The romano cheese in this recipe made me reminisce to the first Christmas Jeremy and I were married (4 years ago!). For Christmas, my cheese-loving mumma had given us this GIANT, and I'm talking GIANT block of romano cheese. At first we didn't really know what to do with it! Then, that cheese started going on EVERYTHING. We sure did live the high cheese life for a couple of months. And that is the really nice thing with romano, it lives on for ages. Sadly though, we ended up breaking our grater we were grating so much romano :) Not surprisingly, that winter was also the winter of pirogies for Jeremy. Lots and lots of cheesy pirogies. But this post isn't about pirogies, it's about spaghettis so lets get on with it. Bon appétit!!
Coarse salt
12 ounces spaghetti
1 1/2 cups finely shredded Pecorino Romano cheese (4 ounces)
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 piece of boneless skinless chicken, cut into cubes
1 red pepper, sliced in long spears
1/2 red onion, chopped
Directions:
1. In a large pot of boiling salted water, cook spaghetti until al dente. Reserve 1 cup pasta water.
2. While pasta is cooking, cook your chicken with a little bit of olive oil. When chicken is cooked, add onions and then red pepper. Red pepper should only cook for 1-2 minutes so that it is still relatively firm.
3. Drain pasta; return to pot.
4. To pasta in pot, add 1 cup reserved pasta water. Gradually add 1 cup Pecorino, tossing constantly with tongs until cheese is melted; add pepper. Toss to coat pasta lightly; if desired, gradually add a little more pasta water to thin.
5. Top pasta with serving of chicken & red pepper dish and sprinkle each dish with a portion of your remaining 1/2 cup cheese. Enjoy!
Spaghetti without tomato sauce? This is madness! I'll have to check for this cheese though. It sounds good.
ReplyDeleteHey my brotha'. You know what I think? I think that under that cool exterior there's a cook just dying to explore a tomato-sauceless frontier. The other night we had pasta with sauce made from butter-nut squash. Now THAT was out there. This particular pasta dish was pretty yummy. I think yummier the next day for my lunch because the cheese & pepper had time to ... 'think about it' as the James' say. As usual, the more cheese the better!
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