Calzone with curly endive, sausage, and mozzarella cheese

• 15 minutes to prepare •  40 minutes to cook  • Serves 4

Calzone

Just when you may start getting tired of homemade pizza, enters a magnificent parcel of folded, slow risen dough, filled with braised curly endive, sausage, dark olives, toasted pine nuts, mozzarella cheese and raisins, coated with a shiny drizzle of EVO oil: his majesty calzone.

As you cut the bronzed crust open, watch the filling slowly spill out onto the wooden cutting board, as you salivate yourself into oblivion.
My personal tip to successfully reproduce this joy of the palate is to use fresh ingredients, never be tempted to employ long-lasting products and allow for the dough to rise slowly, in the fridge for a minimum of 24 hours.
It is the slow rising that will cause the light and crispy crust. Not to mention easy to digest.

Even the most stubborn I don’t eat carbo person will have to reconsider!

Here are ingredients for a 4-serving recipe (4 calzoni):

1 kg pizza dough divided into 4 balls (you may find here my pizza dough recipe)
1 kg curly endive
10 anchovy fillets in oil
50 g pine nuts
20 raisins
200 g sausage
20 pitted Kalamata olives
400 g mozzarella cheese
EVO oil
salt and pepper

1. When you are ready to bake the calzoni, take the dough out of the fridge, leaving at least 1 hour and half for it to warm up and get pliable
2. Wash the curly endive leaves and cut them into small stripes
3. Place raisins in a bowl and pour over boiling water. Let sit for 5-10 minutes, then drain
4. Braise anchovy fillets with 2 tablespoons of EVO oil until melted. Add the curly endive, salt and freshly ground pepper (be generous with it) and cook for 10 minutes. Then, add raisins and cook for 5 minutes more
5. Meanwhile, toast pine nuts in a pan and set aside
6. Cut the skin of the sausage with the tip of a sharp knife and remove it. Cut the sausage into nibbles of equal size
7. Place the sausage in a hot pan. Bake the sausage for 5 minutes each side, until it’s golden on top. Then, keep it aside
8. Add sausage, toasted pine nuts, and pitted olives to the braised endive and stir to mix
9. Cut mozzarella into small pieces and place it in a colander to drain
10. Preheat oven to 270°C (or, better, as far as oven temperatures go)
11. Generously dust the counter with semolina flour. Make the calzoni one at a time. Dip your hands in flour and lift a ball of dough. Very gently lay the dough across your fists and carefully stretch it by bouncing the dough in a circular motion on your hands, carefully giving it a little stretch with each bounce. Once the dough has expanded outward, move to a full toss. When the dough is stretched out to your satisfaction (about 25 cm in diameter), lay it on the baking tray covered by baking paper
12. Make layers of braised endive and mozzarella cheese on one half of dough, until desired amount. Fold the other half of the dough on top of the cheese, and press edges together with a fork
13. Brush some EVO oil on  the top of the calzone
14. Bake for 25 minutes or until top is golden brown
15. Remove the calzone from the oven and transfer it to a wooden cutting board. Wait 2 minutes, serve and enjoy!

Nutrition Facts are detailed in the table below. Data is provided per serving.