Yesterday was my last day in Siena and I got to cross off the final thing on my bucket list, a cooking class. We made a couple of different Tuscan dishes, and one that is specifically unique to Siena, pici pasta. Pici pasta is hand rolled, imperfect pasta. Pici is often referred to as ‘pici Senesi’ because of its origins in Siena. From a brief google search, I found that this pasta dates back to Etruscan times. There is a tomb in ancient Tarquinia that has a fresco showing a servant carrying a bowl containing a long, irregular pasta. This tomb is from the 5th century B.C. and the pasta is thought to be the ancestor of pici. This pasta is fairly easy to make. To make the dough, one combines eggs and flour. Next, one must knead the dough until it is the right consistency. We then cut it into little pieces and rolled out each little piece into thin imperfect noodles. We paired this pasta with a homemade garlic tomato sauce. The instructor of our cooking class showed us how to make a fluffy garlic sauce. She blended cloves of garlic in a food processor at a specific speed that made it turn into a fluffy cloud of garlic. She then added a bit of water and blended again. We paired this with fresh tomatoes, lots of olive oil, and different seasonings. It was delicious. The pici pasta was our first dish.
For our appetizer, we made pomodori con riso (tomatoes with rice). We cut the tops off of whole tomatoes, scooped out the inside, and filled them with day-old rice which was mixed with tomato sauce. We then put bread crumbs and the tomato tops back on top and put them into the oven to bake. For our second dish, we had veil with tuna sauce and tomatoes with a herb glaze that was fully prepared by our instructors. For dessert, we prepared a type of flan dish that was delicious. I really enjoyed doing this cooking class and learning about the origins of these dishes.
