Street Food

This week’s recipe has been inspired by Festival Place’s festival of street food, Eat Street, and it’s one of my food-on-the-go favs: Calzone. More than just a folded over pizza, calzone are Italy’s answer to our own portable snack, the pasty. In Italian pizzerias, they tend to be mozzarella and tomato-based, but in Italian homes they will often contain whatever is in the fridge – perfect for yesterday’s leftovers!

Sausage & Onion Calzone

Makes 1 big calzone or 3 – 4 little ones

3 tbsp tomato pizza sauce (I use sundried tomato paste when I’m in a hurry)
2 raw sausages, skinned and broken into chunks
1 ball of mozzarella, cubed
¼ onion, sliced
1 tbsp capers, rinsed

For the dough:
200 g strong white bread flour
½ tsp easy blend dried yeast
1 tsp caster sugar
½ tsp fine sea salt
1 tbsp olive oil, plus extra for drizzling

To make the dough:
• Mix together the flour, yeast, sugar and salt and stir the oil into 140 ml of warm water. Stir the liquid into the dry ingredients then knead on a lightly oiled surface for 10 minutes or until smooth and elastic.
• Leave the dough to rest, covered with oiled clingfilm, for 1 – 2 hours until doubled in size. (If you have a bread maker, simply put in all the ingredients, whack it on the dough cycle and come back in 45 mins for the same result. Mine cost about £90 from Debenhams and is probably my most-used kitchen gadget.)

Shaping and filling:
• Preheat the oven to 220°C (200° fan) / 425F / gas 7 and grease a non-stick baking tray.
• Lightly flour the work surface and knead the dough briefly to knock out any big air bubbles. Press it out with your fingers into 1 big round or 4 little ones. You want to get it really thin – if it keeps springing back, leave it to relax for a few minutes, then try again.
• Top half of the dough with the filling ingredients, making sure you leave at least a 2 cm border round the outside.
• Fold the dough over, excluding as much air as possible, then fold and crimp round the edge.

Baking & munching:
• Transfer the calzone to a greased baking tray then bake for 15 minutes (10 minutes for the little ones) or until the dough is completely cooked underneath.
• Leave the calzone to cool for a few minutes, then cut in half to let some of the steam escape before tucking in – it’s a well-known fact that pizza sauce straight out of the oven is one of the hottest substances known to man!

 If you want to try some calzone made by the experts, check out Coal Grill & Bar’s stand at ‘Eat Street’ this weekend. All of the restaurants will be offering up taster portions of their street food favourites in exchange for a donation to the NSPCC.

Happy nibbling!
Fiona B x