Onion Paneer Calzone And Home-made Marinara

Printable recipe here.

Calzone are a sort of folded over pizza like dough or turnover with filling, originally from Naples. When baked the dough swells up to somewhat resemble a “stuffed stocking or trouser leg” which is what “calzone” means in Italian. Smaller snack size versions, called calzonetti, may be deep fried also.
Calzone may be filled with a variety of vegetable combinations of choice. Here, I used sautéed onions and paneer with bell pepper and cheese.

Ingredients:

For the dough:
2 cups all purpose flour
1½ tsp dry active yeast
1 tsp sugar
½ tsp salt
1 ½ tsp dried Italian seasoning (or herbs of choice)
1 tbsp olive oil

For filling:
1 tsp olive oil
3 big onions, thinly sliced
1 green bell pepper (juliennes)
1 cup paneer, crumbled
1 cup processed cheese, grated (this is what I had on hand)
salt and pepper to taste

Method:

The filling:
Heat the oil, add the onions and a bit of salt and sauté the onions till soft and light brown. Add the pepper and the bell pepper juliennes and stir a couple of times and take off the heat. Crumble the paneer and grate the cheese. Keep aside till required.

The dough:
Put the flour, herbs, yeast, sugar and salt in the food processor bowl. Add the yeast mixture and enough water to the flour to make a soft yet elastic dough. This may be done by hand too. Now add the olive oil and knead well. Put the dough in an oiled bowl, cover and allow to double.
Take the dough, press out the air and divide into eight pieces. Roll each piece into a circle about 6” in diameter. Place the onion filling on one half making sure the edges of the semi-circle are free. Put some crumbled paneer over the filling and top off with some grated cheese. Moisten the edges with water and carefully fold the filling free half over to form a semi circle. Using the tines of a fork, press the edges down.
Place the calzones on a greased tray and cover with a cloth. Allow to puff up a bit, for about 5 - 10 minutes. You can see that my calzones puffed up quite a bit so that the fork marking are almost invisible!
Bake the calzones at 180C for about 20 minutes or till brown.

Serve hot for dinner, with a soup and salad, or as a snack either plain or with marinara sauce.
This recipe makes eight calzones.
This is my submission for BBD #12 which is being hosted right here, this month.

Home-made Marinara (my version)

This marinara is something I almost always have in my fridge as I make large quantities and freeze it in smaller portions. We like Italian food (the vegetarian version) and my daughter loves pizza and pasta in any form. I use this sauce for making pizza and for pasta recipes that call for tomato sauce.
I have added bell pepper to this sauce as my daughter doesn't like it but doesn't mind it this way.

Ingredients:

½ kg tomatoes, pureed
3 (200g) packs of tomato puree
2-3 onions
½ tsp garlic paste
1 large capsicum, green
3 heaped tsp sugar
1 ½ tsp kashmiri chilli powder
1 ½ tsp crushed black pepper
1 tsp Italian seasoning/ mixed herbs
(basil, oregano, thyme, marjoram, rosemary, sage, etc.)
2-3 tbsp oil
salt to taste

Method:

Chop up the onions and capsicum and blend to a paste with garlic paste.
Heat the oil and fry this paste till the raw smell of onion disappears. Then add both the tomato purees and all other ingredients, except the seasoning, and stir well. Allow to come to a boil and then turn down the heat. Cook till quite thick, stirring occasionally. When almost ready, add the seasoning. Cook for another 2 minutes and the sauce is ready. Cool and bottle. This keeps in the fridge for 7-10 days. This sauce can also be divided into smaller single portions and frozen.

DK of Culinary Bazar is hosting AWED: Italian this month and calzones would be perfect for it.