Pici

Thick uneven strands rolled under the palms, with no egg in the dough.

Vegan.

Ingredients

• 400 g plain flour
• 200 ml warm water
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1.5 teaspoons salt
• 6 garlic cloves, sliced
• 100 g coarse breadcrumbs
• 6 tablespoons olive oil, for the sauce
• 1 dried chilli

Method

1. Mix the flour, water, oil and salt to a firm dough. NO EGG: this is a poor man's pasta and the egg versions are a different thing.
2. Knead 12 minutes, then rest it, oiled and covered, for an hour.
3. Flatten a piece to 1 cm and cut strips, then ROLL EACH STRIP UNDER YOUR PALMS, working outwards, until it is a rope the thickness of a thin pencil and 30 cm long.
4. THEY SHOULD BE UNEVEN. A pici that looks machine-extruded has been rolled too carefully — the lumps and thin spots are what make the dish, because they cook to different degrees of chewiness in one mouthful.
5. Toast the breadcrumbs in two spoons of oil until gold and tip them out of the pan.
6. Warm the rest of the oil with the garlic and chilli.
7. Boil the pici — they need 8 to 10 minutes, far longer than they look like they should — then turn them through the garlic oil and scatter the crumbs over at the table.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Italy · All recipes