Calzone Bari style

From Puglia, a region with age-old traditional gastronomy, the original recipe of calzone, a mouth-watering and Mediterranean dish with red tomatoes and black olives.

  • Time

    50 minutes

  • Difficulty

    Medium

  • Course

    Bread, focaccia, pizzas

  • Italian Region

    Puglia

Ingredients

Servings 6

For pasta

For filling

  • 3 ½ oz black olives
  • 1 lb ripe tomatoes
  • 5 oz pressed ricotta
  • 1 onion
  • 3 ½ tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
  • salt and pepper to taste

Preparation

30 minutes preparation + 20 minutes cooking

Pour flour onto a pastry board and mix with yeast dissolved in a little warm water, a pinch of salt and a generous half glass of oil.

Knead dough until soft and flexible, then cover with a dish towel and allow to rise for about an hour.

In a saucepan, braise a sliced onion in half a glass of oil, then add peeled, chopped tomatoes. Reduce the sauce for a few minutes, then season with salt and pepper, and add pitted chopped olives.

Remove from heat and blend in salted Ricotta cheese passed through a sieve, and mix well. Roll out the dough into two sheets, one wider than the other. Using the wider sheet, line an oiled pan, then spread the sauce and top with the second sheet carefully folding the edges together.

The calzone must be baked in a very hot oven (475°F) for about twenty minutes.

During Lent, a few salted boned anchovies are finely chopped and added to the sauce together with the olives.

Chef's Tips

The quantities to prepare the dough here indicated could slightly vary according to type of flour you will use. So keep some extra flour and water aside, in order to add them to the dough when necessary to gain the right consistency, which is a smooth and elastic dough, easy to clean off the hands and the working table.

Food history

Calzone is a focaccia with a filling. The base dough is the same as for a pizza, it is because of the filling that it gets the name calzone, stuffed with traditional italian products like cured meats, cheese(usually mozzarella) or vegetables.

Pizza, calzone and focaccia are the genuine symbols of the Italian art of baking, be found all over the peninsula with a myriad mouthwatering and tempting variants that differ from region to region.