The Leopards Dish

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Timballo di Pasta Alla Sicilliana

This dish is the center piece of an Sicillian dinner which might include...Onion Pie, Roasted Quails, Tomatoe Basil Salad and Cassata Alla Sicilliana....

But on to the Grand Recipe for the Leopard....

Beware this is a complex dish, with several sub recipes when combined make up the Leopard....

Ingridents:

Ragout...recipe to follow
Bechamel Sauce...recipe to follow
Pie pastry...recipe to follow
1 1/2 lbs of Penne Paste...cooked until al dente
10 Chicken Livers...
1/4 cup of Butter... Cook Chicken Livers in Butter till Brown on the ouside and pink inside
4 Hardcooked eggs sliced into 1/8's
1/2 lb water packed mozzarella sliced
1/2 lb Prosciutto thin sliced
1 medium Truffle thin sliced
4 or 5 Bay Leaves
1 egg yolk beaten

Ragout recipe:

1 small onion
3/4 lb Mushrooms sliced
2 carrots diced
2 stalks of Celery chopped
1 clove of Garlic minced
1 teaspn of Rosemary chopped
1 teaspn of sage chopped
1/4 cup of Olive oil

Saute all of the above until onion is tender

Add:

1 lb Ground Beef
1 lb Ground Veal
1 cup dry Red Wine
1 28oz can Diced Tomatoes..or 2lbs fresh
salt, pepper and a dash Nutmeg

cook the Beef and Veal and then add Tomatoes, simmer for 45 minutes or until thickened...

meanwhile

2 Boneless Chicken Breasts Chopped and sauted in 1/4 cup olive oil till tender and golden....add chicken to ragout.


Bechamel sauce:

1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup flour
1 quart milk scalded
salt, pepper, nutmeg

Melt Butter in sauce pan stir in flour and stir till smooth, gradually add milk salt, pepper and nutmeg stirring until slightly thickened.

Pie pastry:

6 cups of flour
1 teaspn of salt
1 1/2 lbs of butter softened
6 medium eggs

mix all together till a soft doughl is formed, divide dough in half

On a floured board roll out half the dough into an 18" round....place the dough in a 14"' diameter stainless bowl...your going to need a large one...lining the sides...CHILL the dough....it needs to be cold enough to asorb the heat of other ingridents and be turned over without falling apart...this is the trick to the recipe...

Roll out the remaining piece of dough and chill as well, you will need to leave some dough for cut outs...

After the dough is chilled...mix the Ragout, Bechamel sauce and Penne together....Then alternately layer Pasta mixture with the Mozzarella, Prosciutto, Hardcooked eggs, Truffle, Chicken Livers and Bay Leaves sprinklling with a touch of Cinnamon between layers till all the ingridents are used...

Then take the remaining rolled out dough place it over the top and seal the edges with some of the beaten egg yolk...Place a large pizza pan over the top of the dough and then turn the whole thing over, then remove the Stainless bowl carefully so that the whole thing doesn't fall apart on you....That why the dough needs needs to be well chilled...You will have a Pastry Dome filled with pasta etc

With the remaining dough make some cutouts (cookie cutter shapes work well) brush the the Pastry Dome with some egg yolk and apply cut outs....A nice touch is to use food colouring to colour the coutouts....Green and Red work well for Christmas...then take a egg yolk wash and brush the whole dome cut outs and all...

Place in oven at 350 for 45 minutes or until Golden ...let stand for 10 minutes...transfer to serving platter...I say use the Pizza pan and don't risk it...

To serve breakopen the pastry and spoon out the pasta with some crust....

This is an absolute show stopper of a recipe.....






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[dhoward]

Nice.
Liked the enchiladas, a while back too...

[concentric]

Awesome.
This looks like an half/all day project with the shopping and the obligatory wine consumption, but it'll be worth it.

Nice call, tabs.

JCM

[goat]

Wow this sounds good. But not for the amature.
Printing out and will try.
thanks.

[tabs]

The Leopard is a reference to Garabaldi....the dish and accompanying dinner is in the Sicillian Renaissance style, and is a creation of Celestino Drago chef at Scaloras in Beverly Hills. I found this recipe and others mentioned briefly above in the September 18th, 1983 edition of the LA TIMES Home Magazine....

As I have said I have made this dish 4 or 5 times over the years and have recreated the dinner once...It is a major task...the key is to chill the dough in the bowl before you place the ingridents in it or you stand to have the whole thing fall apart when you try and turn it over...and if it does fall apart you gotta paste it back to together somehow...

[dhoward]

edit: Nevermind!