Calzones with fresh tomatoes

There are few foods as absolutely satisfying as a good homemade calzone.  Calzones are typically made with a thinner crust then most pizza, so using fresh tomatoes in this dish without having excesses moisture is even more difficult to achieve.  Calzones are basically folded over pizzas that are sealed, so there is little opportunity for excess moisture to evacuate during the baking process.  This means that the ingredients going into the dish should already be fairly dry. 

Sauce

Let’s start with the sauce, which for calzones is typically served in a bowl on the side.  You may use a pre-made sauce, but if you are making sauce from fresh tomatoes, you will need to simmer it for several hours to get a thick consistency.  If you are pressed for time, try this method: 

• Bring your crushed tomatoes to a boil while stirring in order to avoid burning.
• Strain excess liquid by placing a colander over a bowl and pouring in the tomatoes. (You may save the juice for soup stock)
• Return the tomato solids to the pan and add dried tomatoes.  These will soak up some of the water without diluting the flavor.  Simmer for at least 10-20 minutes or until the sauce begins to thicken.
• Add sauteed onions, sweet peppers, salt (if desired) and Italian seasonings.

Dough Preparation

To make the shell, you will need about 1 pizza dough portion for each 2 calzones that you make.  Pre-made pizza dough can be purchased from an Italian grocery or some pizzerias. Or you can make your own.  The portion size should be from 5 to 6.5 ounces.  If you don't have a scale (like this one that we used to make ours, which we also sell) press the dough ball into a one cup measure, and use about 3/4 cup.  If you roll 6 ounces of dough out fairly thin, you will wind up with a very large calzone as you can see from the  photo below.

Assembly

• Place a baking stone in the oven and pre-heat to 450 degrees.
• Transfer the rolled out dough to a peel or cookie sheet covered with a coarse corn meal.  Now you are ready to add whatever you like to each individual calzone.  (Making 2 at a time with each person adding their own ingredients often works well.)
• You may add whatever amount of dry ingredients on one half of the dough, like cheese, sweet peppers, onions, etc. so long as you can seal it up when done.
• If using "wet" ingredients, special care must be taken.  For spinach, and tomatoes, you should precook in a pan and then drain the liquid off first.  Then use sparingly, and surround it with dry items like the provolone blanket I made for the drained tomatoes shown in this photo.
• Fold half of the dough over the ingredients half and pinch the edges to seal it shut.  You may also use a fork to press the edges.
• Use a fork to poke four to five sets of air holes on the top of the shell.
• Ladle or brush olive oil or butter over the top of the shell.
• Using a large spatula as a backup, transfer the calzone(s) to the stone.
• Bake for 10-15 minutes, or until done.
• Serve with a red sauce on the side, which is ladled over the crust just before eating.  If you like it spicy, chopped hot peppers on top of the sauce is fantastic.

Enjoy!

Crispy Fresh Tomato Pizza

Earlier recipes I have posted on making a pizza with a pre-made crust and fresh tomatoes with no sauce (like a Tale of Two Margarita Pizzas) have focused on fresh milk mozzarella as the cheese. Well, some folks either don't have access to this cheese (yes I do realize not everyone lives in Wisconsin), or want the most crispy pizza possible, and that is what this recipe is all about.

1.      Pre-made crust - The first aspect to consider when making a crispy fresh tomato pizza is of course the crust.  I recommend going with a thin crust that has been pre-baked on corn meal for about 6-8 minutes in an oven pre-heated to 375 degrees.  You can even make the crust ahead of time and then freeze it if you like, using freezer paper, and it will keep nicely for quite a while.  Pre-made crusts can also be purchased from some grocery stores (especially Italian-food grocers).

2.      Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit with a stone

3.      Basil - Wash and remove the stems from enough fresh basil to scatter over the surface of the crust. Lightly pat dry the basil with a fresh kitchen towel or paper towel to remove any remaining moisture from washing. 

4.      Tomatoes – Here is where you need to be extra selective if you can.  This time of year if you have a good farmers market or produce market, use one of these: San Marzano, Italian Paste, heirloom Roma or just plain Roma if nothing else is available.  We used 3 large San Marzano tomatoes and one smaller Italian Paste Heirloom.  Get at least a pound or more depending on how large a pizza you are making.  If you have heard that the San Marzano tomatoes are the best, you heard right.  Whoever told you that is probably a reliable source of information regarding Italian food!  Slice and layer your tomatoes on top of the basil.

5.      Cheese – Some good options that are widely available: slices of provolone or mozzarella (or use grated).  Top the tomatoes with your cheese.  We used sliced provolone for this one.

6.      Garlic – Peel and chop two large cloves of garlic.  You do not need to mince the garlic finely as you will sprinkle this on top of the cheese and it will roast and then bake into the cheese.

7.      Bake - Bake until nicely crisp, about 20-25 minutes depending on your oven and stone.  You can see from the photos of the results how nice and crispy the end result was.  If you don't have a pizza peel like the one shown above, you can get it from our General Store.  Here is the direct link to a good pizza peel that we sell.

Also, the pizza cutter that we used (similar one shown above) works really well, and you can get one from us here at a great price.

Enjoy!

A Tale of Two Margarita Pizzas

One of the fastest ways to create a fantastic pizza is to start with a pre-baked crust that is either fresh or frozen. Many busy people feel they don’t have time to make their own pizza. Using a pre-made crust simplifies the process so that a good homemade pizza can be put together in just a few minutes. Having a pre-made crust also makes the process more fool proof, because you have a solid foundation to build on that is less likely to get mushy from wet ingredients like fresh tomatoes.

