Calzone is a close cousin to pizza; you could even call it wrapped up pizza because the filling is encased in the delicious dough rather than sitting on top. Anyway, these calzones. Super delicious. And here’s the thing about pizza: there’s really no perfect formula to it. So if you’d rather throw these toppings on top of a regular pizza, or into a deep dish, or inside of one gigantic calzone, do it! I won’t mind.
Calzone is basically the same as pizza but with a much prettier appearance. If you want to impress your family, make your regular pizza into a calzone, and watch them "ooh and ahh." And since the filling is inside instead of on top, it's easier to take on the road! Voila!
Dough:
Ingredients
3 level tea-cupsall-purpose flour
three-quarter tspinstant yeast
quarter tsp bakingpowder
1 n half tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
4 tbsp oil plus 1tbsp butter
water+milk (half andhalf)
Method
First, sieve theflour and add the salt, bp, yeast n oil. Heat the water/milk as much as you cantolerate for kneading. The hotter the liquid, the softer the bun. Add the watergradually into the flour whilst kneading until you have a soft but firm dough.Knead the dough, pounding it as much as you can to give the buns a delicatelysoft texture. The more you knead the better the result.
Put the dough into alightly-oiled spacious bowl and turn it over in the bowl once so that thelittle oil covers the dough all over. Cover the bowl with a damp warm towel andlet the dough rise for about half an hour to 45 mins.
I should also mention that these calzones are really good reheated. So if you bake four but only eat two, or if you have leftovers, just pop them in the fridge and reheat them the next day. Deliciousness round two!
For Steak Filling:
Ingredients:
1 kg rump steak 2"cube size pieces,
2 tbsp ginger garlic paste,
1 tsp black pepper powder,
5 - 6 medium onion
2 tbsp margarine or butter,
1 tsp cumin crushed coarsely,
1/4 tsp turmeric powder,
2 tsp black pepper powder,
1 tbsp fresh chopped coriander,
1/2 tsp garlic paste,
1 - 2 not so spicy green chillies,
1/2 tsp all spice pwd,
1/2 tsp all spice pwd,
juice of half lemon,
salt as per taste.
Boil 1kg rump steak(cubed) in a pressure cooker with some salt, garlic, ginger and pepper untilvery tender (about 35mins or a bit more) Try to use just enough water to cookthe meat, the less water used the better, because all the flavour is retainedin the meat itself this way.r
Once cool, drain thenshred the steak using the flat end of a spoon. Set aside. If there was any soupleftover from the boiling, do not discard. We will use it when preparing themixture later.
Peel about 5-6 mediumred onions (white are fine too but I prefer red coz they are sweeter and give anicer overall taste to the dish). Make two deep gashes in it to form quarters,but dont cut it right through. Slice these onions using an onion slicer so youhave small pieces of thinly-sliced onions.
In a deep pan, heatabout 2 tbsp of margarine or butter. Add the sliced onions and saute untilonions are soft (but be careful NOT to brown them. They should just turn into anice translucent colour).
Add crushed cuminpowder, a quarter tsp of turmeric and about 2 tsp black pepper powder. Stir fora bit, then add the shredded steak and about 1 tbsp of freshly choppedcoriander, half tsp garlic paste and 1-2 chopped green chillis. Cook for about10-15mins on low heat, adding a bit of the retained soup whenever you feel themixture is getting a bit too dry (it should be slightly towards the moistside). Adjust salt/pepper to your preference and squeeze half a lemon's juiceinto the mixture. Stir then turn off the heat and sprinkle some garam masala.
Assembling the calzones:
Once risen, make intoabout 4 or 6 balls. Roll out each ball into a circle of about half a cmthickness. Place your mixture on one half of the circle, leaving a margin nearthe circumference.
In a bowl, beat anegg WHITE with a half tsp of water. Drizzle some of this egg white onto themixture that you placed on the dough circle. (This is a tip that helps to holdthe mixture together whilst baking so that when you eat the foldover, you wonthave bits and pieces of meat falling out...so messy!! You can do this formeatpies' mince too!)
Dip your fingers insome water then run them around the circumference of the circle of dough. Thenfold the circle in half, using the empty half to cover the half that has themixture. Press down around the edge using a fork that's been dipped lightly inflour. This helps seal the edge and leaves a pretty design too.
Make a slit in themiddle of the foldover (to help air escape during baking and also makes iteasier to cut the foldover in half when eating!) Repeat for the remaining doughballs...
Place the foldoverson a greased tray and let them rise again for about 20 mins to half an hour.Then lightly brush the tops with egg yolk to give them a nice golden colour.Bake in a pre-heated oven (around 170 degrees) until they're a nice colour.Should take about 12-15 mins or so depending on your oven.
You can apply a bitof butter when they are straight out of the oven (to give them an amazing aromaand to help soften them further). Make sure you cover them in a soft cloth forat least 15mins before serving. This makes them extra soft.
