Several months back I had a birthday; the perfect occasion to attempt a dish of magnificent proportions.

Normally I like to keep my posts short and sweet with just the bare essentials for preparing the dish.  Timpano is different.  It deserves (requires) much more attention.  Read on for all the nitty gritty details, plenty of pictures, and some tips based on what we learned preparing this feast.

The Pan

The pan is important.  The real deal is a 6 quart 14″ basin pan with an enamel coating.  I reckon the enamel coating is the key ingredient as it would retain heat much better than a bare stainless steel bowl.  The problem is enamelware isn’t exactly in high demand these days and therefore it’s hard to find.  I left it to the last minute so we used a plain stainless steel bowl with the same capacity.  The result was OK but not great.  I would recommend ordering the enamelware one from Kolorful Kitchen.

Ingredients

When preparing any dish, the end product is only as good as the ingredients that went into it.

“timpano is a pasta with a special crust and is shaped like a drum; a timpani drum and inside is the most important things in the world.”

Make sure when you source your ingredients you get the best you can.  I went to my favourite butcher who also carries a variety of excellent cheese, canned tomatoes, and dried pasta for most of these ingredients.

Dough

• 4 cups flour
• 4 eggs (free range organic if possible)
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 1/2 cup water

Filling

• 2 cups sharp provolone cheese, cut into ¼” x ½” cubes
• 2 cups Genoa salami, cut into ¼” x ½” cubes
• 12 hard boiled eggs, quartered then cut the quarters in half
• 2 cups meatballs, approx ½” – ¾” diameter
• 8 cups meat based tomato sauce
• 3 lbs ziti pasta, cooked al dente (for dried pasta, get one with pure durum semolina flour)
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 2/3 cup grated Pecorino Romano cheese
• 4 eggs, beaten

Preparation

First, and most importantly, obtain the Big Night sound track and listen to it while you cook.

To make the dough for the crust a stand mixer with a dough hook is ideal.  If you have to make it by hand, be prepared for a workout since pasta dough is rather tough.

You will need a very large surface for rolling out the dough.  My table is 30″ x 30″ and was actually a little bit too small.

1. Place the flour, eggs, salt, and olive oil into your mixer.
2. Pour in 3 tbsp of the water and start mixing.
3. Add water 1 tbsp at a time until the mixture comes together and forms a ball.
4. Pull the dough out onto a floured surface and knead to make sure the dough is mixed well.
5. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and let it rest for 5 minutes.

While rolling the dough, periodically dust the surface with flour and flip. Continue until the dough is roughly 1/16″ thick.

Grease the pan with butter and oil.  Fold the dough in half and in half again to form a triangle.  Place the dough into the pan, open the triangle, and gently press the dough into the bottom and sides.  Let the excess dough drape over the sides.

Have all of the filling at room temperature.  First, mix together the pasta with the olive oil and 2 cups of meat sauce.  Distribute 6 cups of the pasta mixture on the bottom of the timpano.

Lay down half of each; salami, provolone, hard boiled eggs, meat balls, and Romano cheese.

Our timpano had a tendency to fall apart when it came time to serve.  Spending some time really packing in the filling might have helped at this stage.  I would also recommend pouring some of the beaten eggs over the ingredients to help them stick together (you might need a few extra eggs for that).

Pour on 2 cups of the meat sauce, followed by another 6 cups of the pasta mixture. Top that with the remainder of the salami, provolone, hard boiled eggs, meat balls, and Romano cheese.

Finally, top everything off with the rest of the pasta and meat sauce.

Drizzle the beaten eggs on top and fold in the sides.  Trim away and discard as much of the overlapping layers as possible, and pinch the seams to seal. A little overlap is fine, but try to avoid thick sections of crust.  It doesn’t taste very nice in large amounts.

Place in a pre-heated oven at 350° F for about 1 hour, until lightly browned.  Then cover with foil and continue until the timpano is cooked through.

Apparently when it’s done the internal temperature will be 120° F, and it should take approximately 30 minutes. For us, after 30 minutes a few areas of the crust was still raw despite having the correct internal temperature. This was probably a result of not using the correct enamel coated pan.  In the end, it took an extra 30 minutes longer before the crust was fully cooked.

To get the timpano out of the pan, place a large cutting board (baking sheet would work too) over the bottom off the timpano and get someone to help you flip it over. Then simply lift of the pan. If it sticks, try gently twisting the pan and tapping it.

Let the  timpano rest for 20 minutes before cutting into it. Use a long sharp knife and cut a circular section in the middle, 3″ – 4″ in diameter.  This will help hold the timpano together as you slice it.

That’s it! My apologies to fellow drunkards for taking 5′ish months to get around to finally posting pictures of the great timpano feast of 2009.