Calzone or Closed Pizza and Pasta with Meatballs and whole tomatoes inspired by five films


AS FIFTH POST FOR THE #foodflixflex which my friends and I will be doing this September to celebrate food and cinema, I present you my  Calzone or Closed Pizza and Pasta with Meatballs and whole tomatoes with the PIZZA inspired by Julia Robert's Mystic Pizza and Eat Pray Love, and by my childhood-siblings fave Home Alone and the PASTA WITH MEATBALLS inspired by my nephew's fave Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and the whole tomatoes inspired by Japanese film, Little Forest.

In real life, I am challenged to recreate  Bacolod's defunct HR Pizza, a little nook famous for their calzone. My first try is not bad but I will definitely make another one soon.

I was blessed by my Genovese Basils with lots of healthy leaves and I had more than enough for my pizza and pasta sauce. I also bought tomatoes as I plan to make whole tomatoes for my pasta sauce. White onions abound in our market so I grabbed the chance to buy more for my meatballs and sauce.

Here are the recipes I used for my closed pizza which turned good enough to be shared here now, but I might (surely) tweak some as I go along in my cooking trials.


CALZONE OR CLOSED PIZZA

Dough 
2 2/3 C All purpose flour
1tsp salt
2tsp baking powder
1 C milk
4T olive oil

Calzone Fillings
Tomato sauce with tomato paste
Tomatoes
White onion slices
Cheeses
Sauteed ground Beef
Genovese basil leaves
Olive slices

Preheat oven at 240F or max of oven.
In a deep bowl, place the first three ingredients, make a well. Add milk and oil then mix with spatula in a circular motion until flour is manageable to form into a ball. Knead light to form a ball about 5 times. Let stand in a bowl. Make another dough.

Dust dough mat with flour. Put the dough ball, cover with thin plastic and roll. It glides when I use plastic on top of the dough. Make 12-inch round.

Put in the oiled pizza pan then add desired pizza fillings and work on the other dough then place on top of the first flatten dough with the toppings and close the edges by pressing the two doughs. Slit some openings on top. Brush with olive oil. Place in oven for 50 minutes. I couldn't brown it enough to my desire so I think an hour should do the browning of the crust.


WHOLE PEELED TOMATOES

Slit an X at the bottom of the tomatoes. Boil water and add tomatoes and cook for 2 minutes. Remove from water and put in a cold water. Peel off the outer skin of each tomato until all done. Eat as is or use tomatoes in pasta sauce and other desired dish.


MEATBALLS

1/2 kilo ground beef
1/4 C chopped chives
1 egg
4 T each of Flour and cornstarch
Salt and pepper to taste
Dried herbs
Extra flour for dusting
Canola Oil for frying

Mix first six ingredients. Scoop about 2T of mixture and form into ball and use extra flour to manage the forming of balls by hand. Fry each ball in oil. Set aside.

TOMATO SAUCE
 
Olive oil
1C chopped white onion
Mushroom slices
1 C genovese basil
Water reserved from boiled pasta
Tomato sauce
1 C Syrah red wine
Salt
Cheese
Black pepper
Meatballs

Sautee onion and mushroom, add reserved water, basil and tomato sauce. Let boil a bit then add red wine. Season and let cook until thickened. Add meatballs and let simmer for 10 more minutes. Add sauce to pre cooked pasta. I wanted spaghetti on this one but I only have penne pasta.











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