And the Oscar Goes to . . . the Slow Cooker
For a food obsessed person like myself, some of the most memorable movie scenes involve cooking and food. Hollywood has provided us home cooks with kitchen inspiration for many years. While there isn’t yet an Academy Award for “Best Screen Cuisine,” food has often played a major supporting role in the cinema, both in setting the scene and for plot development. There is even a small (and growing) genre of food films such as Ratatouille. Who could ever forget Disney’s Pixar animated chef rat named Remy, who caused quite a stir (sorry for the pun, I had to do it) in Paris with his incredible cuisine and hilarious cooking feats?
In honor of the upcoming Academy Awards and my mom’s recent birthday (which both happen to fall in the month of February), I wanted to share a story with you about how one of those foodie flicks inspired me to re-create a dish I had seen on the big screen as a surprise for her birthday one year.
One of my mother’s favorite films is Big Night, a movie about two Italian brothers who are struggling restaurateurs. They are adamant about staying true to their roots and not serving watered down Italian American cuisine like the flashy restaurant next door.
The final scene of the movie is a lavish feast the brothers prepare in honor of a visit from jazz singer Louis Prima and the showstopper dish is Timpano – a drum shaped pasta dish layered with meat sauce, meatballs, cheeses, and hardboiled eggs. The scenes leading up to the feast show the labor-intensive work that goes into the Timpano, and the preparation seems to be a ritual almost in itself.
My mom always talked about Timpano as looking like one of the best things she had ever seen on screen and so of course it sounded like the perfect thing to make to celebrate her day. It was a pretty brave feat given the fact that she makes the best meatballs known to mankind.
It was a multi-day undertaking between making the sauce, and finding and preparing all the rest of the ingredients, so we divvied up the work amongst the siblings. The dish came out beautifully- it was visually stunning and enough to feed a hungry Italian soccer team. But best of all, my mother was thrilled that we recreated one of her favorite cinematic moments!
If you are interested in making this dish at home, I would definitely suggest setting aside a weekend or a couple of days, and gathering some of your closest cooking buddies. If you have less time than that, you could focus on making the sauce below, a slow cooked beef based tomato sauce that is so good that you could serve it alone with pasta for a deliciously satisfying meal. You will also need to have the movie Big Night on hand, so you can see how your efforts stack up against the big screen. But you won’t soon forget the results of your hard work.
With Oscar night approaching, most people will be focusing on what the stars wear, or who takes home which awards, but I am going to be thinking about which of the movies can best serve as inspiration for my next great meal!
Made with roasted garlic puree, fresh Italian parsley, jack cheese, flour, kosher salt, olive oil, ziti pasta, bread crumbs
Serves/Makes: 14
***Tomato and Meat Sauce***
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 4 ounces pancetta, diced
- 1 pound stewing beef, cut into small pieces
- 1 pound pork shoulder or butt (not loin), cut into small pieces
- kosher salt
- 1 large yellow onion, diced
- 6 cloves garlic, minced
- 1/2 cup dry red wine
- 1 can (14 ounce size) strained tomatoes or tomato sauce
- 3 cans (28 ounce size) whole plum tomatoes
- 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
- 2 teaspoons dried oregano
- black pepper in a mill
***Garlic Meatballs***
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 shallots, minced
- 8 cloves garlic, minced
- kosher salt
- black pepper in a mill
- 1 pound ground beef
- 1 pound ground pork
- 1/2 cup roasted garlic puree
- 3 tablespoons minced fresh Italian parsley
- 4 ounces dry jack cheese, grated
- 1 1/2 cup bread crumbs
- flour, for dusting your hands
***Assembly***
- 1/4 cup kosher salt
- 3 pounds ziti pasta
- olive oil
- 1 cup lightly toasted coarse bread crumbs
- 2 pounds prosciutto, very thinly sliced
- 12 hard-cooked eggs, peeled, at room temperature
- 1 pound fresh ricotta cheese
- 2 pounds caciacavallo, unsmoked, cut into 1/2 -inch cubes, at room temperature
- 4 eggs, beaten
- 2 cups half and half
- boiling water
- italian parsley sprigs, for garnish
First, make the meat sauce: Warm the olive oil in a stew pot set over medium heat. Add the pancetta and cook, stirring frequently, until it begins to lose its raw look. Add the beef and pork, season with salt and cook, stirring frequently, until the meat is evenly browned. Use a slotted spoon to transfer the meat to a bowl.
Reduce the heat to low, add the onions and cook until they are soft and fragrant, about 9 to 10 minutes. Do not let them brown. Add the garlic and cook 2 minutes more. Season with salt.
Increase the heat to medium, add the wine, scrape the bottom of the pan to loosen any little pieces of meat and bring the wine to a boil. Pour in the strained tomatoes or tomato sauce. Pass the plum tomatoes through a food mill or crush them with the fork and stir them into the sauce. Add the red pepper flakes, dried oregano and browned meats, along with any juices that have collected in the bowl.
When the mixture begins to boil, reduce the heat and simmer very slowly until the meat is very tender, about 2 1/2 hours. Should the sauce become thick, thin with water, adding 1/2 cup at a time.
When the meat is tender, taste the sauce, correct for salt and season with black pepper. The sauce should be rather thin, not rich and thick like a ragu.
