Over the years I've made many pizzas and I've even made several stombolis. But I think I had only made a calzone once before. That might surprise some of you -- because it surprised me. And judging by how delicious these were, I'll be making many more from now on.
It is a great twist on the traditional pizza, while using the same ingredients. I started by slicing green pepper and onion really thin. And I mean almost transparent they were so thin. They are going to cook inside your calzone, and you don't want to bit into big chunks of semi-cooked aromatics. So practice your knife skills here.
Take a basic pizza dough and spread it out into a round. Fill one half with your normal pizza ingredients with one major difference: don't put any sauce in it. The sauce goes on the side. I once asked my friend who's family owned a pizzeria. And she confirmed that calzones should have the sauce served on the side. You can also pour it over afterward -- but I think that is too messy. Plus with a bowl of sauce for dipping, you can control exactly how much you get with each bite. My wife loves sauce, so she likes to scoop up as much as possible.
After you have filled one half of your dough with your chozen ingredients, carefully fold over the other half and seal the edges together. You can use a fork, or twist it by hand. It's kind of like a larger empanada. You can also use a little water to seal the crust together. And if you want a really nice golden, flaky crust, you can do a light egg wash.
Rip a small slit in the top of our dough to allow some steam to escape. And bake it until the crust is perfectly golden brown.
We topped ours with a spice blend we got from Chicago called "Deep-Dish Pizza Pizzaz" which has Parmesan cheese, garlic, Italian herbs, sweet paprika, salt, onion, and black pepper. That's the color you're seeing on top of the calzone. And it really added another dimension to the flavor of these.
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