Cold or warm water for the pasta dough? Oil or no oil? Only plain flour or semolina? Egg or no egg? As with all traditional recipes, everyone has their own pici recipe that they consider authentic. For those not familiar with pici, it’s a type of homemade pasta widespread in Tuscany and throughout central Italy. The preparation consists of ”appiciare” or working the dough by hand to create a long and fat noodle.
The classic sauce for them? No doubt a garlic sauce called aglione, a simple to prepare and particularly garlicky sauce!
Pici all’aglione
Serves: 4
For the pici:
400g of plain flour
1 tablespoon of La Maliosa Biodynamic extra virgin olive oil
200g of cold water
1 pinch of fleur de sel
For the sauce
8 cloves of garlic
2 tablespoons of La Maliosa Biodynamic extra virgin olive oil
300g of peeled tomatoes
100g of tomato puree
1 dried chilli (optional)
a pinch of sugar
salt
Method
Sift the flour. Add the salt. Create a well in the centre and pour in the water and oil. Knead to form a ball. Rest for about 10 minutes. Roll the dough out with a rolling pin to a thickness of 1cm. Cut into 1cm-wide strips and form the pici by rolling the strips of dough by hand into long sausage-like spaghetti. Place the pici on a floured surface.
Peel the garlic cloves, cut in half and remove the inner seed. Slice very thinly.
Place in a pan with the oil and pepper and brown over a low heat. Add the tomatoes (crushed with a fork) and season with salt and sugar. Cook for 5 minutes, then add the tomato puree.
Allow to simmer for 10 minutes, stirring often with a wooden spoon.
Cook the pici in boiling salted water. Drain and toss in the pan with the sauce. Serve immediately.
Recipe, photo and styling: Sara Milletti
