Traditional Italian Palermo Style Baked Anelletti | Anelletti al Forno alla Palermitana

Aug 18

10 min read

Updated: Sep 13

Anelletti al Forno alla Palermitana (Traditional Italian Palermo Style Baked Anelletti)

Anelletti al forno is what a Palermo kitchen produces when it has to feed a long table and cannot stand at the stove while everyone is already sitting down. Small pasta rings, a meat ragu cooked until it is dark and thick, peas, cubes of caciocavallo and slices of fried eggplant are packed into a tin lined with breadcrumbs and baked until the outside sets into a crust. What comes out is not a tray of baked pasta. It is a timballo, a cylinder that stands on its own, turned out whole onto a board and cut into wedges at the table.

It is the dish of Sunday lunch and of the gita fuori porta, the day out to the coast or the hills that Palermo families take in spring and early autumn. The timballo travels in its tin, it is cut three hours later under a pine tree, and it is eaten warm or properly cold without losing anything at all. Very few baked pastas survive that treatment. This one was built for it.

Serves 8. Prep: 40 minutes. Cook: 1 hour 20 minutes. Total: 2 hours.

The Story

The ring is a western Sicilian shape and Palermo has claimed it completely. In the rest of Italy anelletti are a soup pasta for children. In Palermo they are the base of the city's most recognisable baked dish, sold by the slice in the rosticcerie along via Maqueda and packed into tins for every family occasion of the year.

The timballo itself comes down from the kitchens of the Sicilian nobility, where the monzu, the French trained cooks whose name is a Palermitan version of monsieur, enclosed pasta and ragu inside a shell of sweetened pastry and carried it to the table as a centrepiece. The popular kitchen kept the architecture and threw away the expensive part. Breadcrumbs replaced the pastry, a plain tin replaced the moulded crust, and the dish moved from the palace to the ordinary Sunday table without losing its shape.

What fixed it in Palermo life was portability. This is the food of the day out, to Mondello or to San Martino delle Scale, where the tin goes into a bag and is opened at midday on a wall. It is also what appears for the festa di Santa Rosalia in July and for Ferragosto, when nobody intends to cook at the hour of eating. The dish is meant to be finished well in advance, and it genuinely improves after a few hours of rest.

Ingredients

For the ragu

Ground beef, 1 lb 2 oz (500 g)
Ground pork, 9 oz (250 g)
Yellow onion, finely diced, 1 medium
Carrot, finely diced, 1 small
Celery stalk, finely diced, 1
Extra virgin olive oil, 4 tbsp (60 ml)
Tomato paste, 2 tbsp (35 g)
Dry red wine, 2/3 cup (150 ml)
Tomato passata, 1 lb 12 oz (800 g)
Bay leaf, 1
Fresh or frozen peas, 5 oz (150 g)
Fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

For the eggplant

Globe eggplant, 1 lb 4 oz (570 g), about 2 medium
Fine sea salt for purging, 1 tbsp (15 g)
Sunflower oil for frying, 3 cups (700 ml)

For the pasta and the layers

Anelletti, 1 lb 5 oz (600 g)
Coarse salt for the pasta water, 3 tbsp (45 g)
Caciocavallo, cut in 1/4 inch dice, 5 oz (150 g)
Pecorino Siciliano, finely grated, 3 oz (80 g)
Cooked ham in a single slice, cut in small dice, 3 oz (85 g)
Unsalted butter, 2 tbsp (30 g)

For the mould

Extra virgin olive oil or softened butter, 2 tbsp (30 ml)
Coarse dry breadcrumbs, 3/4 cup (100 g)

Preparation

Starting the Ragu

Softening the soffritto before the meat goes in

Warm the olive oil in a wide heavy pan over medium low heat and sweat the onion, carrot and celery with a pinch of salt for about 12 minutes, until soft and sweet and still pale. Raise the heat, add the beef and the pork and break them apart with a wooden spoon. Let the meat lose its water, then keep going until it truly browns and the base of the pan turns rust coloured. That browning is the backbone of the ragu.

