Greek Inspired Four Cheese Calzones

Submitted by Toast

I opened up the flyer looking for my inspiration and not two pages in was a giant spread of cheese on sale. Featured prominently in the display was one of my favorite somewhat different cheeses, Mizithra. For those who haven't had it it's a tangy salty greek goat's milk cheese. Flakier and more pungent than feta it is a really different sort of taste.

Somehow wanting to do something greek turned into something more mediteranean which then turned into something cross cuisine and here we are.

I decided to go with several larger calzones but you could just as easily make 6 more individual lunch sized ones.

Ingredients

Pizza Dough

• 1 pack of yeast, which is 2 1/4 teaspoons of yeast if you have a big jar and
• 1 tsp of sugar,
• proof for ten minutes in 1c warm water

• 2 3/4 cups Flour
• Olive Oil
• Salt

Filling

• Chicken (I used two medium breasts and it would have made enough for 4 healthy appetites)
• Tomato (5 small ones)
• Onion
• Garlic
• Bell Peppers (there were no green ones on sale unfortunately)
• Cheese (I used)
  • Mizithra
  • Feta
  • Mozzarella
  • Parm

Method

Dough Making

• Apologies I ran out of camera batteries and went to get new ones while the dough was rising, hence no pictures.

• Toss it in your kitchenaid with the dough hook and add flour gradually (and a pinch of salt)

• and add olive oil gradually once the dough starts clinging, generally takes about 1tbsp or more to get a nice consistency

• Leave it in a warm place to rise a bit, punching down once or twice.

• It should look something like this when you're ready to go.

Marinate the Chicken

• I marinated the chicken breasts in lemon juice, basil, oregano and garlic
• Make sure you get them chopped fairly small so you can fit the pieces into the calzones
• Leave it for a while to let the flavour soak in.

The Filling

I was going for a more rustic country sort of meal so I went for a chunkier filling, if you want to go for a more pizza sauce consistency it works too.

• Shave, grate, or whatever until you have a bowl full of small cheese pieces

• Chop your tomato, onions, bell peppers and anything else you want to throw in. Spinach would be great too but it wasn't on sale so per the rules I couldn't include it. I ended up running mine through the mini chopper once or twice to get the right chunkiness level.

• Get your garlic and onion fragrant then add your chicken including some of the lemon juice.

• Note: I marinated way too much chicken but needed to go out and knew I'd have no time to cook it for about two days so I threw it all in, you don't need anywhere near this much for your filling.

• Once the chicken is cooked stir in your tomatoes and about half your cheese. I ended up having to chop a bit more tomato.

• Add peppers and anything else as well

Other suggestions to add in, cucumber, mushrooms, shrimp etc...

Baking

• Roll out your dough into the appropriate sized circles for the sizes you want to make.

• Fill to make them bulge but not explode

• Be careful not to overfill.

• Use a beaten egg wash over the top to get a nice golden crust, make sure you slit the top for steam escaping.

• Bake 425F for 15-25 minutes until golden brown and crispy (depends largely on size)

The Money Shot

They'll be really hot when you get em out, I hate to cut this one open to eat it, but rounds 2 and 3 were of the pick up and eat variety.

Tasty goodness!