Since this is the time of year in the Midwestern United States that we finally have an abundance of tomatoes, I decided to try making two Margarita pizzas in the T-Farm Test Kitchen on pre-made crusts.  The goal was to see how they would each turn out, and also to demonstrate how you can use most any good tomato and get a good result.  One pizza was made with juicy heirloom slicing tomatoes and the other one contained heirloom Italian paste tomatoes. 

The slicing tomatoes, purchased from a local grower, are an Heirloom which appears to be Copia, but I am not positive that is the variety.  In any event, the photo below shows just how gorgeous they are.  At first glance you might mistake them for small apples!

On the second pizza I used our own T-Farm grown “Principe Borghese,” which is an Italian Heirloom paste tomato and is very popular in Italy for sauces and drying, but you can use any paste tomato to obtain a similar consistency.  This variety grows on a compact plant and has a deep rich flavor, also making it perfect for pizza.   Here is what they look like:

The pizzas were both constructed very quickly and simply in the same way.  Only a few ingredients are needed, but of course you can add whatever toppings you like. 

Here are the steps.

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

2. Place a fresh layer of basil on the surface of the crust.  This is done for a couple of reasons.  It helps to keep the crust crunchy as it can hold some of the juices from the fresh tomatoes before they boil off, and secondly, the tomato juice keeps the leaves from drying out and losing their flavor.

3. Layer tomato slices on top of the basil.

4. Fresh milk mozzarella cheese, which sometimes comes in a log shape, should be cut into ¼” slices and then cut in half slices; layer them over the tomatoes.

5. Finally, a clove of freshly chopped garlic should be sprinkled on top of the cheese.  This will allow the garlic to brown while baking and fuse its flavor into the cheese.

6. Bake the pizza directly on a stone until brown, from 15-25 minutes depending on the crust and type of tomato used.  You can use a knife or peel to check the underside to ensure the crust is done.  If you don't already have one, we check out the baking stones we sell in our Amazon General Store here.

Results

The pizza with the juicy tomatoes turned out pretty well, but as you can see in the photo below, it had more moisture than it needed to.  If we had pressed the tomatoes on a drying rack to remove some of the liquid, that would have helped reduce the liquid on the final pizza.

The pizza made with the paste tomatoes was perfect.  As the closeup photo shows, although there was still moisture, most of it was gone when the pizza was done baking.  Everyone seemed to enjoy it, though the other pizza was also eaten, but perhaps not as quickly! 

Making Pizza on a Grill

When grilling out this summer, consider something special - Grilled Pizza.  Making Pizza on the grill is a little more difficult than baking, but it is a delicious treat with that smokey grill flavor that people will enjoy and ask for again and again.  Here are the steps you will need to follow to make a prefect grilled pizza.

1.     Create a good bed of coals that has an even heat.  Coals should be white hot.

2.     Start out with good pizza dough, and roll it out to about ¼” thick.  A thin crust does well on a grill, but it has to be thick enough to not fall apart.

This peel for sale at our
General Store works well with pizza

3.   Roll the dough on a counter top with lots of flour to make sure it doesn’t stick when transferring it to the peel or cookie sheet.  The peel shown on the right works very nicely for pizza and is on sale at our General Store.

4.     Do not curl up the edges of the crust when preparing it for cooking on the grill.

5.     Put coarse corn meal onto a peel like the one shown on the right and transfer the crust to the grill and then cover.  At this time you will only cook one side of the crust.

6.     Turn the crust as needed to cook evenly.  Hot and cool spots may be present across the grill. 

7.     Using the peel, remove the crust and lay the cooked side up back on the countertop, peel or cookie sheet.

8.     The pizza is now ready for toppings.  Lay out fresh basil and add a thin coating of sauce.  Adding too much sauce may create a soggy pizza that could fall apart on the grill.  Add other ingredients and then cover with cheese.

9.     Use the peel to gently slide the uncooked side down onto the grill.  It may be helpful to use a large spatula to remove the pizza from the peel and transfer it back to the grill.  Cover the pizza, but rotate it every 1-3 minutes, depending on how hot the coals are.   

10.  When the pizza looks nicely browned, remove it carefully using the peel.  

Tomatoes make the pizza

When it's time to make pizza, don't forget that the tomatoes really make the pizza.   Here are a few tips to making the best pizza ever.

1. If fresh basil is available, layer whole leaves before putting the tomato layer in place.
2. If you are using whole tomato slices, cut the tomatoes thin and place them on top of the basil. 
3. Whole milk mozzarella is one of the best cheeses to use with tomato slices. Cut it into thin slices. (don't attempt to grate it) Also, you don't need to put it on as thick as shredded mozzarella. Leave large gaps between the cheese slices.

4. If you don't have many tomatoes, consider chopping them into chunks and add to the pizza after it comes out of the oven.  This will allow you to enjoy the maximum amount of flavor from a smaller portion of tomatoes.
5. If you are wanting to make a quick sauce from fresh tomatoes, be sure to allow some time to simmer the tomatoes with olive oil, onion and garlic to reduce the moisture content.  If you place too many large chunks of tomatoes (especially slicing tomatoes) on a pizza, it could make the crust runny. 

6. Add spices and fresh garlic just before baking, so as to retain the flavor.  If you add additional layers on top of the tomatoes (as shown at right), be sure to bake the pizza until it is extra crispy as it will take longer to fully bake.