Play that timpano!
Holy Calendar Batman! I managed to start this in December, and am only coming back to it. Regardless, here it is…
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Every year, we do two large parties: a Passover/Easter/ party in the spring, and a holiday/Latke/Christmas party. Nominally, it’s all about the Latke’s — we get them from Saul’s Deli in Berkeley, we always order 3x too many, and it’s generally awesome.
For the last two years, however, I’ve made a Timpano. A Timpano, or drum in Italian, is a holiday festive dish, but maybe it’s best to let someone else explain it:
Lest any incorrect expectations get set, I did not make my own ziti — but, BUT, that was the only thing that I didn’t make myself. The trick is prior planning so you don’t have to do it all in one long run. That, and why clean the kitchen only once when you can clean it twice ;)
I started by making meatballs. The meatballs are pretty simple, all told. Start with the meat: in my case, I wanted a mixture of equal parts grass-fed beef, ground lamb, and finally hot Italian sausage — 1.5lbs each. To that, I added Italian breadcrumbs (~1.5 cups), three eggs and, most importantly, Calabrian chili paste (roughly a tablespoon). I chose Calabrian chili paste vs finely chopping Calabrian chilis — for whatever reason, the whole chilis seem to have less heat and more garlic, and I wanted the opposite of that.
Making meatballs is often a messy process. This time, I decided to try making the mixture in my stand mixer. Full disclosure, I didn’t actually manage to take photos while I was making it — I blame sticky fingers.
I find that the biggest temptation when making meatballs is to make them too big. This is particularly a challenge for me as I have big hands — the natural instinct is to fill up palm of your hand and make a ball. In my case that’s too big — it will also be too big to manipulate in the timpano later.
One of the other components, hard boiled eggs, are also something to make ahead of time. I like my egg yolks a little soft both from a preference perspective as well as because they’re going to get baked again. In my case, this means 5 1/2 minutes in boiling water and then into an ice bath for 10 minutes to get the shell away from the egg.
While the eggs cool, I started to cook my perfectly-sized meatballs. Because garlic is always a good idea, and I wanted to add additional flavor, I added a few allegedly crushed cloves to the pan as I heated it up.
I’ve found the trick with meatballs is to be patient — start them cooking in the pan, not too crowded together, and then turn them to get a good hard sear on each side. Well at least *one* side. Because the pork sausage in the meatballs is fatty, expect the oil to build up — also expect that you’ll need to watch the temperature. The point at which the meatballs will hard sear is very close to the point at which the pork fat will smoke. If you have an exhaust hood, turn it on regardless. You may also want to know where the smoke detector is.
The point of this exercise is to get some textural difference into the timpano, not necessarily to cook them — remember the whole assembled thing will bake for 90 minutes or so. This is another way of saying don’t worry about the middle of the meatballs being pork tar tar.
Thus endith day one of the sacrament of the timpano. On day two, we’ll make the dough, assemble, bake, and most importantly, eat!
When I’m actually ready to bake it, also known as the day of the party, I start with the dough for the exterior of the timpano. I do this because dough, particularly pasta related dough, requires a couple hours of resting after it’s been kneaded so the gluten strands that have built up in the dough can relax.
For the dough, I use the NYTimes recipe that recreates the Big Night timpano. In case the link is being finnicky, here’s the ingredients:
- 4 cups all-purpose flour, more for dusting
- 4 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 3 tablespoons olive oil, more for greasing pan
Slowly add more water, a teaspoon at a time, to get the mixture to bind into a ball. Once the dough is mixed and kneaded, I wrap it tightly in saranwrap and let it sit for two hours in the fridge.
While that’s cooling, I parboil the pasta in salty water (like the ocean!) and make the marinara sauce. The sauce itself is very simple — tomatoes, onions, basil, salt & pepper. Once both are done, I let them cool so they don’t melt the dough as it’s rolled out.
