, yeah, let's eat it.
Let's talk about how cato peppe has uh has influenced
food everywhere, like in some ways. What do you mean
by that? Well, because like caccio pepe is actually a dish,
it's a pasta dish, right, yeah, and it clearly means
(20:14):
where what do you think I'm going with this? Are
you going to talk about pizzas well? Everything? Okay, do
you remember that caccio peppe that we had in Vegas
the weekend that Shark was opening And it was like
one am and we were in this random speakeasy and
they gave us cacio pepe with like caviar on top.
Do you remember this? That was? That was at the Palms,
(20:36):
that was upstairs. That was Yeah, that was the very
fancy cocktail bar. Oh I thought it was a speak
easy whatever. Yeah, it was cool though, Yeah, very very cool.
Such a random So now there's there's definitely riffs on these,
you know, like any other classic dish, there's always going
to be riffs on them. I did one this summer
that I thought worked. Okay, I did a coccio corn
(20:58):
caccio pepe in the middle of the summer. So I
don't sound that interested in that. But what was it.
It's fresh corn with with you know, peccorino cheese and
black pepper. It was delicious. What I don't know because
that sounds like does the corn make it a little sweet? Yeah? Yeah,
I don't know. I don't want my catchio a pepper
like that. Okay. Yeah, I did a dish the other
(21:20):
day for Williams and Oma where I took Oh my god,
I can't belie them gonna say this califlower and white beans.
Look at that, okay, with like some aromatics, et cetera,
some chicken broth and I and I cooked it until
it was soft, and then I purate it, and then
I made a gratin, a caccio pepe gratan, so it
(21:42):
was like, you know, cheese and black pepper on crust
on top of it. Yes, and then I put it
into the broiler, so it got really nice and brown
on top. But you got that, You get that caccio
pepe flavor. And underneath it is the cali flower and
the the white beam puree and caccio pepper. Caccio catchio
(22:05):
a peppe cacio e peppe um pizza is very is
very popular. Okay. So here's a really cool thing. When
I was in Rome, went to this pizzeria and the
guy says, I'm gonna share you this caccio pepe pizza pizza.
He takes do you remember this? No? So he takes
(22:26):
the cheese and puts it on top, and he puts
the black pep pepper on top of the dough. And
then he says, and watch this trick, and he takes
ice cubes, oh yes, and sprinkles the ice cubes on
top of the pizza and then puts it in the
oven to bake it. Here's the question, why is he
doing that? Do you know? Okay, I just made caccio
(22:52):
peppe with you right? What were the ingredients? Es? Water?
You melt ice? What do you get water? Yes? So
basically what he's doing is he's taking you know, the
dough has flour in it, of course, so he's creating
the starchy water by melting the ice cubes on the
(23:13):
pizza as it bakes, so that the cheese becomes smooth.
It's a really brilliant idea. You know, it's very you
have a pizza oven. I haven't done it. Actually, I'm
going to try it and then um you know actually
um Pizzana in Los Angeles, his one of his famous pizzas,
has caught you a pepper? I haven't had it. We
got to try it. Yeah, I mean you can cut
(23:34):
you a pepper anything, Yeah, might as well. How about
a roasted chicken with cato peppe? Like, think about it. Down,
you have the roasted chicken and then you have this
crust of like you know, pecorino or parmergano cheese with
black pepper. I mean, who does you want to eat that?
It sounds great? Isn't that sounding? Wait? What about a turkey?
Thanksgiving is coming up? You want to cut you a
pepper turkey? Maybe make a few mashed potatoes. We caught
(23:58):
you a peper. This is the problem with destroying literally
literally destroying traditions. Yes, I think we should just go
back to the bucatinea call it a day. Okay, well,
why don't we have another? Okay? Always Hungry is created
by Bobby Flay and Sophie Flay. Our executive producer is
(24:18):
Christopher Hasiotis. Always Hungry is produced, edited, and mixed by
Jonathan hoos Dressler. Always Hungry is engineered by Sophie Flay.
For more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the I
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