Italiano
Stuffed with ricotta cheese or steamed endives with capers, anchovies, black olives and pine kernels, the calzone pizza is just one of the many strings to the pizza-makers bow. Unlike the round disc of dough baked in the oven, the calzone is fried in boiling oil that seals the traditional filling in its half-moon of dough (bought ready-to-use from the baker’s or made at home). Popular fillings include vegetables, ricotta, mozzarella grated parmesan, sliced ham and spicy salami. I deally, a calzone should be eaten as soon as it come out of the pan – frijenno e magnanno (“frying and eating”, as they say in Naples) but they taste just as good if you wait for them to reach the table, washed down with an ice-cold beer, sparkling wine or the classic pizza accompaniment for younger diners: Coca Cola.
Ingredients for the dough:
500 g plain flour
20 g brewer’s yeast
1 glass warm water
salt
oil
Ingredients for the filling:
200 g ricotta cheese
50 g mozzarella or fiordilatte
50 g boiled ham
50 g spicy salami
1 egg
2 tablespoons grated parmesan
salt, pepper, basil
or:
1 kg endives
2 cloves of garlic
50 g capers
2 salted anchovies
handful black olives (stones removed)
handful of pine kernels
Procedure:
For the dough, arrange the flour in a cone shape, make a depression in the centre and add the salt, yeast and the water (a little at a time). Knead the dough and cut into sections, then cover with a damp tea towel and leave to rise for 30 minutes in a warm place.
In the meantime, prepare the filling: cut up all the ingredients and mix them in a bowl with the eggs, salt and pepper or, alternatively, cook the vegetables in a frying pan with the garlic, capers and olives before adding the pine kernels and anchovies, then leave to cool.
Roll the dough out into a disc shape, brush with oil and spoon the filling onto one half, then fold over to create a half-moon shape and make sure the edges are sealed. Fry in a pan of very hot oil for a few minutes and serve hot.
