ISO: ISO: Calzone

[Paul]

My grandmother, an Irish woman from New England married a sailor she met while serving at the local USO during WWII. She married into an Italian family from NY. She took her knocks in the family as an outsider, and was trained to cook Italian by the family matriarchs. As a ferociously hard-working woman she became the best cook in the family and was practically a celebrity for her calzones. As her first grandchild there is nothing she wouldn't give me - except her recipe for calzones. Now the filling was fairly simple ricotta ("rigoatt" as she'd say in her adopted Italian accent), mozzarella ("moot za rell") mostly and she even let me help with that but the real secret is the dough which unlike what you find in your local pizza joint wasn't just pizza dough wrapped around whatever. It was more like a pastry type dough that she'd lightly deep fry. Still came out soft and just a little flaky and just a tad - almost unnoticably doughy. Can anyone help me out in coming up with a recipe to get a similar dough to make calzones like my grandma's?

 

[joe]

My mother was Chicago-Irish and shw married an Italian, too >>

quite a scandal at the time. Worse, he took her to California. My Dad's family was pretty welcoming and my Nana taught her to make spaghetti and meatballs. Pretty soon Mom was legendary for her sauce, and her meatballs were lighter that Nana's and she used spaghettini instead of spaghetti. The entire Italian side of the family abdicated all cooking responsibilities to my Irish Mom. Now that she's gone, none of us, even though her recipe was not a secret, can quite match it.

That doesn't answer your question, and my Mom didn't make calzone. Perhaps regular pizza dough would fry up just like you described? Or you could look for a brioche-type yeast dough, with olive oil used instead of butter. Just a thought. What you're describing sounds almost like a Spanish empanada, since I'm used to calzone being baked, not fried.

Here's an all-purpose Provencal dough from Richard Olney (Provence is pretty close to Italy):

PROVENCAL PASTRY:

For noodles, ravioli, pies, tarts, and deep-fired, stuffed little fantasies. It is best to prepare a relatively soft dough--it will absorb the necessary flour in being rolled out.

2 cups flour
Salt
1 egg
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup tepid water
Flour (for rolling out)
Olive oil (for brushing the pastry.

Add all the ingredients except the last to the flour in the mixing bowl, mix, first with a fork. then knead rapidly with your knuckles until consistent. Form ino a ball, cover with a towel, and leave to rest for at least an hour bofore rolling out on a well-floured board or marble. Whatever the preparation, brush (or smear with one's fingers) the surface with olive oil before baking the dough.

 

[Paul]

Irish/Italian is definitely a good combo.

Thanks for the recipe. Though I don't think this will do the trick. It's too much like a regular pizza dough. Looking for something a lot lighter. If I figure it out I'll post something here.