The Gattopardo's Timballo | Ciccio Sultano

A bourbon dish from the time of the kingdom of the two Sicilies. This is the Gattopardo's Timballo, mentioned in Tomasi di Lampedusa's book. It includes layers of puff pastry, fried slices of eggplant, Capitelli cooked ham, fresh Ragusan cheese, homemade maccheroni dressed with Giuseppe Grassi's festive meat sauce, Agostino Ninone Sebastiano's pork, Aia Gaia's chicken, all combined with a vanilla-scented balsamella sauce, which is much lighter and more pleasant than the original custard.

Ingredients for 6 people

For the festive Sunday sauce

• 400 g of puff pastry
• 400 g of large anelletti or artisanal maccheroni
• 2 hard-boiled eggs
• 4 chicken livers or 100 g of foie gras
• 400 g of long black eggplant
• 150 g of shelled peas
• 20 g of black truffle
• Ragusano DOP cheese

For 6 Timballos

• 4 pork ribs
• 4 cubes of pancetta with rind, each weighing 70 g
• 2 chicken wings
• 200 g of sausage
• Fennel seeds
• 3 bay leaves
• 1 sprig of rosemary
• 10 basil leaves
• 100 g of onion
• 1 celery stalk
• 4 garlic cloves
• 200 g of triple concentrated tomato paste
• 1 liter of tomato puree
• 500-1000 ml of still water
• 80 ml of extra virgin olive oil
• 1 glass of white wine

For the meatballs

• 300 g of medium-lean ground beef
• 1 garlic clove
• 30 g of chopped parsley
• 50 g of cheese
• 150 g of breadcrumbs
• 1 egg
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

For the puff pastry

• 250 g of all-purpose flour
• 15 g of yeast
• 60 g of butter
• 60 g of milk
• 1 egg yolk
• 8-10 g of salt
• 30 g of sugar

Method

For the meatballs

Mix all the ingredients together, form meatballs weighing about 20-30 g each, and fry them in a pan with a little Sicilian extra virgin olive oil. Place them hot in a baking dish. They are also excellent as an appetizer.

For the sauce

Take the cooked meatballs, clean and chop the vegetables, sauté them in extra virgin olive oil, add all the meat, lightly brown it, and deglaze with white wine. Once the wine is well cooked, add the tomato paste, let it brown and absorb. Stir with the meat and then add all the other ingredients except the meatballs. After 1 hour, add the meatballs and finally, after another half hour to an hour, the sauce is ready; taste for salt. Once ready, let it cool and cut the meat with a knife. Use what is needed for the timballo.

For the puff pastry

Combine the flour with the sugar, pinch the butter into the flour, make a well in the center, and mix the yeast with milk at 25 degrees. Put all the ingredients in the well except the salt, and work it until smooth, then add the salt so it doesn’t damage the yeast. Let the dough rest under a woolen blanket. Once risen, after about an hour, roll out the dough.

Assembling the timballo

Line a timballo mold (8-9 cm in diameter and 8-10 cm high) with the puff pastry. Further, line it with slices of fried eggplant, thin slices of black truffle, one slice of egg, and add the dressed pasta, diced Ragusan cheese, and a 20-30 g meatball. Close the mold with a top disk 2 cm larger than the mold diameter and seal by crimping with your fingers. Brush with egg yolk, pierce with a fork, and bake in a static oven at 220 degrees, top and bottom heat. In this recipe, custard is also included. Once cooked, remove from the oven and serve alongside the mixed festive sauce.