You know sometimes when you just keep seeing something you hadn’t noticed before and then you do and then you see it everywhere?

That’s been me and cacio e pepe over the last week or so.

I noticed it in two or three recipe books and immediately wanted to eat it, and wanted to make it.

It’s a dish or beautiful simplicity: pasta, pasta water, freshly grated Parmesan or Pecorino and freshly grated black pepper. Sometimes butter too.

So I read more - I googled and read many more reviews and recipes online.

And actually it started sounding complicated! It started sounding like one of those things that is SO simple that’s it’s going to be hard to get it perfect.

I read more and more of the advice and tricks and ‘secrets’ … and then amalgamated all the bits of advice that sounded sensible to me and made my first one.

My first realisation is that no-one should have that fear that it has to be ‘perfect’ because really how wrong can you go with spaghetti and cheese and black pepper?!

It was delicious. However I wanted to make more of the cheese sauce as mine was a little thin.

I also wanted to simplify the method as I’d been swept along with these tips and tricks and so had used both olive oil and butter, a little too much pasta water and had taken the advice on board to let that mixture cool slightly before adding the cheese. Totally unnecessary, I now thought.

Second go I just followed the same basic method but omitted the oil, added less pasta water and didn’t wait before stirring in the cheese to make the sauce before adding the pasta.

Again; delicious!

But this time slightly too much and too cheesy a sauce.

I re-read the original recipe I’d seen from Giorgio Locatelli’s book ‘Made at Home’.

And I found the episode where Anthony Bourdain has it for the first time in Rome - and then it becomes his favourite pasta dish - and watched them make it in the restaurant.

SO much simpler than recipes I’d been reading online.

I discovered the classic version doesn’t even use butter … I haven’t tried that yet as I like the the butter! But I will.

For my third attempt I simplified even further and just went with what I’d now seen and what I feel would work - no more tricks and secrets; just cook the thing and do so with love and anticipation of a good meal.

No more even making the cheese sauce before adding the pasta.

No timing to cool one part before adding another or cooling the pasta slightly.

This is my favourite of the three I’ve made and definitely the simplest (not that any of them could really be called hard but oh goodness do some people like to complicate stuff - I found recipes for this online with PAGES of explanation!).

So, here’s how to make this utterly divine and nourishing and elegant and easy pasta.

If making more than a couple of portions at a time make sure you’ve got a big pan with lots of space for the pasta and the sauce to become one.

To make a quick lunch or dinner for one, you’ll need:

a small handful of spaghetti (about 100g)

a knob of butter (maybe a couple of heaped teaspoons)

1/2 - 1 teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper

a small handful of freshly grated Parmesan or Pecorino cheese

more cheese and more pepper to serve, if liked (personally I didn’t think it needed it)

serve with a big green salad to make it more of a meal

Usually with pasta we use a big saucepan and lots of water but for this dish use a little less water than normal because we want the pasta cooking water to be good and starchy to make the sauce. So I used a slightly smaller pan than usual and a little less water but a good big pinch of salt.

Bring to the boil, add the spaghetti and when it’s back on the boil cook for eight minutes.

Get everything else ready and a couple of minutes before the pasta’s ready get a good big non-stick pan over a medium heat and add a ladleful of water taken from the spaghetti pan.

Then add the butter and stir until it’s melted and the butter/water mixture simmering. Then heat to low and add the black pepper. Add a little more pasta water if needed - you want want it loose but not too much of it.

The pasta should be done by now but don’t ever worry!

If it’s not then turn the sauce off for a minute.

If it was done before you’d finished putting the pepper in then turn the sauce off for a minute while you drain the pasta. Nothing’s a problem.

If the pasta is going to wait for a minute though I’d run cold water through it after draining so it doesn’t get sticky as it waits patiently in its sieve.

OK so now we have a little simmering sauce and we just add the pasta maybe in two batches so each gets to expand into the sauce. Add the first then stir and combine with the sauce before adding the rest of the spaghetti.

Simmer the pasta in the sauce another minute or so so that it can absorb some more liquid and then add the finely grated cheese, tossing and mixing it all together so the cheese melts and you can’t even really see it any more.