Food Adventure

Years ago I saw a movie, Big Night (1996).  It was a story about two Italian immigrant brothers who came to the New Jersey Shore to open an authentic Italian restaurant in the 1950's.  The climax of the plot revolves around this huge Italian feast.  One of the dishes prepared was a timpano.  A timpano is layers of yummy Italian dishes encased in a pastry. Once baked, it is cut in wedges exposing the multiple layers of the dishes.  I had never heard of it and was immediately interested given it takes multiple days to make, or it did in the movie.  I found the recipe on the internet, but never got up enough nerve to try it.

Jump to the holiday season 2014.  My friend Debbie and I volunteered to prepare the entree for the annual Irate-8 Holiday Dinner Party.  As we discussed recipes, I remembered the timpano!  What better testing ground that your friends?  Debbie, being the great sport that she is and a great cook, said "Let's do it!"  I couldn't find the recipe I had printed off the internet so many years ago so I did another internet search.  I found lots of recipes and ingredient ideas from five recipes that I incorporated to come up with what we prepared. Since a timpano is layers of ingredients we actually made our favorite components and then layered them into a pastry-lined large stainless steel bowl.  A timpano is traditionally cooked in a round enamel washbasin.

Debbie prepared some killer ragu sauce and some terrific mini-meatballs.   She actually baked the meatballs in mini muffin pans--very ingenious and much less messy that rolling raw meatballs between your palms and then dropping into a hot skillet to brown.  She scooped tablespoons of raw meatballs and dropped into the muffin cups.  She baked them turning them over with a fork at the half way point.  They came out round and brown!

I roasted some red and yellow bell peppers and some Swiss chard.  Made a pie pastry large enough for three single pastry pies.  Also boiled and peeled some eggs, grated several kinds of hard cheeses, procured some sliced salami and cubed mozzarella.

Early afternoon the day of the dinner, we met and assembled the timpano.  The process went like this:

Roll out two-thirds of the pastry dough so it is large enough to completely fill the oiled interior of the baking bowl with some pastry hanging over the edge.  Start layering the ingredients remembering that the bottom of the bowl will be the top of the timpano.  We started with cooked elbow pasta mixed with some of the ragu sauce, followed by a layer of meatballs and a layer of mozzarella cubes.  Next came the eggs and more ragu sauce and more pasta.  While filling the bowl, we tapped it against the counter top to keep the contents tightly packed.  Air spaces are not good.  We finished off with the vegetables, the salami and finally pasta and the remainder of the ragu.  Roll out the remaining pastry dough and cover the top of the bowl.  Fold the two pastry layers together to created a seal and pinch a low edge all along the top.

Cleo was our supervisor!
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Bake at 350 to 375 degrees for 60 to 90 minutes.  Take it out of the oven and let sit for 15 minutes in the bowl.  This is a heavy dish!  Carefully run a thin knife along the inside edge, place your serving platter on top of the bowl and with the help of someone else, flip the whole thing over allowing the contents of the bowl to fall carefully onto the platter in one piece.  Again let it sit for a few minutes.  During these cooling breaks, it is good to drink some of the fine red wine that you will be serving with the entree!  

Cut the timpano into wedges and serve like a cake wedge.  Pass additional ragu sauce and serve with a simple green salad. 




I thought the dish quite yummy and was a lot of fun to make!  And there were leftovers!