My love for Stanley Tucci began many years ago when my father called to tell me about this great movie he watched called The Big Night. Dad also loved Stanley Tucci and Tony Shalhoub who plays his brother in the film. So off I went to Blockbuster to rent the film, remember when we did that? Interestingly enough, Netflix launched a year later in 1997. This year will mark the 25th anniversary of this cult classic written, directed, and starred in by my beloved Stanley. While Tucci and Shalhoub were the main stars of this film I think the real star was the iconic dish that they created called a Timpano. This dish is also known as a Timbale or Timballo, it all means the same thing “drum”. I was so inspired by this movie that I started teaching “Big Night” cooking classes at my studio. We played the soundtrack, had the film showing on the TV, and made the Timpano, the students loved it and this class was always sold out!
Many years later I was pitching my Italian product line to Nieman Marcus and decided to do a take on this dish. Of course, we modified it a lot and put our own spin on it and the folks at NM just loved it! Our version is a bit less laborious and more user-friendly it is also more similar to the Timbale’s that were recently featured in Stanleys show “Stanley Tucci Searching for Italy” in the segment on Sicily. There are no rules when making this dish, you can use whatever filling you like, pasta, meat, vegetables, and cheeses, it’s all up to you. The only rule when making this dish is you should enlist the help of a friend or friends because it is a rather labor intense dish and it’s way more fun to share the experience with someone. For this, I enlisted the help of my friend Anita Nasuto the creator of the wonderful Nini’s Sicilian Salsa that is so popular up here. I always say that this salsa would make an old shoe taste good!
Last summer while on lockdown Anita invited us to her beautiful porch for a 6 feet apart socially distanced dinner and she served a layered vegetable dish that I just flipped for and I thought wow this would be delicious wrapped in some pastry dough and the recipe I’m about to share with you was born!
1 medium eggplant, sliced
1 medium or 2 small zucchini sliced
3 red bell peppers cut into strips
1 C red sauce, you can use a marinara or a meat sauce
1/2 C Nini’s Sicilian Salsa (drain about 1/2 the oil off)
Batter and quick fry the eggplant and the zucchini (I use egg and breadcrumbs)
Roast the peppers in a 375 oven for about 30 minutes
Spray the springform pan with non-stick spray, cut a piece of parchment, and line the bottom of the pan. I learned this the hard way, so take it from me you’re going to want to take this step. Roll out one sheet of puff pastry dough and line the pan bottom and sides with the dough. If one sheet of dough is not enough to line the entire pan (bottom & sides), use11/2 or 2 and layer them together, this dough is very forgiving and will seam together nicely. Begin with a layer of eggplant, drizzle with some sauce and a spoonful of the salsa, then add a layer of zucchini, sauce, and salsa, add a layer of peppers, more sauce, and salsa, and repeat until you get to the top, mine was three layers of each. Wrap the layered vegetables with the pastry. Bake in a 375-degree oven for about 30 minutes or until nicely brown. I suggest placing the Timbale on a sheet pan to catch any drippings while baking.
Once the Timbale is completely cooled then and only then flip it onto a plate and remove it from the pan. Don’t rush this, I knew someone once who did…….and she used a lot of swear words. Serve at room temp or put back in a warm over for just a bit if you prefer. My idea of a perfect dinner party is to make a Timbale with friends drink some great wine and watch The Big Night!
