Big Trouble:
Timpano - Part 1

Tucci Ragu Sauce
(The Tucci Cookbook, page 122)

 Meatballs
(The Tucci Cookbook, page 252)

 We decided that our first dish would be the most difficult and complex of them all ... Timpano alla "Big Night" ... named after the Stanley Tucci movie that made it famous. Why be so audacious right from the start? Why not!! We thought it would be fun to do it at the beginning and at the end of this journey, and compare results.

 Anticipation had been building for a week leading up to this moment. Supplies had been purchased, Pecorino Romano cheese, fresh garlic, special pasta flour, and Nozzole Chianti. The kitchen was scrubbed completely clean.

We inserted The Terminal into our kitchen BluRay player. We were "Go" for launch.

 Except, we forgot one basic thing ... to read the recipe completely through before beginning. We were caught off-guard a number of times during the preparation process. So there you go. Lesson number one.  

We thought we would begin our great Timpano adventure by attempting to prepare some of the initial ingredients a day in advance. Almost immediately, in the first step, the making of meatballs, we discovered that our bread was not 'dried bread' as required in the original recipe. It was fresh bread. We threw it into the oven at 250 degrees for ten minutes to dry it out.

 Michelle adroitly pulled up a Jamie Oliver YouTube video on how to crush and chop fresh garlic.  

Tom measured the other ingredients and mixed them in a large bowl with the freshly dried and re-wetted bread. A chunk of wet bread flew out of the bowl during this process and onto our cookbook, symbolically christening it.

Frying our first meatball was a sad affair as the olive oil was too hot and the outside almost instantly charred to a crisp. We slowly improved with each subsequent meatball. (Note to self: next time, meatballs should be smaller).

Michelle launched into the Tucci Ragu as Tom finished up with the frying. There was oil spattering in all directions and his wooden spoon was burning. No lack of enthusiasm here ... the great Timpano project was well underway!!

Good thing our smoke detectors were not turned on. Despite a large overhead vent, the smoke from the searing of spare ribs rolled throughout the kitchen. We kept paper towels handy to wipe the hot grease off our arms.
Our choice of red wine for the sauce was Villa Antinori Chianti Classico Reserve, 2011. Fortunately, only half a cup was required for the recipe.




We suddenly realized we needed a blender and looked blankly at each other. We hadn't used or even seen a food blender around here in years. After a desperate search requiring a ladder from the garage, we dug out a small Cuisinart (up on the top shelf, behind the old ice cream maker) and washed the dust off of it.

 We assembled the ingredients into the now-empty meat-fry pot. For Tom, a guy who doesn't like tomato that much, 35 ounces of puréed tomatoes seemed a little bit like overkill.

 As the ragu simmered, we cleaned up the kitchen, washing out the blender and wiping grease off the stove, the walls, and the floor. The dogs helped with the floor. The blender once again disappeared onto the top shelf of a kitchen cabinet.

 The recipe was somewhat unclear about the disposition of stewing beef and spare ribs once the ragu was stewing. Tucci's note at the bottom described saving the 'meat' as well as the need to keep the sauce thin. We referenced the final Timpano photos in his book and noted only salami and meatball in it. So we set the excess meat aside. 

 The dogs appreciated it greatly.

 So far so good. We set our minds to the entirely different challenge of making pasta dough on the big day.