Brad and Chrissy Make Vegan Cacio e Pepe with Grilled Mushrooms

Sorry, are we supposed to be keeping distance?

Yeah, keep it six.

Six!

Outstretch that arm.

That's it. Yeah, that's about it.

Hey, I'm Chrissy.

Hey, I'm Brad.

[laughing]

I'm sorry.

Why did I...

[lively upbeat music]

We are back at the log cabin.

Beautiful, by the way.

This is where I filmed the first video.

It's gorgeous.

We're in the middle of nature.

I absolutely love it here.

I've been living here for little under a year at this point.

It's like quarantine heaven right now.

Connecticut, in my opinion,

I don't know if I ever told you this,

my theory or my opinion on Connecticut.

I think it's one of the most underrated

states in the Northeast.

I would agree.

You know, that growing up,

it was always just like a drive through state,

like to get somewhere cool.

Like Vermont or Maine or Rhode Island or something.

But Connecticut's pretty awesome, don't tell anyone.

You got a good garden going, not bad.

Good place to call home, man.

So Chrissy, what kind of,

what kind of pasta am I going to be

enhancing with mushrooms today?

Okay, so today we are making

a vegan caccio e pepe dish

and we are using bucatini for this dish.

And the base is cashews

because they create a really creamy texture for the sauce.

So I'm really excited.

I've got some, maitake

and some fresh lion's mane mushrooms.

Those are my favorite.

Yeah, you know, right now, it's been pretty dry.

Otherwise I'd say we'd have a pretty good chance of,

of foraging around and finding, you know,

at least some hen-of-the-woods.

[Chrissy] Yeah.

But farmed ones are just as awesome.

You know, being in Connecticut,

I figured that we would just find a Connecticut farmer

and hook us up with some awesome farmed ones

that I'm going to grill up and then we'll put in the dish.

What's the first step that you start with in this dish?

So first I heavily salted the pasta water,

that's important folks.

And the next step is we're gonna

actually blend the cashews with some miso

and some water so that it kind of builds

that creamy base that we need

to really make this dish successful.

Oh, in the miso, yeah yeah.

And that'll add a nice little salt to it too.

Add a nice little salt,

kind of deepen those flavors a bit.

And add a little

bit of umami. Well I brought,

the misos I brought, ones a gift, a house gift.

This is my first time here.

I like to bring a gift to friends.

It's the first time to their home.

So it's a miso I've been making at home.

I started in the beginning of the quarantine.

I made the Koji and then it's

been aging ever since. It's beautiful.

So we can use that one.

And I brought you another one

where it's just some white miso

that I packed some garlic in.

And just let that ferment.

So open that up, give it a smell.

I think the garlic one will work

really well with this dish,

since we're already kind of using garlic

as one of the flavors,

but it'll just kinda add a little bit more.

I think so, it makes sense.

There's not many... Oh my God.

Yeah, right?

It smells so freaking good. There's not many

pasta dishes where garlic doesn't work.

Garlic all day.

Don't have to think about it.

Yeah, you don't have to tell me, garlic.

I'm like they should, the garlic board, if there is one,

it should be paying me, because I love it so much.

Well yeah, I wish I could help you.

Wish I had like 12 foot arms, I guess, nevermind.

Just delete that entire sentence please.

So we're gonna add a cup of these pre-soaked cashews

to our blenders.

And then the next thing I do is just pop two cloves

of pre-peeled garlic in.

Pre-peeled, as in I already smashed and peeled.

I don't judge people that do, but I don't,

I don't really buy the pre-peeled.

Oh no, no, I peeled it.

[Brad] They kind of freak me out a little.

They're weird.

[Chrissy] They're a little weird I've heard some

weird things about.

I've heard some weird things.

I don't even want to go there.

[laughing]

Oh, this is beautiful. So what you thinking,

like a tablespoon?

Two tablespoons.

All right, excellent.

Two heaping tablespoons, I might add.

Two heaping tablespoons.

So how much water are you thinking?

This is great, I'm gonna remember

all of this. I'm just gonna

start with about.

You can, it's an easy dish.

Again, I like easy vegan cooking.

You know what I'm saying?

So we're gonna add about half a cup

and you can add more as needed,

but you just want to kind of blend that

and see what it does.

