Chez Panisse’s Famous Calzones
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Before last week, I never would have described a calzone as light. Or as something that tastes like spring. Or as something I would consider serving to company, maybe sliced into rounds to reveal its oozing, cheesy goodness.
Well, leave it to Chez Panisse to create that very calzone, a six-inch round of pizza dough filled with a mix of goat cheese and mozzarella, minced scallions, parsley and garlic, and slivers of prosciutto.
I discovered this recipe of all places in a favorite vegetarian cookbook, Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, which (obviously) offers a variation without prosciutto, which I have no doubt is equally delicious — envelope cheese and any number of ingredients in a steaming hot pocket of dough, and it’s bound to be good. I haven’t yet strayed from Chez Panisse’s famous recipe but I am excited to experiment with this new-to-me format. Madison’s recipe with sautéed escarole, walnuts, capers, olives, mozzarella and fontina sounds particularly good.
Madison’s book, by the way, is one I have turned to again and again since discovering it last summer. There is not a single photo in the entire book but somehow I always leave it with half a dozen more pages dogeared and a lengthy grocery list in hand. If you are a vegetarian or, for whatever reason, have found yourself cooking with less meat, this book is a great resource, especially as we head into spring…it has to near, right?
PS: Thank you for all of your sweet wishes re baby. Tig is being a good girl. Hope you all are well!
Hi from Tig and Wren:
Chez Panisse’s Famous Calzones
- Total Time: 25 minutes
- Yield: 6 to 8
Description
Source: Deborah Madison’s The New Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, whose recipe leaves out the prosciutto.
Filling yields 6 small calzone; for each calzone, use about 4 oz. pizza dough.
I am partial to the Jim Lahey pizza dough recipe, which would yield 12 calzones — his full recipe calls for dividing the dough into 6 rounds, and I find that half of each of these rounds is perfect for one calzone.
These are small calzones — 6 inches in diameter before folded. Also, I have used store-bought dough for these but the finished product wasn’t nearly as light — it was doughy and on the heavy side. There is something magical about the Lahey dough.
Original recipe calls for no egg wash — apparently at Chez Panisse, they brush these with olive oil as they exit the oven and sprinkle them with parmesan cheese. I’ve done both, but like how the egg wash gives these a golden crust.
A Baking Steel is a great tool for baking these as well as pizza and bread at home.
Ingredients
- pizza dough (about 4- to 5-oz per calzone)
- 2 cups grated mozzarella cheese, about 8 oz
- 1 cup crumbled goat cheese, 4 oz (or a mix of goat and ricotta)
- 2 tablespoons parsley chopped with 2 cloves garlic
- 1/4 cup finely sliced scallions, including some of the greens
- 2 slices prosciutto, finely diced/sliced
- salt and pepper to taste
- 1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon water for eggwash
Instructions
- Remove pizza dough from fridge and divide into 4- to 5-oz portions. Roll into balls and let sit on floured work surface while you make the filling.
- Preheat oven to 450* F. If you have a Baking Steel or stone, place it in the oven.
- Combine cheeses, herbs, prosciutto, salt and pepper to taste. Taste. Add more salt if necessary. Set aside. Filling can be made several hours/days in advance and refrigerated.
- Line a pizza peel with a piece of parchment paper. (If you are not using a steel or stone, place parchment on baking sheet.)
- Roll each round out into a 6- to 7-inch round. Transfer each round to prepared peel. These are small, but I would bake no more than 3 to 4 at a time. Mound 3 heaping tablespoons of filling on the bottom half of each circle. Paint the edges with water, then fold the top down, press the dough together, and crimp the edges — try very hard to create a tight seal or it will burst while baking and filling will ooze out.
- Brush the tops of each calzone with egg wash. Bake for about 10 to 15 minutes or until golden on top. Remove from oven, let cool briefly, then serve.
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 15 minutes
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38 Comments on “Chez Panisse’s Famous Calzones”
I love the photos and your slight modifications. That pizza dough looks nice and light! Good choice over heavy store bought stuff. I haven’t had the greatest luck with store bought dough either. I bet it would also be good brushed with olive oil and Parmesan in addition to the egg wash. All. Of. The. Flavor. 🙂
Yesss… I like your thinking. Will try that next 🙂
Hard to concentrate on the recipe when you give us the CUTEST PHOTO IN THE UNIVERSE to close your post…
still, I will do my best to say – great calzones!
the kids are stealing the show, though…. seriously!
