Pici Pasta

Pici pasta is another typical recipe from the rural farming tradition, made by hand with just two ingredients: water and flour.
Pici are shaped by hand from a very simple eggless dough; the pasta is similar to spaghetti but thicker, and perfect with rich game or duck sauces, with meat sauce, and with the typical ‘sugo all’aglione’ spicy tomato sauce.

Ingredients:

1 kg ‘Type 0’ (all-purpose) flour
500 ml warm water
Salt

Preparation:

Mix all the ingredients and knead to obtain a uniform, compact dough. Allow the dough to rest for about 30 minutes.

Roll out the dough to a thickness of about 1 cm and cut into strips. Roll each strip between the hands to lengthen the strips and reduce the pici to the desired diameter. Place the finished pici on a floured cloth; sprinkle with coarse durum-wheat flour.

That’s all there is to it! Your pasta is now ready to cook and toss with your favourite sauce!

Bonus – Recipe for ‘Sugo all’Aglione’

What would pici be without the typical ‘sugo all’aglione’ sauce? Now that you know how to make the pici, we couldn’t not give you the recipe for the most classical of sauces for this typical hand-rolled eggless pasta. Here’s how to prepare it:

Peel 700 grams of ripe tomatoes: plunge into boiling water for a few seconds and slip the skins off. Chop the tomatoes coarsely.
Peel and crush 6 large cloves of garlic.
In a skillet, sauté the garlic in olive oil with a pinch of hot red pepper (optional) until the garlic begins to soften.
Add the tomatoes and 1 tablespoon of white wine vinegar. Add salt to taste.
Simmer the sauce over a low flame until it is rich and creamy.
Cook and drain the pici; add to the sauce and toss in the pan.

And . . . buon appetito!

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