Cookbook Club – The Mozza Cookbook

For November’s Cookbook Club, we used The Mozza Cookbook: Recipes from Los Angeles’s Favorite Italian Restaurant and Pizzeria by Nancy Silverton, Matt Molina, Carolynn Carreno, and Mario Batali. I made the Bavette Cacio e Pepe. You can share in our full at-home restaurant experience on my Cookbook Club site. For now – my dish!

“Cacio e pepe” literally translates to “cheese and pepper”. And that’s pretty much what it is. But it’s SO good. I’ve had it in Italian restaurants and always enjoyed it, but inwardly chided myself for ordering something so simple I should be able to make it at home. I’d always meant to learn, so this was my chance!

I started the pasta boiling (two minutes less than the package instructed, so that it would be al dente). The recipe called for Bavette, but I couldn’t find any at the store, so I used fine linguine. About a minute before the pasta was ready, I heated olive oil, pepper, and 1/2 cup of the pasta water in a pan.

I drained the pasta and added it to the oil mixture, stirring and cooking for 2 minutes. Here the recipe said to add more reserved pasta water if the pasta got too dry, but I didn’t find I needed to do this.

I turned off the heat and let the pasta rest for one minute. Then I added grated Parmigiano-Reggiano and Pecorino Romano cheese, stirring vigorously.

I drizzled with finishing-quality olive oil, twirled into as presentable of a mound as I could manage, and that was it – so easy!

This dish is so delicious and simple to make at home, I will never order it in a restaurant again! I snagged a freshly made bite and it was fantastic, but it was also good room temp by the time we were eating it at the Cookbook Club. And also quite tasty microwaved for 30 seconds, which warmed it back up and amped up the pepper flavor.