Timballo di pasta con melanzane

Frank16 July 2022Naples and Campania, pasta, pastas, soups and risottos/primi piatti, Sicilia44 Comments

If you like pasta—and who doesn’t?—and if you like cake—and again, who doesn’t?—then you’re sure to like timballo di pasta, pasta baked in a mold then served as a kind of pasta cake.

Italian cookery has some quite elaborate timballi di pasta, dating back to the days of the monzù, with decorative pastry crusts and elaborate fillings, like one featured in the flim Big Night with Stanley Tucci. But especially in summer, I like to keep things relatively light and simple. And today’s timballo di pasta con melanzane from Sicily fits the bill quite nicely. The pasta—traditionally the ring-shaped pasta called anelletti— is dressed in a simple tomato sauce, then mixed with cheese and baked in a shell of fried eggplant slices.

The recipe involves multiple steps, but all in all it isn’t terribly hard to make. And the results make quite the impression, a nice way to start off a special occasion or Sunday dinner in style. It is also quite nice served at room temperature, so you can make it ahead if you like. In fact, according to the fascinating Encyclopedia of Pasta, in and around Siracusa this timballo is sometimes called pasta ro bagnu because of its popularity for beach picnics. Nice image, that…

Ingredients

Serves 4-6

300g (10-1/2 oz) anelletti or another pasta of your choice (see Notes)

For the sauce:

1 bottle of passata di pomodoro
2-3 garlic cloves
a sprig or two of fresh basil leaves
salt
olive oil

For assembling the timballo:

2-3 medium to large eggplants, thinly sliced lengthwise
75g (2-1/2 oz) freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano (or pecorino romano)
250g (1/2 lb) mozzarella, scamorza or caciocavallo cheese, sliced or cut into cubes
Olive oil

Directions

Slice the eggplants lengthwise in thin (but not paper thin) slices, say about 1cm (3/8 inch). Lay the slices in a colander, salting them lightly on both sides. Let sit at least an hour. Then pat the slices dry and fry them in olive oil until they have softened and lightly browned. Lay out paper towels to soak up the excess oil and set aside until needed.

Meanwhile, in a saucepan, sauté the garlic cloves gently in abundant olive oil. When the garlic is just beginning to brown slightly around the edges, add the passata and let it simmer for about 15 minutes, until it had reduced and separated from the oil. A few minutes before it’s done, throw the basil leaves in the saucepan and season with salt to taste.

Cook the pasta until it’s slightly underdone. Drain and pour into a large mixing bowl. Add as much of the sauce as you need to coat the pasta nicely (without drowning it!) along with the grated cheese. Taste and adjust for seasoning.

Now to assemble the dish: Gingerly lay the fried eggplant slices in a decorative pattern to cover the bottom of a well-greased springform pan about 19cm/[7-1/2 inch] in across (see Notes), slightly overlapping. I like to place them starting from the center outwards, covering and flopping over the sides, as if they were the spokes of a wheel, like so:

Pour half the pasta into the mold. Lay the slices of mozzarella or scamorza here and there over the pasta, leaving a small border at the outer edge of the pan. Cover with the rest of the pasta and flatten it out with a spatula. Take the ends of the eggplant and fold them in over the pasta. Cover the bottom with any remaining eggplant slices. Using paper towels or parchment paper for protection, gently press down on the top to flatten things out and consolidate the filling.

Bake the assembled timballo in a moderately hot (190C/375F) oven for 30-40 minutes. Remove from the oven and let it rest for at least 15-20 minutes.

Flip the timballo on to a serving dish and unmold it. Serve cut into wedges with some more sauce on the side for those who want it.

Notes

The main trick to success when making this dish? Like any dish that has to be unmolded, you need to make sure it doesn’t stick to the mold. Using a nonstick mold is obviously one option but I’m here to tell you it’s not foolproof. You still need to grease the mold generously. Even better, use some fine parchment paper to line the mold, in particular the bottom. In fact, they sell parchment paper circles which for my money, does the job perfectly.

It is also important to avoid slicing the eggplant too thinly. If you do, the slices will tend to fall apart and/or stick to the mold. And you want to fry them in oil hot enough so it bubbles up when you place the eggplants in the oil to avoid their absorbing too much of the oil. The pre-salting, though not strictly necessary, also helps to reduce oil absorption. It softens the eggplant, too, which reduces frying time.

In Sicily, the classic choice of pasta is anelletti, a small ring shaped pasta that dates to the Middle Ages. The story goes that their shape was inspired by the earrings worn by the women of the Moorish nobility that then reigned over Sicily. They are not particular easy to find, but they are sometimes marketed as “pasta rings”. If not available at your local supermarket, I found La Molisana brand anelletti (pictured at left) on Amazon.com, which proved to be an excellent choice. (La Molisana, by the way, is a fine brand of pasta in general and at least in our area fairly easy to find in better supermarkets.)

Anelletti, also known as anelli or anellini, are a popular in Puglia as well. And besides their use in timbales, like other small pastas they are served in soup. Although I shudder to mention it, for Americans they are probably best known as the main ingredient in that abomination known as “SpaghettiOs“.

In Naples, where they also make a very similar timballo, ziti are a popular choice for the pasta filling. But I’ve seen recipes that call for all sorts of other pasta shapes, from stubby pastas like penne, fusilli or rigatoni to long ones like bucatini to fettuccine. In short you can use just about any shape you like!

Variations

The measurements given will feed 4 as a main course or 6 as the primo in a traditional Italian menu. Of course, for a larger crowd—or for larger appetites—you can increase the portions and use a larger springform pan, say 24cm/9-3/4 inch or even 28cm/11in in diameter, in which case you’ll need to increase the amount of pasta to 400g (14 oz) or 500g (1 lb) respectively.

Many folks like to use a ring-shaped mold rather than a round springform pan. It does give your timballo an especially pretty look. A savarin mold works well for this job. Be wary of Bundt cake molds, however, as the central funnel tends to be higher than the sides, which makes unmolding your timballo on to a serving plate a tricky business. For ring molds, you need only lay your eggplant slices horizontally across the mold, slightly overlapping.

You can also mix the mozzarella cheese, cut into cubes rather than slices—along with any extra fried eggplant, cut into bits–into the pasta filling rather than layering them. I actually like this strategem a bit better, as it helps bind the pasta filling together.

You can also play around quite a bit with the dressings for the pasta. There are heftier versions of this dish, for instance, where you dress the pasta with a meat ragù rather than a light tomato sauce featured in this post, as well as adding peas or other vegetables to the filling. (In these versions, you can omit the eggplant shell and bake the pasta “naked”.) Yet other recipes mix in béchamel as a binder. Personally, none of these variations float my boat, at least this time of year. As I said at the top, in summer—which is, of course, is prime season for this dish—I prefer to keep things simple and eat light. But don’t let me stop you from trying these other versions. As they say, de gustibus non est disputandum…

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