Cooking Catchup: Calzone!
Feb. 2nd, 2022 09:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerOn a grocery shopping trip two weeks ago I bought a pizza dough ball. I figured I'd make a closer-to-homemade pizza by rolling out the ready-made dough instead of starting with a par-baked crust... or just cooking a frozen pizza. The thing is, though, I've had mixed luck with using store-bought dough. Occasionally it works well and I get a great result, but more often the dough is too hard to work, leading to lots of frustration en route to a result that comes in below my expectations. So I knew I was taking my chances when I bought it.
Last week I decided, since I was taking my chances anyway, that I'd try something new with the dough. Instead of making a pizza, I'd make a calzone!
Making calzone isn't much harder than pizza. I rolled the dough out as if I were making a pizza— and yes, it was harder than it should have been this time, even though I let the dough warm to room temperature before working it— then added toppings. Sauce, mozzarella cheese, a few dollops of ricotta cheese, pepperoni, and sopressata.
I piled up the toppings mostly on one half of the circle of dough, leaving plenty of room around the edges. I folded the empty half of the dough up over the other half, creating the classic half-moon shape you see in the picture, then curled in the edges and pressed them together to make a seam.
One other thing I did to try to improve on past iterations of working with store-bought dough was I used only half of it for the calzone. It comes in a 16oz. package so I used about 8oz. for the main dish. Working with a smaller quantity made it easier to roll out to my desired thinness.
That left another 8oz. of dough. What to do with it? How about... garlic knots!
While the calzone was baking I divided the remaining dough into chunks of about 1oz. each, rolled them between my hands into strands, and tied them in simple overhand knots. I was following no recipe for this; just making educated guesses based on what the finished result looks like at restaurants. I brushed them with olive oil and sprinkled garlic powder.
So, how did it all taste?
Let me emphasize, for this being my first time ever making calzone, the results were pretty good. That said, I noted several ways I could do better on my second iteration. Five Things:
Last week I decided, since I was taking my chances anyway, that I'd try something new with the dough. Instead of making a pizza, I'd make a calzone!
Making calzone isn't much harder than pizza. I rolled the dough out as if I were making a pizza— and yes, it was harder than it should have been this time, even though I let the dough warm to room temperature before working it— then added toppings. Sauce, mozzarella cheese, a few dollops of ricotta cheese, pepperoni, and sopressata.
I piled up the toppings mostly on one half of the circle of dough, leaving plenty of room around the edges. I folded the empty half of the dough up over the other half, creating the classic half-moon shape you see in the picture, then curled in the edges and pressed them together to make a seam.
One other thing I did to try to improve on past iterations of working with store-bought dough was I used only half of it for the calzone. It comes in a 16oz. package so I used about 8oz. for the main dish. Working with a smaller quantity made it easier to roll out to my desired thinness.
That left another 8oz. of dough. What to do with it? How about... garlic knots!
While the calzone was baking I divided the remaining dough into chunks of about 1oz. each, rolled them between my hands into strands, and tied them in simple overhand knots. I was following no recipe for this; just making educated guesses based on what the finished result looks like at restaurants. I brushed them with olive oil and sprinkled garlic powder.
So, how did it all taste?
Let me emphasize, for this being my first time ever making calzone, the results were pretty good. That said, I noted several ways I could do better on my second iteration. Five Things:
- Overall the amount of filling I used was good. I could go a little more stuffed next time, but this was a good balance.
- Pepperoni is a classic (American) filling and my favorite pizza topping. The sopressata surprisingly didn't add much. Next time I may skip it and try a bit of sliced onion instead.
- The dough came out tasting too much of flour. I had to use a bit more than I wanted as I struggled to work it. This is another point in favor of making my own dough from scratch. When I did it for french bread a while back I was pleased with how easily it rolled out.
- I should bake it at a higher temperature. Some recipes say to heat the oven at 500°; and in the comments sections everyone's like, "Noo! It burned!" So I used 450°. By the time the dough reached the desirable golden-brown color on the outside— which is how I timed the baking— the crust tasted a little overcooked. Next time I will try 500° and see if that browns it 2-3 minutes faster. I may also brush more olive oil on the dough before baking.
- The classic cheese filling is ricotta. I like ricotta okay but I'm not a huge fan. I used mostly mozzarella, about a 3:1 ratio with the ricotta. That worked out well. I might use the ricotta even more sparingly next time. I prefer the taste and texture of mozzarella.