Reducing the Sauce and Adding the Peas

The ragu reduced until the spoon leaves a clean trail

Stir in the tomato paste and cook it for two minutes until it darkens, then pour in the red wine and let it evaporate completely. Add the passata and the bay leaf, season, bring to a bare simmer and leave it uncovered for 60 minutes. You are looking for a ragu that holds its shape on a spoon and releases no free liquid at the edges. Add the peas in the last 10 minutes so they stay whole and green. Taste and correct the salt now.

Salting and Frying the Eggplant

Fried eggplant slices draining upright on paper

Cut the eggplant lengthwise into slices a quarter of an inch thick, salt them and stand them in a colander for 30 minutes, then press them dry. Fry a few at a time in oil at 340°F (170°C) until golden on both sides. Lift them out and stand them upright against the side of a paper lined tray rather than laying them flat. Drained on edge, the oil runs off instead of sitting in the flesh.

Lining the Mould and Boiling the Anelletti

The tin greased and fully coated in coarse breadcrumbs

Brush a 9 inch springform tin or a deep round cake tin with oil or softened butter, reaching every part of the base and the walls. Pour in the breadcrumbs, tilt and turn the tin until every greased surface carries an even coat, then tip out the excess. Meanwhile bring a large pot of salted water to the boil and cook the anelletti for four minutes less than the packet says. Drain them while they still feel hard in the centre.

Dressing the Pasta

Anelletti dressed with ragu, ham and diced caciocavallo

Tip the hot anelletti into a large bowl with the butter and about three quarters of the ragu, and turn them until every ring is coated inside and out. Fold in the diced ham, two thirds of the caciocavallo and half of the Pecorino while the pasta is still hot enough to soften the cheese at the edges. The mixture should look glossy and generous. If it looks dry now it will be dry after baking, so add a little more ragu.

Layering and Baking the Timballo

The mould lined with eggplant and filled in layers

Line the base and the walls of the tin with the fried eggplant, overlapping the slices and letting the ends hang over the rim. Add half the pasta, press it down, spread the remaining ragu with the rest of the caciocavallo over it, then add the second half and press again firmly. Fold the overhanging eggplant inwards, scatter the last Pecorino and a light dusting of breadcrumbs, and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 45 minutes until the top is deeply golden.

Resting and Unmoulding

The timballo turned out whole and cut into wedges

Take the tin out and leave it on a rack for at least 20 minutes, and 30 is better. Run a thin knife around the wall, release the spring or invert onto a board, and lift the tin away. The breadcrumb coat should come away with the timballo, not stay behind. Cut in wedges with a long knife wiped between cuts. If the dish is travelling, leave it in the tin and turn it out where it will be eaten.

Plating and Presentation

The timballo is presented whole and cut in front of the people eating it. Bring it to the table on a wooden board or a flat platter with nothing around it, because the point of the dish is the standing cylinder and the crust that holds it together. Cut wedges of a good size, about one eighth of the tin, and lift each one out with a cake server so the layers stay stacked rather than sliding apart on the way to the plate.

Serve on warm plates if the timballo is hot and do not add sauce on the side. There is enough ragu inside. A little grated Pecorino at the table is traditional. For the day out, cut the wedges cold and lay them flat in the tin with paper between the layers, which is exactly how they arrive at the beach in Palermo.

Professional Technique

Everything that decides whether this dish works happens in the tin before any pasta goes into it. The mould is greased and then completely coated in breadcrumbs, and this is not decoration. The crumb layer is a sacrificial barrier between the pasta and the hot metal. It absorbs the fat and the moisture that migrate outwards during baking, it dries into a shell as the timballo sets, and it gives the whole structure a surface that releases from the wall. Without it the starch in the pasta welds directly to the tin and the timballo tears when you try to turn it out.

Use coarse dry breadcrumbs, not the fine powdery kind. Fine crumbs dissolve into the fat and become a paste that sticks worse than bare metal. Coarse crumbs stay as separate particles, keep air between the pasta and the wall, and toast into something with texture. Apply them to a surface greased everywhere, tilt the tin in every direction until the coat is continuous, and tip out the excess so the layer is even. A tin coated properly releases a timballo in one piece.

