The Neapolitan fried calzone

A culinary specialty of the city of Naples recognized all over the world, a real must of Neapolitan Street food.  A tasty street food that has very ancient origins, fried pizza was invented in times of crisis at the end of World War II It is a fried pizza stuffed with ricotta, salami, mozzarella, pepper. But the fried filling can be prepared in many ways. With the same name is indicated the fried calzone (contains ricotta, provolone, cicoli or (Neapolitan salami) Already there was talk of fried pizza in the first cookbook in the world written by Ippolito Cavalcanti (Theoretical-practical cuisine). The fried pizza, or more generically 'a zeppulella, in 1847 was stuffed with blue fish marinated with oil, salt and pepper. Made of flour, water, salt and little yeast, its shape can be round or elongated (the famous pescetiello / battilocchio) to be eaten hot and wrapped in a sheet of yellow paper. (O'Cuppetiello).

Fried pizza today is a specialty appreciated and enjoyed by other Italian regions such as: Sicily, Puglia, Lazio, Tuscany, Canada and the US. It also landed in Lombardy, albeit stuffed in other ways.

Ingredients for 4 large calzones

For the dough:

1 kg of soft wheat flour

4 gr Fresh brewer's yeast

650 ml water (preferably not from the tap)

30 g fine salt

1 teaspoon sugar

For the filling:

200 g ricotta cheese

200 gr of fior di latte or mozzarella

200 g of Salumi Cicoli Napoletano

peeled tomatoes

Pepper

peanut oil

We prepare the dough:

Add water, sugar and salt in a bowl and crumble the yeast with your fingers and stir so as to dissolve everything add 1 tablespoon flour and knead well (For kneading is allowed the use of hands or a kneading machine) then add the flour little by little while kneading. Knead until it takes on a smooth, soft and elastic consistency.

Leavening:

After obtaining a fairly soft dough, let the dough rest for 2 hours at a temperature of about 25 C °. covering it with a clean cloth.  After 2 hours take the pasta and make the portions to prepare and let them rest for another 6 hours covering it with a clean cloth.

Prepare pizza:

Roll out the dough well exclusively with your hands on a pastry board or a lightly floured marble table. Then stuff the pizza only on one half of the pizza disc, with ricotta spread well, pepper, peeled tomatoes, salami or cooked ham, fior di latte or mozzarella. Close the pizzas in the shape of a calzone and with your fingers press the edges well. In a pan or high pot fry the pizzas in plenty of seed oil at180 °. Lift with a slotted spoon and put them on absorbent paper.