Ask Dear Gaby

I love making timballos.  For those who have never heard of a timballo, a timballo is an Italian word meaning little drum. Sometimes a timballo will be labeled a tortino or a sartu (the Neapolitan interpretation).  Timballos are an Italian dish made with pasta or aborio rice, bound with eggs and or cheese and baked into a mold filled with savory  cheeses, meats and vegetables. It is a wonderful dish to serve at dinner parties and easier to make then lasagna.  It can be made in advance then heated up in the oven right before you are ready to serve it. Serving a timballo to your family or guests always make a spectacular presentation and is a topic of conversation.  I made this particular timballo at my super bowl party this year.  It was a hit! First of all, since I was serving tons of food.  I wanted to make a light timballo one that tasted great and contained fewer calories.  So I baked eggplant in the oven to replace the traditional pasta. Then instead of filling it with heavy cheeses and meats, I filled it with tuna steak and calamari.  To that,  I added olives, capers, anchovies and fresh herbs- very puttanesca-esque , than topped it with my home made tomato sauce.  It really is a complete meal since this dish contains protein and complex carbs and other good stuff. Of course no dinner at our home would be complete without the vino.  So I served a nice Italian Chianti Classico with the timballo.

Timballo di Tonna y Calamari

For the shell you will need:

• 2 medium eggplants
• Olive Oil
• Sea Salt

For the filling you will need:

• 1 lb tuna (cut in 1 inch or so cubes)
• 1 1lb calamari steaks (cut in 1 inch strips )
• 6 garlic cloves crushed (You can never have too much garlic)
• ¼ cup Italian parsley, chopped (about 15 sprigs)
• 2 tablespoons fresh herbs such as mint, basil, etc (optional – if you don’t use, increase parsley to 20 sprigs)
• Olive Oil
• Sea salt and freshly ground pepper
• 6 anchovy fillets (in oil) drained and coarsely chopped
• 20 pitted black olives chopped
• ½ cup  grated parmigiano cheese
• 3 eggs or substitute egg whites
• 3-4 tablespoons capers

You will also need freshly made tomato sauce (or store bought if you must) to serve on top.

Directions

First slice the eggplant, length wise in slices of ¼ inch.Sprinkle salt on them, weight down the eggplant and let sit for several hours to extract the liquid from the eggplant. Preheat oven to 375°F. Drain. Wipe off the salt, Spray eggplant with a little olive oil and bake  on a non stick sheet in the oven @ 375°F  for approximately 5 minutes on each side. Remove from oven. Let cool.

Let’s prepare the filling: Heat olive oil in sauté pan using medium heat.  Add the fresh herbs and garlic. Cook 2 minutes. Add tuna and calamari, salt and freshly ground pepper.  Cook about 15-20 minutes until cooked thru.  Using wooden spoon mix occasionally while cooking and break up the tuna into smaller chunks if you prefer (don’t make pieces too small). Set aside to cool in a glass bowl along with its juices. Add anchovies.

While fish mixture is cooling take a non stick spring form pan lightly coated with live oil, and line eggplant slices along the bottom and let pieces hang over sides.  Preheat the oven to 375ºF if you are going to cook right away.

Once filling has cooled–  add to it the olives, cheese, capers, eggs or egg whites, and mix with wooden spoon. Than put the filling into eggplant lined spring form pan.  Fold over the tops of the eggplant slices.  You will need to add additional eggplant slices to cover the top completely. At this point you can cover and refrigerate if you are making this ahead.

Place into a preheated over (375ºF ) and bake for 30-40 minutes until completely heated through.  Remove from oven. Let rest 10 minutes.  While the timballo is resting, heat up the tomato sauce. Place a flat serving platter over the spring form pan and invert it onto the platter on it so now the timballo is upside down on the platter.   Gently remove the spring form pan and you should have a nicely looking timballo. See my picture below.

Serve with tomato sauce – garnish with fresh herbs.

Eggplant Timballo from my super bowl party

Try out this recipe.  Let me know how it works.  If you haven’t made a timballo before, give it a try.

Mangia!

DG

          

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