Guus Bosman

software engineering director


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Four cheese calzone

Calzones.Yesterday afternoon I cooked a recipe from La Bela Vita, a book with recipes from Tuscany, Italy. It has a beautiful picture of their four cheese calzones so that recipe was the first one I tried.

It took a lot of work to make the dough and the stuffing but there is something very satisfying about making dough and baking. The recipe called for chopped thyme in the dough, that was a nice touch.

The main part of the stuffing was a mixture of different cheeses. I used Bulgarian feta cheese, a little bit of Fontina and Parmigiano-Regiano and mozzarella. In addition, I put fresh oregan, parsley and basil, chopped roasted peppers and meat from an Italian sausage. Lots of chopping!

The end result was very delicious. I don't have a picture of the inside of the calzone but there is a nice empty space in them, with a layer of the stuffing which looks white from the cheeses, and green from the fresh herbs.

Calzones.

The recipe book and the result.

Calzones.

The inside of the calzones.

Comments

Wow, that looks great. Can you send me that recipe?

Haha thank you! I'll post the recipe in a little while.

We had the calzones again this evening and I took a picture that I just added to the article.

All right, here it goes.

For the dough: use two packets of active dry yeast (about 1.5 table spoons) and dissolve that in 2.25 cups warm water (105 to 115 degree Fahrenheit). Let stand until yeast starts bubbling. Add the dissolved yeast and water to 5 cups bread flour, 1.33 tablespoons kosher salt, 0.25 cups olive oil and 1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme. Combine, knead until dough is smooth (about 10 minutes). Let rest in warm place for at least an hour.

Now, cut the dough into 12 2-ounce pieces (you'll use about half of the dough, store the rest in the fridge and use it for something else another dinner). Roll each boll into a flat disk, put on a sheet pan and let rest for 45 minutes (cover with a damp towel).

In the mean time prepare the stuffing. Chop the following and mix in a large bowl:

- 0.5 pound Italian sausage meat (taken from the sausage casings)
- 2 ounces of mozzarella
- 6 ounces of Bulgarian feta cheese (the original recipe called for goat cheese, you can use that if you like its flavor)
- 2 ounce fontina cheese (grated)
- 1 ounce parmigiano-reggiano cheese (grated)
- 0.5 cup diced roasted red peppers
- 2 tablespoons parsley
- 2 tablespoons basil
- 2 tablespoons oregano (all herbs preferably fresh, chopped into small pieces)
- 0.25 cups of pesto
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 0.25 teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper

Mix these ingredients, and when the small dough disks are ready, place two spoons of the stuffing on the dough and close them (use some water on the edges to make sure they stay closed). Brush each calzone with a little bit of olive oil before baking. Bake for 45 to 50 minutes on 400 degrees. Take them out the oven, brush again with a bit of oil and let cool down a bit. Enjoy!

Thanks a lot! I will certainly try it. First, I have to look for all ingredients (which will take me a few weeks, I'm afraid ;-)).

I know! It took me a lot of time to find the ingredients (especially the cheeses) but it's worth it. You can take some liberty with the ingredients but I think one of the most important things was to use fresh herbs instead of dried herbs: it tastes and looks much better with fresh herbs.

that looks delicious, ill try that sometime too!

i guess its 400 farenheit and not celsius? and how many european teaspoons is one american one? :P

Give it a try! Yes, it's 400 Fahrenheit: 205 Celcius. Most American recipes use teaspoons and tablespoons as official measurements -- a teaspoon is about 5 ml and a tablespoon about 15 ml.

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