The Secret to Great Cacio e Pepe May Be Cornstarch

The secret to great cacio e pepe may surprise you.

In a new study, a group of researchers says the classic Roman dish can be “scientifically optimized” with the addition of cornstarch, The New York Times reported on Friday. Traditionally, cacio e pepe includes just pasta, pecorino cheese, and black pepper, so the method they recommend is quite unconventional, to say the least.

“It’s very hard to get the right balance,” Fabrizio Olmeda, a statistical physicist who worked on the study, told the Times about the traditional preparation of mixing cheese and pasta water. “And sometimes when you get it correctly, you don’t understand what you did to make it good.”

Rather than combining the pecorino and ground peppercorns with the water left over from cooking the pasta—which can easily result in a clumpy sauce—the researchers took a different tack. After analyzing different versions of the cacio e pepe sauce, they found that starch likely has the biggest influence on consistency, The New York Times noted. Pasta water often doesn’t have enough starch, so they’ve substituted store-bought cornstarch for that step. After dissolving the cornstarch in plain water, the mixture is heated prior to the cheese being added.

For optimal cacio e pepe, the scientists recommend that the concentration of starch should be 2 to 3 percent the weight of the cheese, the Times wrote. In their recipe, which serves two hungry people, they use 2/3 cup of cheese and just less than a teaspoon of starch. Of course, when testing out the various recipes, the researchers went through a hefty amount of pecorino: Giacomo Bartolucci, another author on the study, estimates that 11 pounds of cheese were used.

“None of our samples were wasted,” Bartolucci told the newspaper. “Our friends came by to say hi, to see how it was going. And they helped us, eating up all the samples.”

Purists may decry these changes to such a stand-by Roman dish, which the researchers are well aware of. But they’re hoping that the inclusion of eight Italian authors helps sway those who may be initially put off by the modern reinterpretation of cacio e pepe. If anything, it’s a fun new recipe—and science experiment—you can try out in your kitchen next time you have a hankering for pasta.

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