Oh Sally, thank you, you are too much. I suppose I can live the little ones stealing the show…they are both being good girls, which I am grateful for. xo
OMG how delicious are they ?!? And the food looks pretty tasty too 🙂 Adorable pics of the kiddies and those calzones just look like heaven!
Haha, oh, thank you. I find them yummy too 🙂
Hi Alexandra,
Congrats on a new baby. and such a beautiful name!
You are such an inspiration. With just one baby i am barely surviving. And always looking forward to your posts.
good luck.
Thank you, Sana! So great to hear from you. I promise you, I think the hardest days for me were when I just had one child. Really. Glad you are surviving (if just barely)!
Congratulations on the beautiful addition to the family! And I LOVE your children’s names.
You just inspired me to make some calzones for the last Friday in Lent. Meatless, but still yummy!
Thank you, Briana! Yes, these will be a treat, and a meatless version will be no less delicious. I have no doubt.
We’re expecting our 2nd next week and will also have 2 in diapers! This post is very reassuring to me that I will still be able to function. I made the Lahey dough a few weeks ago for the first time and it was perfect. I baked it on a stone and in a pan and preferred the results of the stone. I actually did freeze some of it and use it later. I did read in one of your previous posts that it does not freeze that well and you had suggested another dough. But I can’t find where I read it now. Which dough do you use if you’re going to freeze? I found the Lahey dough was still quite good after being frozen but was a little more difficult to work with. Thank you, congratulations on your beautiful baby, and I’m so happy I’ve found your blog.
You will! It’s really no big deal, and when your first gets out of diapers, it will feel like the biggest deal in the world — totally reason to celebrate 🙂
You know, I don’t think I ever tried freezing the dough myself, but read that it doesn’t freeze well. I also heard that SAF makes a yeast that allows breads to fare better in the freezer. I’ve been meaning to order some. Glad to hear that the Lahey dough was still good if difficult to work with. I don’t have a separate recipe that I use for pizza dough if I want to freeze it, so you’re inspiring me to order yeast and stick some Lahey dough in the freezer 🙂
All the best to you! Good luck with the arrival of #2. Will be thinking of you!! Very exciting.
Ooooh. I have been wandering about things I can make with my no-kneed dough…. This will be fun to make — after the Passover is over
Ah, yes, makes sense 🙂
1. Your babies are beyond adorable
2. I could go for a good spring calzone right now
3. Good call on the prosciutto add!
Thank you, Trish! You are kind 🙂
These look amazingly delicious and would be perfect for a Final Four night! I love Jim Lahey’s dough also!
Yes, definitely! I was thinking it would be a fun game-day treat as well!
Ah, that photo of the girls! So sweet. I’m still amazed by your calzones, Ali… mine always bubble up, spill, burn, scorch on the bottom or remain raw in the middle, basically never quite what I hope for. When we were kids we called my mother’s calzones Pizza Pockets, and they were one of my very favorite meals. Now that I have 00 flour, a steel, and some time on my hands…. I need to get practicing!! Thanks for the wonderful inspiration, as always!
Oh, Sophie, you are too sweet, thank you! I had a few calzones burst as well — you really have to make sure you make a tight seal, but it’s also important to not let the shaped calzones sit too long before putting them in the oven, because the bottom layer of dough can’t handle the weight of the filling for too long. Hope you try again! xo
Those calzones look delicious! I’m a little obsessed with the Lahey dough myself and have gone through an embarrassing number of tipo “00” flour bags this winter.
I love Deborah Madison’s book. I’ve somehow overlooked her calzone( but no longer) but have loved everything I’ve made despite them sometimes being a bit labor intensive( lots of dishes!). Be sure to try the “Tossed spinach lasagna and goat cheese gratin” and the “cauliflower, spinach, and potato stir-fry with coconut milk” if you haven’t yet. Yum.
Congratulations on the baby and thank you for delicious recipes to break my cooking slumps!
ooohhh, I love recipe recommendations — thank you! Both of those dishes sound absolutely delicious. Yay! So excited to try something new. I still feel I’m kind of in a cooking rut myself. We’ve been living off of pizzas and calzones for weeks it seems…not such a bad thing I suppose 🙂
Thank you for your sweet words re baby and recipes.