If you want to just take a peek I'll step back.

It could still be blended a little bit more.

I want it to be a little bit creamier.

So I'm going to go ahead and...

Still a little texture on the sides, I guess.

But it's got like a nice,

kind of like

a tahini consistency That smell.

That means it was

amazing. Yeah with the garlic too.

That smells real good.

So I'm just gonna add a little bit more of this water.

You made a good point before

when you like, just add a little bit of water at first.

Even if it doesn't come together,

because you add too much

and you know, you can't take it out.

You can't take it out and then it's no good.

After you, after this is done with the blender,

what's next, should I throw these on the grill?

You should throw those boys on the grill.

I'm gonna heat up these burners.

Get that pasta water boiling again

and get started on the sauce.

And then, you know, we'll come together.

Yeah, sounds good.

Okay, so now this mix is fully blended, super creamy.

See some heat coming off, the Vitamix is super powerful,

But if it, if your sauce does not look like this

at this point, then I would just say keep blending.

Add a little bit more water as needed and go from there.

You know, I knew you would probably be using some pepper.

So I brought, I made a little mixture

where my, black and pink peppercorn mixture,

it's like 50-50, and it just smells,

it does such a wonderful thing.

Oh my God.

[Brad] It's so fruity.

It's such a

deep floral notes. I thought it would be

really good on the pasta.

[Brad] I would be happy, Use it all.

I'm just going to throw this out.

[Brad] Can I use some of that? I'm gonna

put it right here.

Look at that.

Goodbye, regular black pepper.

It's called composting.

The pink peppercorns, they really kind of have

like a different like cherry pit inside it.

You know, like a fruit pit?

And I think that, though some of them

are still kind of whole in there or halved.

I think they'll bloom nice in the oil.

[Chrissy] Absolutely.

And then I have a little mixture of like,

it's just like a little,

it's kind of like a riff of like a za'atar,

and a vira-cocky kind of.

I always sprinkle it on mushrooms.

Oh my God.

There's a little sumac in there?

Some toasted sesame and seaweed.

It's optional.

That'll also compliment I think the sauce.

A little sprinkle.

Yeah, we can throw that on top.

I'll just put that right here too.

That's the common pinching ground.

So Chrissy, I mean, you mentioned,

so how long have you been, have you been vegan.

I've been vegan for about a year and a half now.

So it's actually not that long.

I was vegetarian my whole life, prior to that,

I grew up in a vegetarian household.

You know, I care about climate change

and my environmental footprint a lot.

So that was, that had a lot to do

with my transition to veganism.

Sure.

But also I had a couple of health things going on,

so it was a really good option for me

and what I needed out of a diet.

And then animal rights, I do care about the animals.

I feel like most people generally probably do eat

too much meat in general and you know,

probably including myself.

And I find mushrooms to be,

especially some of the, like some more than others,

but something like a maitake

or hen-of-the-woods, same.

They have such a,

sometimes I can scratch that craving or itch

for like, you know, a piece of chicken or pork

or steak or something.

I can, you know, just cook up a big,

like, look at this thing.

You know, it's like a couple of those,

you know, some rice and a little sauerkraut,

you know, it's kind of, you can call it dinner, you know.

[Chrissy] Really good.

Look at that.

It's almost cooking like a, like a swordfish steak.

[Chrissy] That looks cool. You know,

like a pork chop or something,

you know, where it gets that nice...

That nice browned.

The nice Mayard reaction.

And I just put a little bit of olive oil and some salt.

And then I just pushed them and they kinda,

they flatten out real nice.

And they'll pick up some color like that.

All right, now that our pasta water is boiling.

I'm just going to go ahead and add our...

Get the bucatini in.

Bucatini, to the pot.

I'm using this Sclafani brand.

It's some Italian company,

that's in Norwalk, Connecticut, actually.

Oh, no kidding.

It's pretty cool.

One thing that I've been experimenting a lot with

over, you know, quarantine has been like

cultured cashew cream cheeses and things like that.

Which would've been awesome.

You know, I do a lot of fermentation,

but you know, before COVID kind of happened,

I was doing a lot less of it at home just cause I was,

I was busy and it was just like, you know,

it's fermentations are like one of those projects,

that are like little babies, you gotta watch them, you know?

