Tomato Pici alle Briciole
Written by Caterina Elias
Pici is one of the easier pasta shapes to make. In one of my weekly ventures to make a new dish for my family, I wanted to make pici con le briciole, but had some leftover tomato sauce to use up. So I thought, “why not?” I incorporated it into the pasta itself, thus marrying two classic Tuscan recipes: pici all’aglione and pici alle briciole. The result is a pale red pasta with crunchy breadcrumbs in a garlicky olive oil.
This recipe was submitted in our October 2020 Recipe Contest. Find out how to participate in our next contest here.
Tomato Pici alle Briciole
Serves 4
Prep time: 25 Minutes, plus resting
Cook time: 10 Minutes
Ingredients
For the pici:
300 grams flour
150 grams tomato purée
2 teaspoons olive oil
2 teaspoons salt
Semolina flour, q.b. (optional)
For the sauce:
8 tablespoons olive oil
2 garlic cloves
60 grams coarse breadcrumbs
Method
To make the pici:
Place the flour on a clean surface and make a well in the center. Add the tomato purée, salt and olive oil to the well. Stir with a fork to incorporate and, when it gets too difficult, start mixing with your hands. Knead until the dough is homogeneous, smooth, soft and elastic (it shouldn’t be sticky). Leave it in an oblong shape.
Cover the dough with a bowl and let it rest for 30 minutes at room temperature.
With a knife, cut the dough lengthwise to get a thick slice. Continue to cut it lengthwise several times to divide the slice in strips.
Roll each strip of dough against the surface from the center outwards. When rolling into your desired thickness, keep in mind that the cooking process will expand the pasta and leave it slightly thicker. Repeat with the remaining dough. The finished strands of pici should not overlap in order to keep them from sticking together (to make sure this doesn’t happen, the pasta can be dusted with semolina).
To assemble the dish:
Cook the pici in well-salted boiling water (the cooking time will depend on the thickness and desired doneness of the pasta).
While the pasta cooks toast the breadcrumbs in a pan to toast.
Remove the breadcrumbs. Add the olive oil and smashed garlic to the pan and let it gently fry for about 2 minutes (without burning the garlic).
Remove the garlic, add the drained pasta and breadcrumbs to the mixture, and toss to combine.
Portuguese girl eager to learn about the diverse Italian culture and cuisine. Always with my hands in some sort of dough.
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