Wild mushroom, robust herb and double cheese calzone

Posted on 11 June 2009

There’s more to Italian back-streets than pizza and pasta, calzoni are part of the picture too! These folded-over pizzas ooze with delicious fillings that are only limited by your imagination.

You can use whatever ingredients you like in a calzone, it’s completely up to you. After hours of debate yesterday, I decided to go with simple flavours with great quality product. The mushrooms I use in this recipe are dried wild mushrooms from Pick ‘n Pay, but if you’re in the know-how about picking mushrooms, go right ahead. I’m going off to do that today will blog about it later on (I hope)!

You’ll need: (To make two decent sized calzoni)

For the dough
2.25 tsp active dry yeast
1.3 cup of warm water
3.5 cups of all-purpose flour
2 tsp olive oil
Pinch of salt

For the filling
200g mozzarella cheese, grated (preferably Italian buffalo mozzarella but the credit crunch affects us all so a local variety will do!)
150g pecorino, grated
10g dried wild porcini mushrooms, chopped (re-constituted in warm water)
10g dried chantarell mushrooms, chopped (re-constituted in warm water)
2 cloves of garlic (chopped)
half an onion (chopped)
3 sprigs of thyme
A handful of fresh oreganum leaves
Dollop of butter
100ml red wine
Italian reduced tomato sauce

Here’s how:
Activate your yeast in a little warm water, cover and leave for five minutes. Add the rest of your dough ingredients and knead into a nice dough (don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty). When it is smooth and elastic, coat the insides of a bowl in olive oil, turn your dough ball over in it so that it’s coated, cover with plastic wrap and leave somewhere nice and warm for an hour.

Saut your onions and garlic in butter (my favourite smell). Add the mushrooms, thyme, ripped oreganum and red wine and heat through. Don’t let your mushrooms go soggy. Remove from the heat and set aside.

After your dough has been left to rise for an hour, portion it into two balls and flatten into round pizza bases. Do not use a rolling pin, it toughens the dough. Just use the heel of your hand to shape gently.

On half of each of the bases, layer your cheeses and mushrooms. Fold over the other half and crimp the edges. Paint with your tomato sauce and put onto a well-floured baking tray at the bottom of your oven (250 degrees Celsius).

After about 15 minutes, they should be crispy and delicious!

Enjoy with a glass of red.

Yours in food
Leigh






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