Greek Inspired Four Cheese Calzones

Submitted by Toast

So for this round I had decided to set myself a couple of ground rules.

First: Nothing Fried after the last two rounds. Second: Something more of an everyday variety and with at least one ingredient that a lot of people would never have used.

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.

Unfortunately due to the rules and the fact that I couldn't find eggplant or spinach on sale anywhere it became a bit less greek that I'd originally planned, but the flavour was definitely still distinctly greek. 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.

• Commit Fromagicide by shaving, grating, chopping or whatever until you have a bowl full of small cheese pieces for your filling.

• 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. Start by laying down a bed of your cheese blend then spread your topping over it making sure to keep away from the edges so that you can get a tight seal when you fold it over.

• Be careful not to overfill, then fold over and seal tightly with a fork or some such.

• 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 had to cut this one open to eat it, but rounds 2 and 3 were of the pick up and eat on the run variety for those who like that sort of thing.

Tasty goodness!