Pici with Tuscan ragu sauce

Pici is a typical pasta recipe from the southern Tuscan hinterland that we offer here in a super-classic version to be paired with another classic: Vino Nobile di Montepulciano from Cantine Dei.

The name derives from the fact that the pasta’s preparation involves stringing out (appiciare) the dough by kneading it by hand and then stretching it to create a kind of long and thick spaghetti.

Ingredients for 4 people:

For the pici: ½ kg soft-grain wheat, ¼ liter of warm water and salt as needed. Some people add an egg to the dough but this is not called for in the old traditional recipe.

For the ragu: 250g ground beef, 250g ground pork, 1 sausage, 1 carrot, 1 onion, 1 celery stick, salt and pepper, extra-virgin olive oil, ½ glass of red wine and 600g ripe tomatoes.

Directions:

Start by making the ragu that takes longer to prepare.

Finely chop the onion, celery and carrot and brown them in a pan with oil.

Add in the ground meats and the sausage without its casing and season with salt and pepper.

Sauté the ingredients at a high heat for around 10 minutes and then douse with the wine.

Once the wine has completely evaporated add in the tomatoes that have been pureed, lower the heat and simmer for around two hours.

In the meantime, make a mound with the flour on a pastry board and in the middle put the first part of the water together with a fist of salt and begin to knead starting from the middle of the mound and then add the rest of the water and continue kneading energetically until the dough becomes firm, smooth and homogenous.

Let the dough sit for around 30 minutes under a dishcloth.

Take little pieces of the dough and roll them with the palm of your hand on the pastry board to obtain thick, irregular-shaped spaghetti.

As an alternative, you can roll out the dough into sheet about 1cm-thick and cut small strips and roll them in your hands to obtain a similar shape.

Place the pici back on the pastry board that has been dusted in durum wheat flour to keep them from sticking to each other.

Boil the pici in salted water, stirring them delicately with a wooden fork. Remove the pici as they rise to the surface.

Add the sauce to the pici and serve (adding grated Parmigiano or Pecorino cheese if you desire).

Wine to pair:

Vino Nobile di Montepulciano Cantine Dei

Deep ruby red color. Ripe nose, undergrowth, smoky hint and saffron scent. Intense palate, austere

and dense, pleasant and with a long finish.

Production area: Martiena Vineyard, La Ciarliana and La Piaggia in the Docg area of Montepulciano, on mix soil of clay and stuff. Elevation: 250-350 meters a.s.l.

Grape varieties: 90% Sangiovese and 10% Canaiolo Nero, average plant age 15 years. Training method horizontal spurred cordon, planting density 4,700 per ha, average yield 6 t/ha.  

Wine-making: Soft press; spontaneous fermentation with use of local yeasts in stainless steel at controlled temperature of 26-28° C; maceration of skins for 15-25 days with pump-over. Aging 24 months of which 12-18 months in Slavonian oak barrels and at least 6 months bottle refinement.

Aging Potential: About 10-15 years.

Serving Temperature: 16-18°C.

Suggested Food Pairing: It is best drunk with meat-sauce pastas, roasted meat and Florentine steak.

THIS RECIPE IS OFFERED BY CANTINE DEI 

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