And it's nice to be able to have,

to be able to do them at home.

And I have two little kids and like, you know,

they get excited when I'm doing certain things.

That's so cute.

Sometimes they're not so thrilled,

but they really liked the bread.

Okay, so now that our sauce pan is heated through,

I'm just going to reduce the heat a little bit

and I'm going to start by adding two tablespoons

of olive oil to the pan.

So I'm going to go ahead and add

this beautiful mix of pink and black peppercorns

to the pan now.

And we're just going to allow those to toast.

Hey, what's your take on a little bit of heat?

Well, you put a little bit

of cracked pepper in there, right?

I did, yeah.

And look, check this out.

I got a little bit of fermented pepper flake powder.

Yeah, the Poor Devil Farm,

Poor Devil Pepper Company up in New York.

That's cool. I'm just gonna add

a little pinch over the,

let it kind of meld into the mushrooms.

[Chrissy] Absolutely.

[Brad] I wanted to ask you first, you know.

Yeah no, I think that will lend itself well,

cause I'm, you know, using red pepper flakes

in the dish right now.

So a little spice never hurt nobody.

[Brad] Yeah, smell this.

Oh my God.

[Brad] Right?

That smells, I can't even describe it.

It's like the byproduct of this hot making sauce.

Hot making sauce, hot sauce making.

Hot making sauce.

And I'm just adding a little bit of onion powder as well.

Just a dash.

So in a traditional like caccio, you know,

You have eggs.

You have a lot of Parmesan, right?

Obviously we needed to find a way to make it work

without those things.

So it was really cool to kind of

go on this process of finding, you know,

what flavors would work best with it.

Obviously the pepper is a very bold flavor in the dish.

So, you know, once you kind of have those notes,

it kind of captures the essence of it in all the right ways.

So now that our spices are well toasted,

I'm actually going to go ahead and add the sauce mixture

that we blended before to the pan.

So I'm just going to turn the heat down a little bit.

So once you add the cashew mix,

the sauce kind of coagulates really quickly.

So you want to mix vigorously to combine

with the oil and the spices.

And it should be kind of this deep kind of tan color

by this rate.

And then once the sauce kind of thickens,

what you want to do is go ahead and start adding

some of that starchy pasta water.

I usually add about a cup and a half

so that you can have a sauce that well coats the pasta.

Don't get alarmed if you see a lot of chunks,

just keep stirring and it'll smooth itself out.

Especially with the addition of the pasta water.

You know, I don't, I'm still on the,

I think a little chunk might be nice in that sauce.

[Chrissy] You think so?

Little chunks never hurt nobody?

No a little chunk never hurt nobody.

How are those mushrooms coming along?

Yeah, I'm gonna give you a little smell.

They smell so good.

Oh my God.

Right?

What do you think we should do with them?

Should we chop them up and add them in?

I'll just kinda, I'll just kind of petal them.

Petal them on top?

Can we do that these days?

Let's look to the lawyers.

Can we, can I touch the food?

My hands are clean, I swear.

So I'm going to go ahead and juice this half of a lemon.

Just adds a little bit of brightness to the dish.

It's really great.

And then give that a good stir.

Just to well incorporate it.

And that's the sauce folks.

[cartoon music]

[Brad] Hot making sauce.

Now, we're just gonna go ahead and add our pasta,

fold that right in.

And I still have the heat on just on very low,

cause I want this to well combine.

So what I like to do is just kind of tear them by hand.

You know, I'll use these forks here

and they just have like a nice little petals.

You know, like little, little pieces, you know.

Or you could keep them, however you wanted to eat this dish.

You could take a couple little petals, you know,

and put them right on whole.

I'll give, let's give her some options

you know, to plate with.

Yeah, before I fold the pasta, you know, we can,

we can save a few for like plating on top, yeah.

[Brad] We'll do both. We can

mix them in.

[Brad] Yeah, that's what we'll do.

That sounds great.

In the meantime,

I'm just going to go ahead and prepare the zest.

So you just want to focus on

kind of getting that thin outer layer.

So just zest lightly.

I zested about half a lemon

[Brad] Looks like smoked chicken breast or something.

[Chrissy] Oh, it really does.

[Brad] Let's see if it tastes good.

[Chrissy] That looks damn good.

If you want to try with me?

