Tags
Baking, Blue Cheese, Buffalo Chicken, Calzones, Cheese, Chef Things, Chicken, Cooking, Food, How To's, Pictures, Prep Work, Provolone Cheese, Ranch, recipes
My lips are still tingling from the wing sauce I used for the calzones. Next time I’ll definitely have to use a less spicy sauce.
I don’t like getting acquainted with a new kitchen; it throws me off my beat, I feel lost, rough, uninvited even. That’s how I felt tonight when I was getting acquainted with Josh’s father’s kitchen. Even though I have eaten over here at least a bazillion times (we’ve been together nearly four years now), until today I couldn’t tell you where his dad keeps all the things that I need to cook. For instance, I didn’t know where the deep bottomed skillets are and used a large, glorified fry pan to do my chicken (resulting in burnt garlic, but I’ll get to that momentarily). His father doesn’t have a knife block sitting on the counter like we do at home, like his mum keeps on her counter, so I was flinging open a million drawers and cabinet doors in search of knives. The worst bit was trying to find the cutting boards though. I don’t know if the board I used was a cutting board (and oh Gods do I hope it was). I could go on and on with my qualms about getting introduced to a new kitchen, but why bother? After a few initial problems, things started to flow properly: Sure, the stove heated up quickly and got hot, I just kept the burner at 5. Oh, there’s no tin foil? That’s fine, I had a ceramic baking pan to use and boy, did it work great.
Once I located everything I would need, I set about gathering the ingredients I would need.
Back: Onion (didn’t use it after all), garlic, dough, wing sauce.
Front: chicken breasts, provolone cheese
I didn’t end up using the onion like I’d set out to, but it wouldn’t have done much in my opinion anyway. Instead I set about chopping up the chicken, having more luck this time than I did yesterday when I butchered it. 
Once the chicken was cut up, I set about mincing some garlic. I didn’t want to season the chicken too heavily as I would be tossing it with the wing sauce after I had finished cooking it.
Yes, another focal blurred shot of garlic. I couldn’t help myself.
With the garlic minced, and the pan heated up, I began frying up the chicken in batches.
Yum!
Unfortunately, I did burn the garlic and was picking it out of the pan carefully in-between cooking the chicken. When the chicken was all cooked, I had it sitting on a plate, cooling. When it finished cooling, I began shredding it (not too finely, but so it was still kind of chunky) and then tossed it with the wing sauce.
My nose tingled while I stirred this up. I didn’t realise how hot the “hot” wing sauce would be.
I let the chicken sit in the buffalo sauce while pounded out the dough.
This is one of two pieces of dough.
Once the dough was flat, or as flat as I could get it, I added the chicken.
I brushed the other side of the dough with excess hot sauce from the bowl of chicken.
Once that was done, I added the provolone cheese (yum!). 
With the cheese on, I folded it up, repeated the process with the second one and got them into the oven- which I had heated to 375.
A fun fact: I played this by ear. I don’t know how long I baked these for, but these were by far the best calzones that I’ve made.
This was taken in the last 15 minutes that they cooked. I looked at the clock around 6:00pm and said “I’ll let them cook an extra 15 minutes”
Around 6:15, I took the pan out of the oven and set it on the counter, letting them cool before serving a sizzling pocket of chicken and cheese on each plate.
Fresh out of the oven. I had to be careful because the pan was spitting hot cheese and oil at me.
I didn’t make any sides because these had everything (but greens): meat, bread, cheese… I couldn’t go wrong.
Plated
Each bite was delicious, filled with gooey cheese covered spicy chicken. The bread wasn’t overcooked, but perfectly done, it having soaked up the excess wing sauce. The chicken didn’t dry out between having seared and then baking it and it, too, soaked up the wing sauce. The sauce itself was still spicy, leaving my lips tingling and my eyes watering only slightly even after it had cooled off completely. And, it wasn’t until I had a handful of bites until I was done, but I got the idea to try it with BBQ sauce (“It is a chicken calzone, isn’t it?”). It was the perfect marriage of flavours, honestly. Tangy, smoky barbecue with spicy, chicken and cheese. While eating, it inspired a new recipe that I will have to write down before it evades me.
While Josh and I sat and sipped our drinks, I watching him finish his last few bites (his calzone was bigger), I asked him if he would want me to make this again. He said yes. Again I asked him a question, this time I asked what kinds of changes I should make when I made it again. He said I should incorporate pepperoni and mozzarella on top of the chicken and provolone. All in all, will I make this again? Sure, just not for a while; there are other recipes to be tried.
~Recipe: Buffalo Chicken Calzones~
Ingredients:
- 1 pound of chicken, cut up
- pizza dough divided into 2 sections (I don’t have a recipe for the dough because I’ve still to make it myself yet)
- 1 1/2 Cups of buffalo wing sauce
- 4 Slices of provolone cheese
- 3 cloves of garlic, minced
- 1 TB olive oil
Method:
- Heat oil in a large pan, adding garlic. Sauté until fragrant being careful not to burn it.
- Add chicken, searing in batches until no longer pink.
- Allow chicken to cool on a paper towel lined plate. While it cools, heat the oven to 375.
- When the chicken has cooled, shred it with your fingers or a fork (I used two forks to pull apart the pieces I cooked), putting them in a large bowl.
- Toss with the wing sauce.
- While the oven heats up, either roll or pound out the dough into circular disks. Once that is accomplished, add the chicken to each, brushing the other side of the dough with excess sauce.
- Top with two slices of provolone cheese each.
- Fold them and pinch the edges together.
- Put into a lightly greased baking pan or on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet.
- Let bake for 45 minutes.
- Remove from oven and let cool 5 minutes before serving.
- Serve with blue cheese or ranch on the side
- Enjoy!
MMMM!! Yet another one of your masterpieces! They look absolutely mouth watering. I especially like how the the calzones aren’t uniform. They look real, unlike many you get at chains or stores. They way the cheese oozes out the sides is just the icing in the cake. Makes me wish you were cooking for me!
PS.
I loved your use of the blurred filter! It really brings the focus to the food instead of getting lost in the busyness of the background.
Leif-
Thanks much! They were delicious, save for the fact they ran a bit more hot than I’d have liked personally. It’s funny how no matter how “flat” I try to get the dough, the edges always poof up the way they did in the picture! It’s funny that you say “they look real unlike many…” because not only are they real and /are/ better (in my opinion) they taste like chicken and cheese rather than over processed meat and cheese that oozes nothing but grease (yuck!).
I would eat this.
I’m inspired.
I’m going to do a calzone, Gluten-Free, and use Chicken Margherita as my template. My bride is gonna dig this.
Again, I’m inspired. (Take a bow, Steffanni.)
That sounds so good! You’ll have to let me know how it turns out and post a bunch of pics! Meanwhile, the inspiration isn’t one way, you’ve inspired me too, especially with that salsa recipe.