Assuming that this isn’t the first Auntastasia post you have read, you have probably figured out that I love Italy. But Italy is far from a monolith, and there are some places that I might love a little more than others. Siena is one of those places. I have often said that I would retire there if I could. I do not think that I could even entirely explain why Siena holds such a special place for me, other than that it is absolutely beautiful and, at least when I was there last, not as overrun with constant tourists as other Italian cities. Sadly, it has been quite a few years since I have been.
The last time I was in Siena it was at the end of June in the days leading up to the Palio. If you are not familiar with the Palio, I recommend looking it up as I will not be able to do it justice. Loosely speaking, Il Palio is a horserace, but that just scratches the surface. Siena, a city of about 50,000 people, is divided into seventeen districts or “contrade.” There are two Palio races a year, and ten horses run in each. Each horse (and rider) represents a different contrada and wears the colors/symbols of that contrada. The horses are bareback. The race takes place in the center of the city, in the Piazza del Campo. In the days leading up to the race, it feels like the entire city is out in the Piazza, all wearing the colors of their contrada. We were there on the day that the horses were selected – apparently horses are assigned by lottery just a few days before the race then carefully guarded, supposedly sometimes even in the church of the contrada, until race time.
Guidebooks tell you to be careful what colors you wear in Siena in the days around the Palio. You wouldn’t want to end up in a bar in the tortoise contrada wearing the colors of the panther.
Siena is also the home of pici pasta – essentially a long, think spaghetti. For the recipe below, I used authentic, imported pici, but I would call the sauce merely “inspired by” Siena.
Pici with Sausage and Mushrooms
Course: DinnerIngredients
2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 medium red onion – finely chopped
2 stalks celery – finely chopped
1 carrot – finely chopped
1 pound bulk Italian sausage meat
8 oz baby bella mushrooms – cleaned and chopped
1/2 cup dry white wine
28 ounce can peeled plum tomatoes – preferably San Marzano
salt and pepper
Pici pasta
Directions
- Heat olive oil in large sauté pan over medium heat. Add the onion, celery, and carrots. Cook until soft and light brown.
- Add the sausage meat to the sauté pan. Increase heat to medium high. Break up sausage as it cooks. When sausage is almost fully cooked, at the mushrooms, and cook for 5-10 minutes.
- Add the wine, and cook until the alcohol has cooked off, stirring to make sure any bits are released from the pan.
- Add salt and a generous amount of freshly ground black pepper.
- Crush the tomatoes by hand and add to the pan. Reduce heat to low. Cook for about an hour, stirring occasionally.
- Bring salted water to a boil in a large pot, and cook pici to just under al dente.
- Drain pici, saving a bit of the pasta water (or use a scoop colander to scoop directly from the pot to the sauté pan – I like this method, but it does make a mess of the stove). Add the pici and a bit of pasta water (about a cup, give or take) to the sauce. Mix to blend – tongs work well for this – until sauce has reduced and is clinging to the pasta.
It would be a shame to have a bowl of Tuscan pasta without a glass of Tuscan wine. I am a big believer in “if it grows together, it goes together,” and I will almost always pick a wine from the same region as the dish. For a rustic pasta dish like this, I would reach for a Chianti, perhaps the Felsina Berardenga Chianti Classico.