Remove from the heat, use immediately or cool to room temperature and store in the refrigerator for 3 to 4 days.
While the sauce cooks, make the meatballs: Heat the olive oil in a small saute pan set over medium heat, add the shallots and cook until transparent, about 6 minutes. Add the minced garlic and saute about 2 minutes more. Season with salt and pepper and set aside to cool.
Put the ground meat in a medium bowl, add the cooled shallot mixture, garlic puree, parsley, cheese and bread crumbs. Season with salt and pepper and mix thoroughly. Saute a small amount of the mixture in a small saute pan, taste and correct the seasoning of the meatball mixture.
To form the meatballs, dust your hands with a little flour and roll about 2 teaspoons of the mixture between your palms. Place the formed meatball on a baking sheet or wax paper and continue until all have been made. (The meatballs can be covered tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerated for up to one day at this point.) To cook, saute several meatballs at a time in a large heavy pan until they are evenly browned and nearly cooked through. Transfer to a clean sheet of wax paper or parchment on a baking sheet and let cool to room temperature. Use immediately or cover tightly and refrigerate over night.
Both sauce and meatballs may be made a day ahead; bring to room temperature before using.
To assemble the timpano, fill a very large pot two-thirds full with water, add the salt and bring to a boil over high heat. When the water boils, stir in the ziti. Stir a time or two more, until the water boils and then stir every minute or two to keep the pasta separated. Cook until it is not quite al dente, about 2 minutes less than suggested on the package.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Drain the pasta and transfer it to a wide shallow bowl or large baking sheet. Drizzle and toss with a little olive oil. Pour 2 cups of the sauce over it and toss gently.
Coat the inside of a curved 8-quart oven-proof container (a Pyrex dish, a heavy stainless steel bowl or a curved casserole dish) generously with olive oil. Add the bread crumbs and agitate the pan until it is evenly coated with the bread crumbs. Line the container with prosciutto, overlapping the layers by at least 3/4 of an inch and letting at least 4 inches of prosciutto hang over the sides of the bowl.
Next add about a quarter of the pasta, spreading it evenly over the container. Arrange a third of the meatballs and a third of the hard-cooked eggs on top, spacing them evenly. Put dollops of ricotta between, using about a third of the cheese. Scatter a third of the caciacavallo on top. Spread 2 cups of sauce over the top of this layer.
Add half of the remaining pasta, again spreading it evenly. Add the remaining meatballs, remaining eggs and remaining ricotta. Top with the rest of the caciacavallo. Pour 4 cups of sauce over the top and add a final layer of pasta.
Combine the beaten eggs and half and half. Pour it slowly over the timpano, drizzling over the entire surface to distribute it evenly.
Fold the exposed prosciutto in over the pasta. Brush the prosciutto with olive oil and cover the timpano with parchment and then with aluminum foil, crimping the edges tightly.
Put a roasting pan or other large baking dish into the oven and set the container with the timpano inside. Add boiling water to lower pan.
Bake for 1 hour. Remove the foil and parchment and bake for 30 minutes more, until the top is just beginning to color and the inside of the timpano reaches 120 degrees.
Remove from the oven, cover with a loose layer of foil and let rest 30 minutes.
Check the rim of the baking container to be certain the prosciutto does not stick to it; if it does, loosen it with a thin knife or rubber spatula. Set a large round serving platter on top and carefully invert. Gently remove the container from the timpano. Let rest 15 to 30 minutes.
Heat the remaining sauce and put into a serving bowl. Garnish the timpano with sprigs of Italian parsley and serve. Use a long, sharp, thin-bladed knife to cut the timpano into wedges. Pass the sauce alongside.
Made with fresh oregano, basil, olive oil, beef short ribs, onions, garlic, red wine, tomato paste, water, plum tomatoes
Serves/Makes: 4
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 1 pound beef short ribs, trimmed
- 1 cup roughly chopped onions
- 4 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
- 1/2 cup red wine
- 1 can (6 ounce size) tomato paste
- 1/2 cup warm water
- 8 cups canned whole plum tomatoes, pureed
- 5 fresh basil leaves
- 1 tablespoon chopped fresh oregano leaves
- salt and pepper
Warm olive oil in a pot set over medium-high heat, sear the beef short ribs until brown on all sides, about 10 minutes. Remove and place in crock pot.
Cook the onions and garlic in the same pot. Reduce the heat to low and cook until the onions begin to soften, about 5 minutes.
Stir in the wine, scraping the bottom of the pot.
Add the tomato paste. Fill can with the warm water to loosen any remaining paste and then pour the water into the pot. Add the tomatoes along with an additional cup warm water, basil and oregano. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Transfer tomato mixture to crock pot to cover beef. Cover and cook over low heat for 4-6 hours. At end of cooking time, remove and discard bones (beef should fall right off the bone) and thin with water to desired consistency if sauce becomes too thick. Adjust seasoning to taste.
NOTE: If you have made meatballs, they may be added during the last half hour of cooking. The meatballs will soften and absorb some of the sauce.
related articles
Write a comment:
©2026 CDKitchen, Inc. No reproduction or distribution of any portion of this article is allowed without express permission from CDKitchen, Inc.
To share this article with others, you may link to this page:
https://www.cdkitchen.com/cooking-experts/pamela-chester/847-foodie-films/