While researching cuisine in Italy, British author Vicky Bennison was dismayed by the number of handmade pasta recipes and traditional cooking skills that seemed in danger of disappearing. Inspired to help preserve these culinary treasures, she traveled all over Italy filming nonne (grandmothers) preparing these recipes, then posted them to what became a successful YouTube channel.
As we detailed in a recent article, Bennison’s new book, Pasta Grannies: The Secret of Italy’s Best Home Cooks, features 75 of these recipes—including this one from Giuseppina Spiganti, a 93-year-old nonna and co-founder of a local pici food festival in southern Tuscany.
If you can't make it to Italy, here's the recipe for you, buon appetito!
Giuseppina's Pici with Garlic Tomato Sauce
Serves 4 People
For the pasta:
400 g (3 1/3 cups) 00 flour or plain (all-purpose) flour
Pinch of salt
1 egg
about 2/3 cup water
Semolina flour, to roll the pici in
For the garlic sauce
4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
5 garlic cloves, ones that have not developed their green shoots
Fresh red chili peppers, to taste
(Giuseppina uses one, sliced into three)
2 tablespoons tomato purée
400 g (14 oz) plum tomatoes, preferably San Marzano
Salt
For the sauce:
The sauce has to simmer for a couple of hours, so start this before your pasta.
Pour the olive oil into a small saucepan – it should cover the base to a depth of ¼ inch. Warm the oil over a low heat and sauté the whole garlic cloves until you can crush them with a spoon; they shouldn’t burn. This will take about 20 minutes.
About 15 minutes into the cooking, add the chili pepper, and continue frying the two ingredients for the final 5 minutes.
Stir through the tomato purée, followed by the plum tomatoes. Break up the tomatoes with a wooden spoon, season with salt, and add half a tin of water. Let this simmer very gently over a low heat for 2 hours, adding a splash of water from time to time if you need to. You want a thick sauce at the end.
Giuseppina then uses a food mill to purée the sauce, to make sure the garlic and chili disappear. You could also use a hand-held blender.
For the pasta dough:
Tip the flour onto your board in a heap. Use your fingers to make a well in the center, making sure it’s not too wide or the rim too low, otherwise your egg mixture will overflow.
Pour the egg, water and salt into the well. Take a fork (or use your fingers) and scramble the egg mixture sufficiently when you lift the fork and you have a homogeneous, non-clumpy looking liquid that falls smoothly from your fork.
Draw your fork round the inside of the flour wall, so a small quantity of flour falls into the egg mixture. Whisk it in, smooshing any lumps, so you gradually create a batter. Repeat until you have a mixture that won’t run all over the board. At this point you can cave in the flour walls and mix in the rest of the flour with a bench scraper by scraping the flour inwards and over the batter. Of course, you can beat the egg mixture and flour together in a bowl, even with a food mixer—but it’s not as fun!
Mop up any flour with your dough and give it a quick knead. If it is sticky, add a tablespoon of flour and knead it in. It is better to adjust your dough now than later.
Fill a shallow bowl with semolina flour to drop your pici into, to stop them from sticking together. Place a small bowl of water to the side of your pasta board, so you can keep your fingers moist while rolling the dough into pici (or use a small spritzing bottle filled with water).
Roll the dough out quite thickly, about ¼-inch. Then slice it up, making ½ x 5-inch batons. Take each one, place it on the board and place both your hands together over the pasta. Keep your fingers straight and roll out the pasta, moving your hands apart. You are creating a spaghetti strand, so try and keep the pasta even in thickness. Giuseppina’s pici are much slimmer than some of the tubby versions you see on the Internet; aim for about 3 mm in diameter and 15 ¾-inches long.
Drop your finished pici into the semolina. If the bowl starts getting a little crowded, move them onto a tray. Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil and drop the pici in. Cook for 2 minutes and then test for doneness. Drain and stir through the sauce – you want it to cling to the pasta and not puddle around it. Serve immediately. Traditionally, no cheese is added.