Olive and Onion Stuffed Bread (Calzone di Cipolla)
My Nonna used to make a version of this stuffed bread throughout my childhood. However, her recipe is a bit less complicated than mine in terms of the variety of ingredients used. In my Nonna’s recipe, she only cooks with white onions, cured black olives, red raisins, and anchovies. I add scallions, red onions, kalamata olives, golden raisins, and capers in my recipe. While she calls hers a calzone, I call mine a stuffed bread because we have two wildly different ideas of what constitutes a calzone. Being an American, a calzone to me is a large slab of pizza dough overstuffed with more mozzarella and ricotta cheese than anyone knows what to do with. To my Nonna, a calzone is an oven-baked turnover packed with whatever you want to fill it with, so we agree to disagree (spoiler alert, she’s right).
Never underestimate the power of a colorful and well-organized aerial shot
Prepping the “meez”
My olive and onion stuffed bread, aka calzone di cipolla, or simply, Puglian onion pie, is another one of those recipes that tastes much better the next day after the bread has time to soak up the oil and the filling. If I were you, I would make this stuffed bread a day before serving, so all the flavors have time to blend and intensify. While it still tastes amazing on day one, I can guarantee that you’ll notice a considerable improvement in the way it tastes the day after you bake it. The onions and raisins will taste sweeter, and the rest of the ingredients will have a more robust and well-rounded flavor too.
According to an article on Forbes titled “The Science Of Leftovers: Why They Taste SO Good,” Dr. Kantha Shelke, a spokesperson for the Institute of Food Technologists, explains: “Aromatic ingredients tend to undergo a larger number of reactions that produce flavor and aroma compounds which in turn react with the proteins and the starches. In general, as the food cools and is left to sit in the fridge, and then re-heated, some of these reactions continue to take place resulting in improved flavor.” Well, what do you know?
I hope you realize I’m making this picture cute just for you. Usually I mindlessly dump the onions all over the place
I love the smell of this recipe. You all know how I feel about colorful food. It just tastes better!
Shhh. Don’t tell Marj there are raisins in it
When preparing this dish, you must let the dough rise for a few hours; otherwise, the bread will turn out heavy and dense. Sure, the filling goes a long way, and it will still be edible, but I would recommend letting the dough sit out for at least two to three hours on each side, covered in a generous amount of olive oil so that the dough doesn't get dry. You also need to fold the dough on its ends into each other, making sure to tuck in the dough's sides to seal the ingredients inside of it. For obvious reasons, this prevents the filling from spilling out until you decide to cut and serve.
When you’re ready to store your food, wrap the stuffed bread tightly in aluminum foil and keep it for up to three to four days in the refrigerator. When you’re ready to eat it, reheat the bread in the oven at 350 degrees for 5-10 minutes, or let the stuffed bread sit outside the fridge for at least 20 minutes because it tastes better at room temperature than it does when it’s cold.
Pre-stuffed
Post-stuffed
Gently patting the filling down
Tucking in the sides of the dough
So, a bit of background about this recipe; when my Nonna was a child, she would watch her mother and nonna make their calzone, just like how I would do with her and my mother. It’s a multigenerational recipe that’s about a hundred years old, maybe more. Of course, as I mentioned earlier, I’ve put my personal spin on it, adding a few bells and whistles along the way, but the essence of the recipe has largely remained the same. Onions, olives, raisins, anchovies, and dough still make up the base flavors. It’s a simple recipe, but then again, most of the recipes my grandparents taught me are.
It’s so beautiful ::tears::
I would take my stuffed bread out of the oven when it turns this color, or a little more golden, but no longer, or else the bread will get hard
I asked my Nonna how she and the family used to make this dish back when they lived in Bari. “When I was a little girl. We didn’t have an oven or any stove to cook on, so we would cook over a fire. Everybody used to have a fireplace in the house where we would make food on top of wood and charcoal. We used to make our own bread, but there was also a public oven, a fornaio. You would bring the bread there, mark it, and the bakers would cook it for you, and then you would bring it home.”
Wow. I love that idea. Can you imagine building a community around cooking in a park and all of the positive social effects it would have in each neighborhood? Installing public ovens could provide a hub of communal activity like educational programs, hosted events, or simply neighbors coming together to talk to each other while cooking some tasty food. I know communal ovens probably still exist somewhere; I mean, I’ve seen public grills in parks, but not coal or wood-fired ovens as a community shared resource. We should really bring communal ovens back, minus the landlords that owned them.
I’m a sucker for any food that’s sweet, salty, and savory at the same time
Any time I find myself far away from my grandparents, or in the case of the pandemic, just a neighborhood away, but unable to see them without thorough planning and weeks of self-isolation in between, I make this recipe, and I feel close to them. For me, this olive and onion stuffed bread is a food that has a lot of warm and happy early childhood memories attached to it. Generally speaking, I find that cooking the nostalgia-fueled foods from my childhood has helped me feel less alone during the current crisis. Whenever I feel that social isolation is doing a number on my mental health, I make a family recipe, much like this one, and I instantly feel less lonely afterward. I think that‘s a large part of the reason I made this blog in the first place. I missed that feeling of being connected to others, but I also missed a sense of belonging in a time that made me feel invisible and increasingly detached from the outside world.
Cooking has been a form of alternative therapy for me. There’s nothing more fulfilling than creating something out of nothing, and so I encourage everyone reading these blog posts to find the meals that hold meaning for them and share those recipes with your friends, loved ones, and so on. Cooking isn’t just a distraction or a way to hone your culinary skills. It’s also a creative outlet and a form of self-care that nurtures yourself and other people.
I feel like I know the lyrics to the parody version better than the original at this point
Ingredients
2lbs of pizza dough
1 large white onion
1 large red onion
1 bunch of scallions
2/3 cup of pitted cured black olives
2/3 cup of pitted kalamata olives
1/2 cup of mixed white and red raisins (2/3 if you prefer a sweeter flavor)
8-12 anchovies
2 tablespoons of capers
~ 8 tablespoons of olive oil
Cooking Instructions
Let the dough rise outside of the refrigerator for six hours, three hours on each side with two tablespoons of olive oil on each side of the dough, making sure it doesn’t get dry
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
Sauté anchovy in 3 tablespoons of olive oil on medium heat until it dissolves in a deep skillet
Add in onions on medium heat, sautéing for 8-10 minutes, stirring occasionally
Toss in the olives, capers, and raisins on medium heat, sautéing for 8-10 minutes, stirring occasionally
Remove the deep skillet from the heat and let the filling cool for around 10 minutes. Stir the ingredients to help cool it faster, or remove from the deep skillet and pour it into a large bowl
Lightly oil the bottom and sides of the baking dish using one tablespoon of oil and a pastry brush or by hand
Stretch the dough in the baking dish until the bottom of the pan is covered, making sure that the sides of the dish have the dough to seal later
Add in the cooked filling and spread it on top of the dough. Gently pat the filling down to evenly distribute, careful not to apply too much pressure not to tear the bottom layer of dough
Place the other pound of dough over the filling and carefully stretch over the mixture. Tuck the dough into the sides, all around, sealing the dough together so the filling won’t fall out
Cook for around 45-55 minutes, rotating the baking dish halfway through the cooking time. Remove the stuffed bread when it’s golden as some ovens are hotter than others. If you find that you have a hotter oven than most, cover the top of the baking dish in aluminum foil halfway through the baking time
Let the stuffed bread rest for 20 minutes to cool before serving
