‘Anelletti’ pasta timbale with aubergines and OrganicTaleggio cheese

AICI – Associazione Insegnanti di Cucina Italiana

Recipe by Eleonora Caprio

(for 8 people) 500 g durum wheat pasta (‘anelletti siciliani’ shaped) 4 hard-boiled eggs 500 g Organic Taleggio 2-3 aubergines peanut oil for frying extra virgin olive oil 700 ml tomato passata 1 bunch of basil 1 fresh onion breadcrumbs, to taste salt, to taste 24-26 cm aluminium mould

Finely chop the onion and simmer slowly with 4-5 tbsps oil, add the passata, season with salt and leave the sauce to come together. When cooked, use your hands to tear the basil into pieces and add to the sauce. Slice the aubergine (1 cm thick slices) and fry in the peanut oil. Leave the fried aubergine to dry on some kitchen roll.
Boil the aneletti pasta in boiling salted water for half of the time indicated on the packet. Drain
the anelletti pasta and dress with two tbsps extra virgin olive oil. Add the tomato sauce and leave to cool for a few minutes.
Generously grease the mould and sprinkle
with breadcrumbs. Neatly arrange the slices of aubergine inside the mould, slightly overlapping them. Cut the left-over aubergine into small pieces and add to the dressed aneletti pasta. Place a little less than half of the anelletti pasta on top of the aubergine ‘shell’ and top with the Taleggio cheese and the sliced hard-boiled eggs. Cover with the anelletti pasta kept to one side and press down firmly.
Cover with a sheet of foil and cook in a pre-heated oven at 180°C for around 30 minutes; remove the foil for the last 10 minutes of cooking. Wait for a few minutes before turning out the timbale and then wait a further 5-10 minutes before cutting it. It’s possible to prepare this recipe using mini, single-portion timbales.
It’s possible to prepare this recipe using mini, single-portion timbales.