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Timbale of Vermicelli with Tomatoes (Neapolitan Receipt)
Take ten medium-sized fresh tomatoes and cut them in two crosswise. Put a layer of these into a baking-dish with the liquid side touching the bottom of the dish. Now put another layer with the liquid side up, sprinkle on salt and pepper. Break the raw vermicelli the length of the baking-dish and put a layer of it on top of the tomatoes. Now add another layer of the tomatoes, with the skin side touching the vermicelli, a second layer with the liquid side up, salt and pepper, and another layer of the raw vermicelli, and so on, the top layer being of tomatoes with their liquid side touching the vermicelli. Heat three or four tablespoons of good lard (or butter), and when the lard boils pour it over the tomatoes and vermicelli; then put the dish into the oven and cook until the vermicelli is thoroughly done. After cooling a little while, turn it out into a platter.
Macaroni "alla San Giovannello" While three-quarters of a pound of macaroni are boiling in salted water prepare the following: Chop up fine two ounces of ham fat with a little parsley. Peel six medium-sized tomatoes, cut them open, remove the seeds, and any hard or unripe parts, and put them on one side. Take a frying-pan and put into it one scant tablespoon of butter and the chopped ham fat. When the grease is colored put in the sliced tomatoes with salt and pepper. When the tomatoes are cooked and begin to sputter put the macaroni into the pan with them, mix well, add grated Parmesan cheese, and serve.
Two Neapolitan pasta dishes run together on one page. The first is the unusual one: dry vermicelli baked between layers of raw tomato, cooked entirely by the juice the tomatoes give up.
- The hinge: tomato juice is the only liquidNothing here is boiled first, so the pasta hydrates on tomato water and fat alone. Use genuinely ripe, heavy, juicy tomatoes and do not drain them; underripe or watery-fleshed supermarket tomatoes will leave the vermicelli chalky in the middle.
- Oven temperatureNo temperature is given, and the receipt says nothing about covering the dish. A moderate oven, somewhere in the region of 350-375F for three-quarters of an hour to an hour, is a reasonable reading of 'cook until the vermicelli is thoroughly done'; if the pasta is still hard, keeping the steam in with a cover will help.
- Vermicelli, not the modern rice noodleItalian vermicelli is a wheat pasta slightly thicker than spaghetti. Break it to the length of the dish as instructed; a long thin shape is what makes the timbale hold together when turned out.
- Cut side up, cut side downThe receipt is precise about which way each cut face points at every layer, including the top one, where the liquid side faces down onto the vermicelli. It gives no reason for the scheme; follow the order as written rather than tumbling everything together.
- Lard or butterThree or four tablespoons of hot fat poured over is not optional richness — it coats the dry pasta and stops it welding into a block. Rendered pork lard gives the traditional flavour; olive oil works and is nearer modern Neapolitan practice.
- Turning it outThe receipt says to let it cool a little while before turning it out onto a platter; ten to fifteen minutes lets the starch set. How cleanly the layers hold will depend on the dish you have used.
- Ham fat in the second recipeTwo ounces of chopped ham fat means the trimmed fat from a dry-cured ham. Fatty prosciutto ends, guanciale or pancetta all substitute directly.
- YieldTen tomatoes and enough vermicelli to fill the layers serves four to six as a main course. The macaroni alla San Giovannello, at three-quarters of a pound, serves four.
Timballo is the Italian for a kettledrum, and the dish takes its name from the drum-shaped mould it was baked and unmoulded in; in grander Neapolitan cooking it meant an elaborate pastry-cased affair of pasta, meat and offal. This is the frugal domestic cousin: no crust, no meat, no pre-boiling, and no pot of water to heat. The second receipt, alla San Giovannello, carries what appears to be a diminutive of San Giovanni, though the book says nothing about the name and the reference behind it is not established.