Stromboli

Tomorrow is St. Patrick’s Day.  I thought it would be fun to make a St. Patrick’s Day entry for the blog.  It is very important to me that each of the recipes here be original.  So, I began researching Irish food about a month ago.  I read and read and tested a couple of ideas.  I finally decided to make Irish potato pancakes (boxty) and Guinness lamb stew.  It was inedible.

I learned a good lesson from that.  It is important for the food you create to represent you as a person.  My father is a first generation American who grew up in an Italian-American neighborhood outside of Boston.  His influence is easy to see in my recipes.  My maternal grandfather was a Native-American, who grew up in the South West.  He was also a cook in the Navy during WWII.  The Navy trained their cooks and he could make pastries and bread.   He also liked to grow vegetables, especially hot peppers.  It is from him that I get my love of heat and using natural ingredients.  My maternal grandmother was a Southerner through and through.  She cooked every day for about 15 people on a very low budget.  My Grandma gave me all my practical experience in the kitchen.  She taught me how to make gravy, fry chicken, and to look into the cabinet, find four ingredients and make a feast. My mother was/is not a good cook.  Almost everything she prepares comes from a box and often doesn’t turn out anyway.    However, she probably gave me the best gift of all.  She allowed me to experiment in the kitchen.  She didn’t care if I made white bean and tuna fish salad (so gross.)  She and my step-father gamely ate it, even if she was complaining and giggling hysterically while she did so. She let me know that it was okay to make a mistake in the kitchen and to be brave and to take risks.

Which leads us to the inedible Irish food.  I am not Irish.  Not even a little.  I tried, it didn't work.  And so my St. Patty’s Day blog is a stromboli.  It is wonderful.  You can serve it with green beer.

Serves: 6-8

Hardware:  Measuring spoons and cups, a cutting board and knives, a skillet, a bowl, a wooden spoon, a rolling pin, and a pizza stone or baking sheet, a clean tea towel, a microwave safe bowl, a pastry brush

Time: Resting time: an hour and 10 minutes, Prep time: 30-40 minutes, Baking time: 20-25 minutes

Ingredients:

• A 16 ounce raw, fresh pizza dough (can be found in the bakery section of most markets)
• 1 teaspoon olive oil
• 6 ounces fresh baby spinach
• 1 fire roasted yellow or red bell pepper
• ¼ pound thinly sliced Genoa salami
• ¼ pound thinly sliced prosciutto
• ¼ pound thinly sliced spicy pepperoni
• ½ cup shredded mozzarella
• 2 tablespoons + 2 tablespoons + 2 tablespoons parmesan cheese
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2 cloves of garlic
• ¼ - ½ cup flour
• (cooking spray if you are using a baking sheet)
• marinara sauce for dipping

1. Allow the pizza dough to rest in the bag, at room temperature, for an hour.
2. While the dough is resting, heat the olive oil on medium high.  Add the washed spinach and stir just until the spinach wilts (2-3 minutes).  Allow the spinach to cool and squeeze as much water from it as you possibly can.  Chop the pepper into bite size pieces. Set aside.
3. Pre-heat the oven to 400°.
4. Punch the dough down and divide it in half.
5. Roll out one half on a lightly floured surface.  Sprinkle with enough flour to keep anything from sticking. The dough is very elastic and will shrink back. Keep stretching and rolling until it is about 6 by 9 inches.
6. Spread ¼ cup on the mozzarella cheese over the dough, leaving about an inch border on the long sides and one of the short sides. Then take half the salami and cover the cheese as if you were tiling a floor. Slightly overlap the edges of the salami, and layer it as evenly as possible.  Then cover the salami with half the spinach, spreading it out evenly. Layer half the prosciutto next. Sprinkle half the chopped pepper evenly over the prosciutto. The next layer is half the pepperoni. Finally sprinkle 2 tablespoons of the parmesan cheese evenly over the pepperoni.
7. Start from the short side without the border, and roll the dough up, jellyroll style, toward the short side with the border.  Use the one inch border to seal the stromboli.  Pinch the sides closed and fold under (toward the seam).  Make sure the seal is tight or you will have a big mess.  Lay the stromboli on the pizza stone or the greased baking sheet, seam side down. Cover with a slightly moist- NOT WET-tea towel while you make the second stromboli.
8. Repeat with the rest of the ingredients.
9. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until the dough is golden brown.
10. While the strombolis are baking, melt the butter and crushed garlic in the microwave.
11. As soon as you remove the strombolis from the oven brush them with the garlic butter and sprinkle with the remaining parmesan. 
12. Allow the strombolis to rest for10 minutes before slicing.
13. Offer your guest cold marinara sauce for dipping.