Looking for a mid week recipe? We have one for you. Nothing gets wasted here in Italy. Old recipes are made into new. Ricetti cirulare. Chef Antonio from Tolfa, showed us what to do if you have left over pasta to make another meal.
Here he had leftover rigatoni with ragu and he made a timbalo or a pasta in the oven (pasta al forno).
Instead of having the same meal again he made a bechamel sauce, combined the rigatoni and baked it in the oven. Alex loved this dish that had a combination of cheeses. So much so we made our own version throughout the week.
Note: I always get confused between a TIMBALO and LASAGNA. Chef explained the difference. The lasgana is a deliberate recipe prepared as a dish. With the timbalo you can add whatever ingredient that you like and then add the bechamel and cook in the oven
My version of left over pasta
With left over pasta (preferably penne or rigatoni), in a bowl to the pasta, I added the bechamel sauce and a cup of parmesan cheese. Combined well then added the mixture to a baking dish, topped with bread crumbs and baked it in the oven at 200C for 15 minutes or until the bread crumbs were golden. A sort of mini mac and cheese if you will.
For the Timbalo, Chef added mozarella, mortadella and parmesan cheese to the rigatoni and bechamel sauce mixture.
Although we can find bechamel in the supermarket its always better to make it
Chef Antonio’s Bechamel Sauce
50 g Butter unsalted (burro)
60 g Flour (farina)
1/4 teaspoon of salt (sale)
1/2 liter of milk (late)
Nutmeg (noche muscata)
First add butter let it melt, then add flour slowly. Add milk and keep mixing for 5 minutes until all ingredients become homogenous. Use a hand blender to get a more even bechamel which is a bit thick. Nutmeg is the secret ingredient. Its a spice we use in Jamaica quite alot. So it was a surprise and a pleasure to see it being used in this dish.
Mid week pasta al forno con bechamel
Put the left over pasta in a mixing bowl and pour the bechamel sauce over the pasta. Add mozarella cheese. Parmesan cheese, mortadella (see note) and mix all.
Put the mixture in a baking dish and bake for 15 minutes at 200C. Or until the top is golden. And there you have a quick dish for when you have some left overs.
Mortadella is a large sausage originally from Bologna composed of cooked and finely shredded pork , mixed with cubes of pork fat (mainly the hard fat of the neck), generally cylindrical or oval in shape. It is traditionally flavored with black peppercorns, some versions may also contain pistachios or more rarely myrtle berries . The best known version is Mortadella Bologna but there are other varieties, also made with other meats
Wikipedia
Let me know if you tried this recipe or what was your version. Remember you can add any ingredient to make it your own.
Mid week recipe - TIMBALO