For the bowl, I used an enameled timpano bowl — sometimes described as a wash basin. It’s cheap and pretty indestructible as long as you don’t bang it around. I used this one from Amazon. At 14" in diameter, it’s a bit unwieldy — specifically, when turned over, it only fits on the largest cutting board I have. Of course, that cutting board doesn’t fit on any shelf I have. Sigh, there’s always something.
Rolling the ball of dough out takes a little bit of estimating in order to make sure there’s enough excess dough to create the bottom of the timpano (remember, it gets flipped over). No we’re not going to do math here — the bowl isn’t a perfect circle anyway.
With the dough evenly distributed across the surface of the bowl, as long as the flaps reach the counter, you’re fine. Before you put the dough sheet into the bowl, be sure to generously butter the inside of the bowl.
Now it’s time to start filling. I will admit, in my haste, I didn’t mix the pasta with the aforementioned marinara sauce, and instead put it in dry. You should avoid my mistake.
Now we start with the rest of the prep. Remember all those hard boiled eggs we… err… hard boiled? Well, now we see why putting them in ice water is important. I shelled them — because of the ice water, they came out beautifully.
“Hard” is a relative term here. The white of the egg was completely cooked, but the yoke was something different. In practice, because this is being baked again, this is a good thing. It’s also a great timing experiment for when I want soft boiled eggs :)
At this point it’s all layering. From the photo above, you can see my beautifully soft yolks and a smattering of mini-mozzarella balls. Next, I’ll add a layer of salami lardons (salami cut into strips), the meatballs which I’ve cut in half, and more mozzarella because why not.
The with most of the ingredients in a layer in place, it’s time to add the final two components: pepperoncini's and sauce. The Pepperoncini’s are pickled — the addition of the acid from the pickling liquid really adds to the flavor profile of the dish. I think you could also add Calabrian peppers in moderation (they can build up to be pretty hot) as another sharp note in the flavor profile, or even turn the sauce into an arrabbiata. Acid is good.
I got lucky here. Forgetting the sauce with the pasta in the very beginning isn’t catastrophic because the dish will sit in the oven for 90 minutes — the liquid will sink, so it’s not terrible. Still, learn from my error. Depending on how generous your layers have been, add another layer. I almost wrote “rinse and repeat” but was concerned that could be interpreted too literally.
Almost showtime — preheat the oven to 350 degrees, and place the sealed timpano. Cook for 1 hour and then cover to keep the bottom from burning.
There’s enough liquid in this thing that it will stay remarkably hot for a long time. Don’t try to cut it for at least 30 minutes, if not closer to 45. While it’s cooling, try spinning the bowl — if all has gone according to plan, the timpano will spin separately from the bowl itself. Like I said, generously butter. The last thing you want to do is have it stick as you turn over the bowl.
Given the size of the bowl, turning it over is a little tricky. It’s heavy, but more importantly, it’s HOT. I’ve found the easiest method is to put a cutting board over the bowl, and then flip the combined cutting board / timpano together. Plus, remember, if you drop it, it’s only two days of work on the floor. No pressure.
There’s something pretty breathtaking about seeing the timpano once you’ve flipped it over — it’s just beautiful!
Start from the center and start cutting slices of it out. I’ve seen some methods that want you to cut a circle in the center to make it easier to get slices out, but I’ve never done this — a combination of a bread knife and a pie cutter works well. A final word of advice on slices: make them smaller than you think they need to be — the timpano is incredibly filling — surprisingly so.
The shot on the left is the one that best sums up a timpano for me.
You can also see that there’s a lot of chance to play with the layering. I’ve seen some people add a layer of mushrooms, others use spinach, still others add scrambled egg as a way to bind things together (why not more mozzarella?). Varying or adding additional kinds of cheese are also something to play with (maybe not blue). The possibilities are virtually endless and offer some really interesting options for going cross cultural (a mexican or spanish timpano? seafood? Thai? ramen? what about Indian? — the mind boggles).
More as I continue to explore, but first, I need a smaller timpano bowl :). Till next time.
