Posted on 04/23/2012 9:12:22 PM PDT by nickcarraway
MAYBE it’s the suggestive power of the name, but rarely do I use pizza dough for anything else, even though it’s perfectly suitable for savory tarts, flatbreads and rolls. Once I get pizza on the brain, it’s hard to redirect. Then I got reacquainted with an old friend also made from that same dough: the calzone.
Though it was a childhood staple at my corner pizzeria, I hadn’t eaten a calzone in years. But at a dinner at Lucali in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, I saw one emerge from the oven, a burnished, puffy crescent oozing ricotta at the seams. On the side was a small bowl of tomato sauce for dunking, garnished with a few fresh basil leaves. It was a much classier presentation than the oil-stained paper plate I would use to transport my calzones of yore, and it tasted better, too.
I was inspired. It was time to revisit the calzone at home.
After all, a calzone has many of the perks of pizza. Easy and crowd pleasing, it’s a good vehicle for using up odds and ends in the fridge.
It also has some happy benefits of its own. For one, you can get away with adding a lot more cheese. In fact, it’s practically mandatory. You need to stuff enough ricotta and mozzarella into the dough so that it ripples attractively, rising as it bakes. Unlike an apple turnover, which wants to stay flat, a calzone should peak and singe at the top. (True, you could cram the dough full of vegetables and the like, but if you love cheese, calzones are the place to indulge.)
Another calzone advantage is the element of surprise. Pizza gives it all up as soon as it lands on the table; serve a calzone to a group and let them
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Is it time for a midnight snack?
Calzone, great just before bed time.
LOL! Just a bite, nick made me do it.
Or any time!
This is the paper of record, now good for well written articles about calzones.
They are really going to look into Obama this time, you know. Brisbane said so.
Take the cannolis.
Calzones were once rare in California. In the early 1980’s, I had my first Calzone at an Italian restaurant in Santa Monica, which dubbed it a “football sandwich” because of its shape. The waiter said that few customers ordered them.
Makes my bowl of Cheerios seem pretty paltry!
I love those things. Whenever I pass a Sbarro’s at the airport, I gotta have one.
I hear George Steinbrenner loved those.
Bump
What is the difference between a calzone and a stromboli?
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