I've never had it like this.

I just want to throw that out there.

First time?

If lion's mane, people are like,

this is the worst way.

Everyone knows, this is not how you cook lion's mane.

Well, we're going to find that out,

but maybe it's delicious.

You know what's interesting?

It's got this kind of like...

Skin?

That, but also it's got a little bit of like

citrus notes in it.

It takes the salt very nicely.

It does. It wants the salt.

I think it's very good.

[Chrissy] That's tasty.

Air high five.

Yeah, COVID hug.

[laughing]

I love that.

[Brad] We'll slice a couple of those up.

Doesn't really want to be cut.

[Chrissy] Whenever you're ready, we'll just like

fold it all together.

Flying in the mushrooms.

[Chrissy] Well, thank you.

So we chopped up some I'd say there's what there,

about a half cup, cup?

Yeah, it's like a half a cup, I'd say.

Well, cup, if you were talking about the whole kind of...

It's a nice little cluster of petals there

and then we can put on top.

Yeah, we'll plate that on top.

That would be real nice.

So now we're just going to kind of fold these in.

[Brad] That sauce looks so good.

It's very rich and creamy and just delicious.

[Brad] It just coats the pasta perfectly.

You want to do the honors and plate these boys?

Sure please, yeah.

Tong it.

Yeah, tong that.

Oh yeah, that's what I'm talking about.

I don't have my twirl down just right.

[Brad] Me neither.

Just kind of like make it all beautiful.

Yeah, we'll make it beautiful.

Oh God.

This one we'll have to sacrifice to me.

Let me just walk away for a second.

It's delicious.

It's, so what you've got a little bit of cheese?

Or no, not cheese, but.

It's vegan Parmesan.

We've got a little lemon zest, a little red pepper flakes.

And then I also wanted to finish with a little bit

of that peppercorn mixture there.

Please, cool.

Yeah, that'll be really good.

[Brad] Should we each do our own?

[Chrissy] Yeah, to each his own, right?

Well please.

This one looks wonderful.

[Chrissy] You can do whatever you want

with the cheese and the zest.

Just get in there.

You know what, I'll do it.

A little vegan, same color.

We'll put it on the side.

Okay, not for the picture sake, just for my sake.

And then we'll do a little pepper.

[Chrissy] And then a little

of that peppercorn, yeah, okay.

Great, well it looks awesome.

I think I'm gonna try to go with like a whole nice

little piece of topper mushroom

Yeah.

And then a whole little composed bite there, you know?

Absolutely.

It's got a kick on the back of the throat.

[Brad] It does, it's nice though.

I like that a lot.

You get it from the pepper on the mushrooms

and then you put the crushed red pepper on top.

This is really good.

I think this is a really great starter dish

for anyone that's just looking to explore

more meatless options.

That's really my main focus, right?

Just again, making veganism a little bit more fun,

a little bit easier, so that

you don't have to really think about

that week night dinner.

You can kind of just throw it all together

and it comes together so quickly.

Yeah, I mean, we cooked this outside.

If we were doing it inside and you were like

seriously making dinner

that would have came together super quick.

Really quick.

And I think, the key is sometimes add in little,

little things, like a grill, a little maitake mushroom,

or a little miso or something, you know?

You even like feel better about eating a lot of it, right?

And like, when you think about a traditional

creamy pasta dish.

It's so heavy and it kind of,

sometimes it makes you feel bad after you eat it.

[Brad] Yeah, it's a lot of...

There's a lot going on.

Whereas this, you can kind of just, you know,

eat it and still feel good after which is important.

Yeah, I mean, to me, I felt like the maitakes,

they had like, you know, just by nature,

they have like a juiciness to them.

But it, they kind of lightened up the dish in a way, right?

[Chrissy] Exactly.

So it was awesome.

Well, thanks for sharing the recipe with me.

I'm definitely going to, I'm going to make versions of that,

if not that.

And the sauce as bases for all types of things.

That's a great way to cook and just,

and really just diversify what you eat.

Thanks for cooking with me.

Thanks for having me.

We'll see you next time.

I like it sometimes to like where it's so hot,

it makes my skin itch.

[Chrissy] Oh my God, me too.

I'm like that hurts so good.

It feels good.

[laughing]

All right, you're up doctor.