Recipe Baked Panzerotti

[MypinchofItaly]

Serves: 8 panzerotti | Preparation time: 25 mins | Cooking time: 20-30 mins

• Italian flour “00” or All purpose-flour or Bread Flour
• Lukewarm water, 250ml
• Brewer’s yeast, 15 g
• Mozzarella: 450 g
• (optional) Ham: 400 g
• Tomato sauce: 300 g
• Basil, fresh: a handful
• Salt, 10 g
• A pinch of sugar
• Evoo oil, 3 tbsp

Method for the dough
Dissolve the yeast in half a glass of warm water and add the sugar. Stir to melt everything.
Place the flour in a fountain pour the dissolved yeast, salt and start kneading adding more warm water until the dough is compact, homogeneous and smooth. If it turns out to be too hard, add more water, otherwise no more flour.
Place the dough in a large bowl and let it rise for about 1 hour or until doubled. Then divide the dough into 8 balls, let it rise for another 40 minutes.
On a floured surface, roll out the balls with a rolling pin, creating sheets and then obtaining discs about 3-4 mm thick and about 15 cm in diameter (you can also make them larger, as you like, even panzerotti in general) never exceed 20 cm in diameter).

Method for the filling
Dice the mozzarella (and the ham if you want) in small cubes, then mix them in a bowl along with the tomato sauce, basil, a pinch of salt and a tbsp of Evoo.

Tip: Making your dough is easy, and it’s less time-consuming than most think. If you really don’t feel up to it, though, no worries: you can use ready-made pizza dough.

Place a generous spoonful of the tomato and mozzarella stuffing in the middle of each disc. Close the disc on itself, folding it in half around the stuffing, aiming for a big D-shaped dumpling. Press together the edges of the dough, first with your fingertips and then with the prongs of a fork; this will prevent the stuffing from spilling outside of your panzerotti.

Preheat the oven to 180 C.

Put the panzerotti on a baking tray covered with a baking paper, season the surface with a little oil and bake them for about 15-20 mins to 180 C. Serve them warm.