About the Recipe
Now I must admit this was a rather ad-hoc meal, which many of mine tend to be. Towards the end of the week, I usually have a load of ingredients which need finishing up and I take on the challenge of pulling together something random but (usually) delicious. This week I had some Polish smoked sausages, bell pepper, and kale lying about, and sourdough in the freezer. I put my thinking cap on and this was the resulting meal.
Did you know, that globally, one-third of food is wasted? This contributes to climate change and is an easy way for us as consumers to help us become a more sustainable global community. Therefore I think it's a great skill to be able to create a delicious meal with whatever ingredients you have lying about rather than wasting them.
Ingredients
1 smoked sausage, sliced (any sausage would do)
Pizza dough - you can buy a mix or make your own
Half an onion, sliced
Half a pepper, sliced
1 clove of garlic, sliced
A splash of passata or tomato paste and water will do
A handful of kale
1 tsp smoked paprika
20g parmesan and any other cheese you fancy - mozzarella would work well
A few leaves of fresh basil
Salt and pepper to taste
I added some of my fermented chilli hot sauce to the passata to give it a kick. You could add some chilli flakes to the passata or slice up a fresh chilli and add it in with the onions!
You could include whatever veg you fancy here and play around with the quantities depending on what you have available. Mushrooms would work nicely for example. The quantities here make one calzone but you can easily scale up.
Preparation
If you're making the dough from scratch, do this first and leave it to prove beforehand. I like to prep a big batch of dough, portion it out, and keep it in the freezer for when I'm in the mood for homemade pizza. It saves a lot of time and gives you nice fresh dough whenever you fancy it.
Heat some oil in a pan and place the sliced sausage face down. Fry for 5 minutes or until they're browned, then turn over and repeat on the other side.
Add your onions, pepper and kale to the pan and cook through for 5-10 minutes before adding the passata. Season well with salt, pepper, and paprika. For a richer flavour, you can also add some tomato puree and soy sauce. Once it has reduced, I like to add your cheese and fresh basil for some extra flavour.
While the filling is cooking, prepare your dough by rolling it into a circle. Cover liberally with flour to prevent it from sticking when cooking. Heat up a frying pan and place your dough in. Pour your filling onto half of the dough and fold the other half over the top and crimp it shut.
Fry for 5 minutes on both sides or until the dough has turned crispy and golden. You can add some oil to the pan to give a better crisp at this point, or skip it if you want a healthier calzone.
Serve topped with fresh herbs and chilli