My partner, Jim, hails from Manville, New Jersey, where he was born and raised. Manville and the surrounding towns are home to a sizable Italian community. Jim’s maternal grandparents migrated to the United States from Sicily in the 1920s.
When I first met Jim, he lamented the fact that Atlanta doesn’t have any “real” pizza restaurants. He insisted that you should be able to walk into a pizza restaurant, place an order and within minutes be enjoying a slice of piping hot pizza. The concept of ordering an entire pizza and waiting 20 to 30 minutes to be served was foreign to him.
Jim took me to Manville Pizza on my first visit with his family. They serve pizza, calzones, strombolis, and pasta dishes. I had to agree that walking into a restaurant and seeing an array of already-made pizza with a variety of topping to choose from was quite a treat. The perfect crust and sauce clearly showed that the family-run restaurant had mastered the art of pizza making.
Manville Pizza inspired this post. The sauce comes from Mary Polak, Jim’s mother, and I wrote about Mary’s Eggplant Parmesan in a previous post. I tend to follow Mary’s advice about making sauce. If you’re going to the trouble of making sauce, you may as well make a big pot of it. It freezes well or you can use it in a dish later in the week. You can consider making half of the recipe if you don’t want to use it for other purposes. Calzones are completely versatile and you can stuff them with most any ingredient you can imagine.
Ingredients
(This recipe makes more sauce than you will need for the calzones. Halve the recipe or use left over sauce for another dish.)
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 28 ounce cans chopped tomatoes
1 6 ounce can tomato paste
2 teaspoons dried oregano
2 teaspoons dried basil
3 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons pepper
2 teaspoons sugar
2 pork country ribs, 2 chunks of pork butt, or 2 links of sweet Italian sausage
1 cup warm water (105-115 degrees)
1 package yeast
2 teaspoons sugar
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons kosher salt
Extra extra virgin olive oil (for the bowl)
10 ounces fresh spinach
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
8 ounces wild mushrooms (shitake, oyster, chanterelles, cremini), sliced
2 cups cooked chicken, roughly chopped
8 ounces fresh mozzarella, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
3/4 cup ricotta cheese
3/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
3/4 cup grated Pecorino Romano cheese
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon Italian seasoning
Grated Parmesan or Pecorino cheese (for garnish)
Chopped parsley (for garnish)
Instructions
1. Heat olive oil in a dutch oven or large pot. Saute onions and garlic for four to five minutes.
2. Add remaining ingredients and simmer for 2 hours.
3. After 1 1/2 hours, remove the meat from the sauce.
4. Add salt and pepper as needed.
1. Whisk together water, yeast, 1/2 teaspoon sugar in a small bowl. Let yeast mixture proof for five to eight minutes or until a layer of foam appears on the surface. Add olive oil to the mixture.
2. Combine flours, salt, and 1 1/2 teaspoons sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer. Attach dough hook to the mixer and turn on medium speed. Add yeast mixture to the dry ingredients. Mix until the dough comes together in a bowl. Continue kneading for five minutes.
3. Coat a large bowl with about one to two tablespoons of olive oil. Remove dough from mixing bowl and place in oiled bowl. Cover bowl with a damp towel and let dough rise in a warm place for 60 to 90 minutes or until dough has doubled in size.
4. Punch dough down and knead three or four times. Cut dough into four equal portions. Wrap each portion in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
1. Place spinach on a plate and microwave for 2 minutes or until wilted. Cool the spinach and squeeze to remove excess moisture. Roughly chop spinach and transfer to a large bowl.
2. Heat olive oil in a saute pan and saute mushrooms for three to five minutes until excess moisture has evaporated. Transfer mushrooms to bowl with spinach.
3. Add remaining ingredients to bowl, mix well, and set aside. Cool completely before assembling the calzones.
1. Preheat oven to 500 degrees. If you have a pizza stone, place the stone in the oven.
2. Remove a portion of dough from the refrigerator and roll out to a 10 inch circle.
3. Place 1/4 of the filling in a log shape down the middle of the dough circle. Brush the edge of the circle with water using a pastry brush. Fold dough over into a half moon. Seal the edges by crimping with a fork. Alternatively, you can fold the edge of the dough up and over to form a seal. Repeat process for remaining three calzones.
4. Place calzones on a baking sheet or pizza stone and bake for 12 to 15 minutes or until golden brown. Brush each calzone with olive oil and garnish with additional grated Parmesan cheese and chopped parsley. Serve immediately with tomato sauce.
https://southernboydishes.com/2013/08/21/calzone-with-chicken-spinach-and-wild-mushrooms/
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This looks amazing! I am going to try it with the oyster mushrooms and I will let you know how it turns out.
Hope you like the recipe.
The outer crust on this calzone looks so “crusty” !
And the mushroom, chicken and bazillion cheese combo – mmmm mmm mmm terrific!
So love this!
Thanks to Jim, Mary and Manville Pizza and you for sharing this amazingly droolworthy recipe! 🙂
Tried out this recipe..! Just fabulous!!! Thank you Bill for sharing it. 🙂
It is a mouth watering recipe yielding a tasteful meal, yet i would have a small suggestion to make. Please quantify the ingredients ALWAYS by weight and not by amount in terms of ‘cups n glasses’. It may at times make things disproportionate and may blow a very good recipe!
Love it, this is one of those things I make a lot when school starts. It’s not only a perfect lunch or dinner but makes for a good next day’s lunch and the kids love non messy yummy food for school lunches. Love the recipe , I’m pinning this on my board.
Bill, these calzones look incredibly scrumptious! I love the combination of flavors and how perfectly golden brown you got them. I want to dig in with double forks! Great recipe.
I love the true Italian inspiration in this dish. The flavours in this calzone and the use of so many wonderful mushrooms has my mouth watering. Thanks for sharing!
-Shannon
I totally agree that if you’re going to make sauce, make a lot – it always tastes better made in quantity, anyway. Nice flavors in your calzone! This is one of those things I almost never make, and always order when out. Gotta try yours, though – it looks terrific. Thanks.
Oh… BILL… I need this calzone in my life. I wandered over here (rather rapidly) after you left a comment at *my place* to see what I could see… and the first image to hit me was a calzone that has almost short circuited my keyboard – I drooled a little bit. Okay. A lot. I am coming back. Every day.