An Alternative Recipe of Apulian Panzerotti

Living alone is a wonderful experience, before you actually realise that your mum is not going to cook for you anymore and you’ve never touched a pan for eighteen years of your life. When I moved to Nijmegen, I would cook pasta every day to try to keep my ‘Italianness’ although it is quite impossible to find the right ingredients to recreate my mum’s dishes here. So I’ve started experimenting with different recipes using fresh and local products, opening my cuisine horizons to other cultures and tastes. During my last vacation in Italy, I went and ate panzerotti - a traditional dish from Puglia (or Apulia) known also as ‘calzone’ or ‘fried pizza’ in some other Italian regions - in a special shop in my parents’ hometown. The cook, Davide, had a really singular idea of panzerotti: he would take the original filling - tomatoes and mozzarella - and play with it, inspired by traditional dishes from all around the world. Every panzerotto was an explosion of tastes; the one I ate was inspired by his 2005 trip to Australia, characterised by figs, gorgonzola, and speck. Such a weird union of tastes, isn’t it? Therefore, I will now explain to you how to cook panzerotti, and I will challenge you to add your country’s traditional ingredients to the traditional recipe and share it with your fellow students! Get creative in the kitchen! • Daniela Piangiolino

Preparation time: 15 min Cooking time: 5 min Rising time: 2 hours Ready in: 20 min

INGREDIENTS

FOR THE DOUGH

• 500 grams of flour • 300 ml of warm water • 3 g of dehydrated brewer’s yeast (or 10g of fresh brewer’s yeast) • 1 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil • 6 grams of sugar (1 small teaspoon) • 10 gr of salt (1 generous teaspoon)

FOR THE STUFFING

• 200 gr of mozzarella for pizza in cubes • 100 gr of tomato puree • Salt and Pepper to taste • Oregano to taste • Seed oil for frying

DIRECTIONS

• To make the Apulian panzerotti, prepare the flour in a bowl, add the dehydrated brewer’s yeast, the sugar to activate the leavening and mix with your hands. • In another bowl, pour the lukewarm water, add the salt, the extra virgin olive oil and start mixing with your hands. • Then add the flour with the baking powder a little at a time and mix until a smooth, homogeneous and elastic dough is obtained. • Let’s move to the work surface to work the dough. Ready the dough, place it in a bowl, practice the classic cross cut and cover it with cling film. Let the dough rise for 2 hours in a warm place until its volume is doubled. • Once the dough has risen, let’s move it onto the lightly floured pastry board. Work it a little with your hands and form many balls weighing about 80 grams. About 10/12 balls should be obtained with this dough. • Put the balls on the baking sheet, covered with parchment paper and let them rise in a warm place for 20 minutes. • In the meantime, prepare the filling. put the diced mozzarella for pizza in a bowl, add the tomato sauce, salt, pepper, oregano to taste and mix all the ingredients with a spoon and set aside. • After 20 minutes, spread the balls of dough on the work surface with a rolling pin and a little flour if necessary, until you get a disc of dough, not too thin. • At the center of the pastry circle, put our filling, wet the edges with a little water and close well with your fingers, forming the classic crescent and then seal the edges well with a fork. • Heat the oil well in a pot or a pan. Do the toothpick test: dip a wooden toothpick in the oil, when many bubbles form around it. The oil is ready to be used. The correct temperature for frying is 170 ° if you have a thermometer. • We fry the panzerotti until they are golden brown on both sides. It will take about 4 minutes. • Once the Apulian panzerotti are cooked at the browning you prefer, drain them on absorbent paper to remove the excess oil. • They can also be cooked in a static oven at 200 ° for 20 minutes, ventilated at 190 ° for 15-20 minutes, until they are golden brown (in this case, it is better to brush them first with egg yolk or olive oil or a little of tomato sauce).