My first adventures in pizza making came out of Deborah Madison’s The Greens Cookbook. I’ve returned to those pizzas and so many other recipes over the last 20 years – that poor book has got stains and pencil notes on nearly all of the pages. I have her other books, but somehow The Greens is my favorite. I’m no longer a vegetarian, but I still turn to her recipes again and again because I know they will always yield something special.
Deborah Madison + Chez Panisse is an irresistible combo – I have to give these Calzone’s a try!
Yes, definitely! And do let me know if you have any recipe recs. I made a recipe of hers today: red lentil soup today with mustard seeds, spinach and coconut milk. It was delicious! I am dying to try more of her recipes. I will have to check out the Greens Cookbook from the library. Sounds like a good one!
Isn’t the book called Vegetarian Cooking for “Everyone”?
Yes, oops. Fixed.
Thank you for the inspiration! I’m planning on making these(with lots of scallions, got tons coming from the farm I work at), and I was wondering if I could freeze the calzones pre or post baking? Have you tried that? Does it work? Any tips? 🙂
I’m doubling the recipe to use up my scallions and want some in the freezer for when I call my girlfriends over to lunch or dinner. Handy meals on the ready!
Hi Nabeela! So fun that you have tons of scallions from the farm you work at! I’m jealous. I hope one day, when my kiddos are a little older and more independent, I can find time to work on a farm. Anyway, I have never tried freezing the calzones pre or post baking, but I do have a little bit of a concern re freezing pre baking: the thing I have noticed is that you can’t assemble these and let them sit on a cutting board or pizza peel for too long bc the bottom layer of dough gets soggy quickly and in the process gets weaker so can be prone to breaking and then leaking upon baking — does that make sense? I feel like the final product would be better if you freeze these before as opposed to after you bake them, so I would just suggest getting them into the freezer as soon as possible: assemble one and stick on a piece of parchment paper on a baking sheet and stick it in the freezer; assemble another one and put it on the sheetpan, etc. Once they are completely frozen, you could transfer them to a ziplock or storage container. Hope that helps!
Thank you for the response and for the suggestions! I’ll be freezing 6 of them pronto for delayed satisfaction 😉
The other 6 will be happily consumed right after assembling and baking. So excited to try them this week!
I made the recipe, the filling tastes amazing, thank you!
I seeked out tipo 00 flour to make the dough too but unfortunately my calzone was spongy and did not brown well(despite the egg wash). My oven runs a little cold so I anticipated that and used 500 F with a pizza stone tile. Still didn’t work. Maybe my batch of flour wasn’t their best or something 🙁
(It definitely didn’t weigh 1000 grams like the package said….it was more like 960 grams, sigh).
Will definitely try this recipe again with bread flour. Loved the idea of having a ‘lighter’ calzone.
I love everything about this! These look so amazing! I need to try these ASAP!
Hi,
I made my dough..I am wondering how long you leave it to chill once divided?
Thank you so much. This looks amazing!
Loved it! Filling perfect. I didn’t leave time to refrigerate the dough so was a bit too soft but plan to follow the recipe exactly next time including tipo 00 flour and a pizza steel. Many thanks.
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Great to hear, Janice! I haven’t made this in ages, but I went through a period during which I was making calzones a lot, and it was a very happy period 🙂 🙂 🙂
Love this calzone recipe. Combination of flavors so perfect. I’m still working on perfecting my dough maybe too limp using tipo 00 flour but with this filling will be fun too try again and again until I get it right.
I’m hoping you might share some stromboli recipes sometime. I found a recipe years ago that was perfect also but can’t find it. It had sausage, fresh tomatoes, cheeses and onions and finished with several fresh basil leaves before rolling up…beautiful and delicious.
Still sharing your wonderful orange/olive oil cake with my SF Bay Area buddies and so grateful to you for that recipe alone.
★★★★★
I love stromboli! And that one sounds wonderful. I’ll try to experiment some time in the near future. And I’m so happy to hear you love that orange and olive oil cake. It’s one of my favorites, too.
This recipe is so scrumptious,,,I can’t believe I am just now finding it. I also have the cookbook and am particularly obsessed with Lentils with Carmelized Onions on toast with chopped hard boiled eggs. Thank you so much for all the amazing things you introduce us to!
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Oh fun! I’ll have to look that one up… thought I knew the book by heart! Great to hear about the calzones, too 🙂