Delicious, easy, filling and impressive – this is what a well-to-do 1920s Italian middle-class family would have thought of this dish, I presume. It is a timbale, not dissimilar from a British savoury pudding: the “crust” is made with mashed potatoes, seasoned with butter and Parmigiano; the filling is finanziera, a traditional, now rare, ragout of veal offal and chicken giblets, often enriched with ceps or even truffles.
In this version, from the 1928 edition of Ada Boni’s Il Talismano della felicità, one of the most seminal of all Italian cookbooks, with multiple editions under its belt, the filling is made up of chicken giblets, sausage, cooked yolks, veal sweetbreads, cured ham and truffles. However, signora Boni also says that its richness depends on how much you want to impress your guests and how much money you want to spend. I opted for a thrifty version, using chicken livers, plain pork sausages and dried ceps, and it was excellent.
It is baked in a charlotte mould of 18 cm (bottom) x 15 cm (top) x 10 cm (height), that is egged and crumbed twice, for extra sturdiness. One could use a pudding basin instead.
I have tweaked the recipe here and there, adding some spices, for instance, and altering some of the cooking method, but all in all this is very close to the original. And it is indeed impressive.
Timballo di patate alla finanziera
Potato, chicken liver and sausage timbale, a 1928 middle-class dish
For 6-8 portions
Butter and oil
fine, dry breadcrumbs (or whizz up some panko crumbs)
1 egg whisked with one teaspoon water
1 kg floury potatoes, net weight
1 yolk
a handful of Parmesan
pepper and nutmeg
1 onion, finely chopped
1 fresh bay leaf
1 sage leaf
1 clove, ground + a pinch of cinnamon, 4 juniper berries, lightly crushed + a grating of nutmeg + a peppermill twist of pepper
3 plain pork sausages, without skin and cut up into small chunks
400 g chicken livers, cleaned and diced
half a glass of white wine, about 60 ml
a handful of dried ceps, soaked in warm water (barely to cover) for 30 minutes, drained, blotted dry and coarsely chopped. Filter the water and keep aside
a squirt of tomato paste
Start with making the purèe. Steam the potatoes and rice them, add the parmesan and the yolk. Whisk well into a lump free mash and check for salt, pepper and nutmeg. Keep aside
Preheat the oven to 170 C
Prepare the charlotte: this is the trickiest bit of this recipe, because you have to egg and crumb the mould twice. Generously butter the mould with soft butter. Add some breadcrumbs, roll them around making sure the mould is evenly lined. Add the whisked egg, roll it around carefully and gently and cover with extra breadcrumbs. Place the mould in the freezer: this will make lining the mould with the potato crust much easier.
Fry the onion, bay and sage in oil and butter. When it is light gold, add the spices and let them fry for a few seconds. Add the sausage pieces, raise the heat and turn and stir them around. When they have lost their raw aspect, add the chicken livers, turning and stirring them. When they have developed a light gold crust here and there, deglaze with the wine. Let it reduce a little and switch off. You do not want to overcook the livers – some will still be clearly pink and that is exactly what you want. Remove them and keep them aside.
Wipe clean the pan with some kitchen paper, add oil and butter and, when hot, add the ceps. Fry them for a few minutes, add the tomato paste, stir well with the mushrooms and cook for a minute or so. Add the mushroom water and finish cooking them, covered, on low heat. When the mushrooms are soft, add the chicken liver and mix everything together. This is your finanziera filling.
You have now to line the mould with the (by now cooled down) mash. This takes time and it is not a slap dash job. Keep the tips of your finger wet and proceed in a patchwork motion, remembering to keep some mash aside for the lid.
Once you have created this mash “box”, fill the gap with the finanziera ragout, dot with butter and cover the top with the remaining mash. Dot with butter.
Bake the timballo for 45-60 minutes. The top must be firm and golden. Let it rest for about 10 minutes, slide a thin sharp knife around the edge and unmould the timballo.
It is very good with buttered spinach or peas or with a sharp mustardy salad of endive.
Italian home cooking 
Complimenti
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Grazie!
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Ciao Stefano, this is surely impressive. Lining the mould with the mashed potatoes could be frustrating I imagine. I always love it when you show us these classic/historical recipes.
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yup… but freezing the mould helps a lot… nice recipe. this chicken liver and sausage ragout would work also on plain mash or polenta of course
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I was thinking ravioli filling 😋
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Fyi only … https://www.aifb.it/calendario-del-cibo/giornata-nazionale-della-finanziera/
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thanks Jo, a lovely, difficult recipe.. I suspect even in Italy one needs an excellent butcher to be able to make this one.
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Oh, this is absolutely fascinating and I shall do my utmost in the days to come to make my ‘own’ version which, I daresay, will have a few of Diane Darrow’s ideas in it as well ! I adore most offal and will eat such ahead of steaks and chops and roasts any day of the week. Veal innards are very hard to get here even from s butcher as are sweetbreads I could eat every day ! Liver/chicken livers/kidneys/ tripe etc are most accessible. I have never been a big potato eater as all the tasty versions do not ‘suit’ the medico/nutritionist in me . . . . but not only is this post fascinating piece of ‘retro’ cooking but a challenge to manage something delightfully different in 2021 !!!
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Eha, thanks but none of those things I mentioned were my own ideas. They were those of the people carrying on from Ada Boni, as Stefano explained to us. However, for one idea of my own, how about chicken gizzards instead of those fagioli di pollo?
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lucky u if u can find good tripe – impossible here in London. .. but we can find good quality organic chicken liver easily now, fortunately
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Stunning. Seriously, I am making this. I need to figure out what to use in place of a Charlotte mould. (My batterie de cuisine is sadly lacking.) have everything else!
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a pudding basin? or a cake tin? or you could make a layer thing, using a normal oven dish: potato mash at the base, filling in the middle, potato top.
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I think putting mould would be just right. I hate to ask, but would you measure the diameter of your charlotte mould? I’m planning on buying the sausages this weekend end very much look forward to this dish.
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I can’t even begin to tell you how good this was! It is one of our new favorite dishes. Now that I’ve made it once, I think it will be really easy to put together in the future.
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Stefano, I was so intrigued by this dish that I looked up its equivalent in my copy of Talismano, which is the 1980 edition. Called timbaletto di vitello alla finanziera, it’s a very different dish. The casing is not potatoes but pounded veal, prosciutto, breadcrumbs, egg yolks, and parmigiano. The filling is lamb sweetbreads, pickled tongue, dried mushrooms, chicken livers, and fagioli di pollo. (Is that a kind of bean or a cut of chicken?) It’s baked in individual molds in a bagnomaria. Whew!
Your version is much friendlier, and my husband has requested it for his birthday dinner next month. So, many thanks for a brilliant idea!
Diane
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Hello Diane, the problem with Talismano is that it had many, many editions. They got worse after Ada Boni died, to the point that one wonders, in the recent editions, what is left of the original voice. A shame that such a book is not treated with more respect. I have two hard copies, from 1939 and a much more recent one, and few digital editions, amongst which, this 1928 one – which is glorious. The differences are many. This timballo is very forgiving once u understand the idea: a potato mash container + giblets sauce inside. One can play around with it. “Fagioli di pollo” is an euphemism for chicken/cockerel testicles! I have never seen in any butchers, with the exception of Florence’s San Lorenzo market
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Oh, my! Thank you for that recondite bit of anatomical information.
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That looks and sounds amazing!
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grazie… good, interesting dish to cook
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Absolutely gorgeous!
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