An impressive pasta dish for a stylish beginning of the new year!

During the Christmas festivities Italians have a tendency to eat more than they normally do.
A lot, that is. Often too much, to be completely honest.
Christmas Eve, the two days after that, the evening of the 31st and then lunch on New Years Day are real over-eating feasts after which everybody immediately starts a diet. ;)

This wonderful dish is a recipe from my mom, Gabriella, and has been prepared and eaten with pleasure by la famiglia during one of these festive eating occasions.
The recipe is quite labour-intensive and yet not difficult to make, as it often is the case with Italian dishes.
A bit of creativity and some artistic disposition are a plus but even if you're not Michelangelo I'm sure you'll be able to concoct a beautiful pasta pie like this one. :)

The type of pasta Gabriella used is the tortiglioni but of course you can use any other type of short pasta, for example penne or rigatoni.
If you cannot find the scamorza affumicata (a kind of smoked cheese that resembles a drier, harder smokey mozzarella) you can also use any other type of smoked cheese or just plain mozzarella.

Buon appetito and my best wishes for a wonderful 2008!!! (e grazie alla Mamma per la fantastica ricetta!) :D

TIMBALLO DI TORTIGLIONI ALLE MELANZANE
(pasta pie with aubergine/eggplant and smoked scamorza cheese)

Serves 6-8

For the dough:

400 gr plain flour
200 gr butter
1 egg
1 egg yolk
salt

For the filling:

400 gr tortiglioni
1,5 kg good canned peeled tomatoes (with juice)
fresh basil leaves
1 big onion
a couple of garlic cloves
a couple of red chilli peppers, dried
2 medium sized aubergines/eggplant
olive oil extravergine
300 gr scamorza affumicata (Italian smoked cheese)
200 gr grated Parmesan cheese

Make the doug by mixing briefly flour, butter, 1 egg, 50 ml water and a pinch of salt in the kitchen robot until you get a coarse mixture (you can also do it by hand with a fork, of course).
Transfer this mixture on a working surface previously sprinkled with flour and kneed it (not too long so that the crust will stay crunchy) until you obtain a nice, smooth dough.
Leave the dough to rest under a clean kitchen towel until it's time to use it.

Prepare a classic tomato sauce (spicy version) by frying the finely chopped onion and garlic in abundant olive oil until soft - preferably on a low fire with the lid on the pan so that they can soften up gently in their own steam). Add the chopped peeled tomatoes and the chillies and leave the sauce to simmer on a low fire for some time until it thickens. Remove from the fire, add the shredded basil leaves and season with salt and pepper to taste.

Chop the aubergines in little pieces and fry them in olive oil until completely cooked and tender.

Cut the smoked scamorza cheese in chunks.

Cook the pasta very al dente (it will cook further in the oven!), then drain and mix well with the tomato sauce, the cooked aubergines, the parmesan cheese and the scamorza chunks.

Divide the dough in two parts, one of which twice as big as the other one (respectively 2 thirds and 1 third).
Roll out the dough giving both pieces a rounded shape and lay the biggest piece on a deep ovenproof dish, previously buttered and dusted with flour. Make sure you leave enough dough at the edge of the dish for folding and sealing the pasta pie.
Fill the oven dish with the pasta and sauce mixture and cover with the other piece of rolled out dough.
Roll the edges on top of eacht other to seal the pie, make a hole in the middle of the "lid" so that the excess humidity can escape leaving the crust crunchy and garnish, if you want, with some dough left overs (flowers, leaves, stars etc.).
Brush the top of the pie with some egg yolk and put the pie in the pre-heated oven (180°C) for about 30 minutes.

Let the pie cool off a bit, remove it carefully from the oven dish and serve sliced.

   

Comments

[a.c.t.]

Wow, that does look amazing, I must try it. Happy New Year to you too!

[Nicoletta]

Thanks, it's also amazingly good! :)