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The dish
What timballo teramano is
The crêpe «lasagne» of the Teramo tradition.
Instead of pasta sheets, timballo teramano uses scrippelle, very thin crêpes of eggs and flour. They are layered in a baking dish with meat ragù, pallottine (tiny meatballs), diced scamorza, pecorino and, in many families, sliced boiled eggs.
Every home has its version: some add chicken livers, some spinach, some mozzarella. It is made for Christmas, Easter, weddings and big celebrations.
What you need
Ingredients
Serves 8 (a 30 × 22 cm dish).
For the scrippelle
- 6 eggs
- 200 g plain flour
- 400 ml water
- A pinch of salt
- Lard or oil
For the ragù and meatballs
- 300 g minced veal or beef
- 1 egg, pecorino, nutmeg (for the meatballs)
- 300 g mixed meat for the ragù (pork and beef)
- 1.5 litres tomato passata
- 1 onion, oil, salt, half a glass of wine
To assemble
- 400 g diced scamorza
- 150 g grated pecorino
- 3 boiled eggs (optional)
Step by step
Method
- Make the ragù: brown the mixed meat in oil with the onion, deglaze with the wine, add the passata and simmer for at least two hours.
- For the meatballs, mix the minced meat with egg, pecorino, salt and nutmeg; roll into balls the size of chickpeas and cook them in the ragù for the last 15 minutes.
- Make very thin scrippelle with eggs, flour, water and salt, cooking them one by one in a greased pan.
- Grease the dish and cover the base with a little sauce and a layer of scrippelle.
- Spread ragù with meatballs, scamorza, pecorino and a few slices of boiled egg; cover with more scrippelle and continue in layers to the top.
- Finish with scrippelle, sauce and pecorino. Bake at 180 °C for about an hour.
- Let it rest for at least half an hour before cutting into squares.
From our home kitchen
Tips
- Ragù and scrippelle can be made the day before: on the feast day you only need to assemble.
- Do not overdo the sauce between layers: the timballo must stay firm.
- Leftovers are even better reheated in the oven the next day.
Note: this dish takes a long time to make: split the work over two days.
Gallery
Photos
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We do not have photos of this dish yet: the image is an illustration made for this page.
Tradition
History and trivia
Timballo is the king of the festive table around Teramo. Using scrippelle instead of pasta is typical of this area, where crêpes are a household staple.
The tiny meatballs are another Teramo hallmark: they also appear in the ragù of the local spaghetti alla chitarra.
Did you know? in the past timballo was taken to bake in the village oven, and each family marked its own dish to recognise it.