The other day I had some Asiago cheese left in the fridge and while trying to figure out what to do with it, I stumbled upon this recipe. I also happened to have all the other ingredients, so I thought of trying it out for dinner. It was really tasty! I loved the contrasting flavours and textures: soft and mild potatoes, crunchy and salty speck mixed with the forest aromas of mushrooms. This is not the typical calzone recipe (I promise I will get around to publishing that as well) and it is actually a mix of strudel and calzone as it calls for some breadcrumbs mixed with melted butter in the filling that is very typical of strudel (it helps to absorb any remaining liquids from the mushrooms and prevents the calzoni from getting soggy) but it is made with pizza dough like calzoni. Anyhow… no matter how you want to call it, it is delicious! Enjoy!
Recipe adapted from Pianeta Donna
Ingredients (for 4 people):
500 gms – 1 lb. pizza dough*
500 gms – 1 lb. mushrooms (I used button mushroom and some frozen porcini), cleaned and sliced
100 gms – 3.5 oz. Asiago cheese, grated
30 gms – 1 oz. butter
1 garlic clove
1 tbsp parsley, minced
2 small potatoes, sliced
40 gms – 1.5 oz. breadcrumbs
4 slices of speck (or bacon)
Salt
*make the pizza dough following my tutorial with these proportions: 350 gms – 1 1/2 cup flour, 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil, 200 ml (¾ cup) lukewarm water, 5 gms – 0.18 oz. dry yeast, ¾ tsp salt and 1 tbsp sugar.
Put 1/3 of the butter in a frying pan with the garlic clove and sauté it for a minute. Add the sliced mushrooms and salt. Cook on a medium fire for about 10 minutes or until they dry up. Add the parsley, mix and put off the fire. Keep the mushrooms aside to cool down.
Peel the potatoes and cut them into 2 mm – 0.1 inch thick slices. Put them in a pot, cover them with water, add some salt and bring to a boil. Cook them for 5 minutes after the water starts to boil. Then drain them and keep them aside to cool down.
Put another 1/3 of the butter in a pan and melt it over the fire. Add the breadcrumbs and sauté for a couple of minutes (make sure you stir continuously so they do not burn). Keep it aside.
Broil the speck (or bacon) for 2 or 3 minutes or until crunchy and put it on some kitchen paper to drain off the excess fat. When cool, break it in pieces.
When the pizza dough has doubled in volume and it is ready, make 4 small balls out of it and roll them out with a rolling pin. Make 4 ovals, thick 0.5 cm – 0.2 inches each (1). Now put ¼ of breadcrumbs on each of the ovals (2), put a layer of potatoes, one of mushrooms, ¼ of grated Asiago and ¼ of speck in one half of each oval (3). Fold the other half over it (4) and seal it well by crimping the edges closed with your fingers (5). Put them on a baking tray covered with baking paper. Melt the remaining butter and brush your calzoni with it (6).
Bake in a pre heated oven at 240°C – 465°F for about 20 minutes or until puffed and golden. Serve them warm!
Just a small note: calzone means 1 calzone, while the plural is calzoni… so no need to add an “s” to it! 😉
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OMG, look at that cheese…look how it was melted…!!! I love that combination of cheese and mashroom. I think I can use the same filling to make some “empanadas”.
Nice step by step instructions. I could eat this right now. Looks delish!
Looks so yummy! I’ve never seen potatoes in a calzone before…great idea!
Congratulations on making the foodbuzz Top 9!
What’s in a name right? These calzones look almost to pretty to eat! Great job on the stuffing!
How did I miss this one? I don’t, but I could cheerfully live on calzones. 🙂 Love the filling in this one.
asiago is such a great partner to mushroom. I cant think of a better way to combine it than here in this calzone