Texture and Moisture Control

The anelletti go into the oven seriously undercooked, four minutes short of the packet time and still hard in the middle, because they continue to cook inside the timballo in the moisture of the ragu for another 45 minutes. Pasta drained at al dente comes out of the oven soft and the rings lose the shape that holds the structure open.

Moisture is controlled at the sauce. A ragu still loose enough to run will flood the tin, collect at the base and turn the bottom layer into a wet seal that never sets. Reduce it until a spoon drawn through leaves a trail that closes slowly. The cheese belongs in the layers and not only on top. Caciocavallo distributed through the pasta melts into pockets that set as the timballo cools and act as the glue between the rings, which is why a rested timballo stands and a hot one collapses.

Professional Mise en Place

This is a dish that rewards a cook who finishes everything in advance. The ragu and the eggplant can be done the day before and kept cold, and the assembly then takes 20 minutes. Nothing here is cooked to order.

Ragu: cook it a day ahead, cool it and refrigerate. It reduces further overnight and tastes better.
Eggplant: fry and drain upright up to a day ahead, keep covered at room temperature or cold.
Cheese: dice the caciocavallo and grate the Pecorino while cold, keep them refrigerated and separate.
Tin: grease and crumb the mould before the pasta water boils, because the pasta will not wait.
A la minute: only the boiling, the dressing and the layering. Everything else is already done.

Chef Tips

Salt the pasta water properly but remember the ragu and the cheese are already salted, so taste the dressed pasta before it goes into the tin.
Press each layer down with the back of a spoon. Air pockets are where a slice breaks when you cut it.
If you want the traditional slices of hard boiled egg in the centre, lay them on the middle ragu layer and nowhere else, so every wedge gets one.
Bake the timballo the day it is eaten but assemble it earlier. An assembled tin can wait two hours in the refrigerator, then add 10 minutes in the oven.

Common Mistakes

Using fine breadcrumbs in the mould: they turn to paste in the butter, give no barrier at all and the timballo sticks exactly as if the tin had been left bare. Buy or make coarse crumbs.

A ragu that is still liquid: it runs to the bottom during baking and leaves a wet base that will not hold. Reduce it until it mounds on the spoon before the pasta ever touches it.

Laying the fried eggplant flat on paper: the slices sit in their own oil and put it straight back into the timballo, which then reads as greasy. Stand them upright so the oil drains away.

Unmoulding too soon: a timballo turned out after five minutes has not set and it slumps on the board. Twenty minutes of rest is the minimum and it is the whole difference between a dish that stands and one that collapses.

Wine Pairing

Cerasuolo di Vittoria DOCG: The obvious Sicilian answer and the right one. The Frappato half brings red cherry and a light floral lift that reads against the peas and the eggplant, while the Nero d'Avola half carries enough body and gentle tannin to stand up to a long cooked meat ragu. Its acidity is the part that matters most, cutting through the fried eggplant and the melted caciocavallo so the second wedge tastes as fresh as the first.

Etna Bianco DOC: The choice when the timballo is eaten cold, which in Palermo is most of the time. Carricante gives a taut lemon and green apple line with a saline volcanic finish, and that acidity slices the congealed fat of a chilled baked pasta far better than any red served cool. The faint smoky minerality also sits well beside the toasted breadcrumb crust rather than fighting it.

Etna Rosso DOC: For a hot timballo straight from the oven and a table that wants something more serious. Nerello Mascalese has fine grained tannin and high acidity rather than weight, so it meets the richness of beef, pork and two cheeses without piling density on density. Its dried herb and sour cherry aromatics answer the bay leaf and the reduced tomato, and the long savoury finish keeps pace with the Pecorino.

Storage and Reheating

Cover the cooled timballo and refrigerate it for up to 3 days. It slices better cold than warm and Palermo eats it that way without apology. To reheat, put wedges on a tray, cover loosely with foil and warm at 320°F (160°C) for 15 minutes, then remove the foil for 5 minutes to bring the crust back. Avoid the microwave, which softens the crumb and makes the pasta pasty. Whole or in wedges it freezes well for up to 2 months, wrapped tightly. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator before reheating.