Stromboli

I had never heard of a stromboli until yesterday when someone posted some photos of one at pizzamaking.com. Yesterday I baked pizzas and had some dough balls and toppings left over. The brick oven was at about 450F this morning so I was inspired to try making a stromboli, which seems to be a relative of the calzone. However, the dough is rolled jelly-roll style so that there are layers of dough within the filling. It is brushed with egg and then sprinkled with poppy or sesame seeds.

I have to say I enjoyed the stromboli as much as I enjoyed the pizzas. I have no idea how this originated, but hats off to the creator of the stromboli.

Here are some photos:

Dough is formed into rectangle and brushed with olive oil and topped with ABC bufala mozzarella and Alleva Dairy fresh mozzarella:


Chopped San Marzano tomatoes and sauteed mushrooms:


Ham and sweet soppresata:


Grated parm and Alleva Dairy caciocavallo:














Bill/SFNM

Stromboli was a staple as a kid in upstate New York. Unfortunately, it was usually made only by chain pizza places and not our local delicatessens. For some reason, I can't download your pictures, but I remember tha stromboli always had a lot of green peppers. I absolutely loved it!

Bill,

Look forward to the photos. Given your depth of knowledge and the handiwork you display, I am somewhat floored by the fact that you had never heard of/seen stromboli (which also goes by other names). Not that you should have, mind you. But the dish is so much a part of the southern Italian vernacular. I think it's fair to say that this kind of bread is more likely to come out of a Southern Italian-American home oven than is a pizza.

Tony, Choey and others might have different experiences, but in my family, stromboli is closely associated with Easter, particularly the vegetarian versions and most especially those filled with greens. (E.g., rapini or other bitter greens, possibly sweetened with some spinach or escarole, fried with onions in olive oil until well cooked.) So you picked the right time to get started.

In fact, I need to get to work on my breads for the upcoming holiday.....

JeffB wrote:Bill,
I am somewhat floored by the fact that you had never heard of/seen stromboli (which also goes by other names).

Jeff:

What other names does it go by? There is nothing with this name listed in any of my Italian cookbooks. I'm glad to have stumbled upon this. Thanks for the info.

Bill/SFNM

Bill/SFNM wrote:

JeffB wrote:Bill,
I am somewhat floored by the fact that you had never heard of/seen stromboli (which also goes by other names).

Jeff:

What other names does it go by? There is nothing with this name listed in any of my Italian cookbooks. I'm glad to have stumbled upon this. Thanks for the info.

To my mind, the name "Stromboli" (island/volcano in the Lipari Islands, Provincia di Messina, due north of eastern Sicily) is an American appellation for a style of savoury pizza of Southern Italian origin. In this, the case is analogous to "chicken Vesuvio" -- an American (Chicagoense) name for a basic Southern Italian preparation (unless one subscribes to the "chicken Hephaistos" theory). In other words, I doubt you'll find a recipe in a real Italian cookbook calling a filled and rolled savoury bread 'Stromboli'. Of course, it is possible that somewhere in Italy the name does occur in this application but if so, it must be a pretty local usage. On the other hand, in the northeast of this country, the name is widely used and has been for some time now.

Growing up, I was well aware of the name but in my culturally conservative family, 'Stromboli' was not a name used for any of the savoury pies we regularly had at the various holidays. Incidentally, the poppy seeds in the recipe that Bill so artfully executed strike me as 'foreign', at least to my Campano-Laziali sensibilities.

Yes, 'tis time to make the savoury pies. Good Friday in my family's part of Italy is, of course, a fast day, but one on which a traditional meal is comprised of a very sober but very delicious pizza with greens. On Holy Saturday, as soon as the Lenten fast is over, the meaty-cheesy savoury pies make their appearance. Amata and I will hopefully be making at least a couple of these items. Incidentally, last year Frank Masi gave me as gift a large piece of a savoury pie traditional in his family (Provincia di Napoli), which he refers to as 'calzone', that was really quite wonderful. This pie is not at all like the empanada-like (form-wise) item made in pizzerie.

Antonius

Addendum: Jeff -- in your family, did/do you all use the specific name 'Stromboli'? If so, do you have any sense of whether that is just a useful/colourful term picked up here or do you relatives from Caserta use it as their native Italian name? I don't know it as an actual Italian term, either through familial usage or through research, so I'm curious.

Now that I can see the pictures, these look exactly like the ones I used buy as a kid. These were regularly billed as stromboli, but it is clear that most of the pizza joint owners were not real Italians.

Incidentally, last year Frank Masi gave me as gift a large piece of a savoury pie traditional in his family (Provincia di Napoli), which he refers to as 'calzone'

Interesting. Usually around Easter and Christmas one of my great aunts would make what were referred to as calzones, however the filling was strictly a sweet ricotta mixture. The top was always golden brown from an egg wash.

Antonius,

Thanks for the explanation. I just spent the last hour going through about 2 dozen Italian cookbooks and did indeed find a number of recipes for Easter pies or pizzas or stuffed pizzas or stuffed pies, but not a single one of these recipes had what I liked so much about yesterday's stromboli: the pie was rolled like a jelly roll so that there was crust both inside and out. The balance of bread and stuffing in each bite was just perfect.

In all of the recipes I just perused, these pies were either folded in half empanada-style or a double crust - top and bottom enclosing the stuffing. I've made such pies before using ricotta; I wonder what would happen if it were rolled?

Bill/SFNM

I also recall Stromboli being an Easter thing, with poppy seeds on top, and it sometimes included hard-cooked eggs. I don't believe that the versions I had were rolled jelly roll style - simply tucked in like an empanada or a calzone, but in the same general shape as your stromboli. My hunch is that certain cooks didn't want to execute the extra turns of the dough that jelly-roll style requires.

Your version looks delicious.

Back in my youth, Victor's pizzeria in Princeton New Jersey, besides making a great cheesesteak, had both calzones and strombolis. Their stromboli was different than what is being described here. It was simply a calzone with no ricotta cheese. The greatness of the Victors calzones and strombolis was that they had a very thin shell, which got very crisp, and let you fill up on healthy cheese and ham, without a lot of empty starch. They served them with an excellent homemade tomato sauce.
Dining at Victors was very educational. When I inquired as to why they had a different brand of garlic powder on the tables, the guy asked me if I had heard about the big mob hit in New York a couple of months before. I said that I had, and he told me that after that hit the New York mob took over central Jersey from the Philadelphia mob, and so they had to use a new supplier.
-Will

I remember stromboli on the menu of a pizza franchise back in Indiana of the 1960's so it can't be too ethnic. See link for a current menu which still has it.

Memories are vague but I seem to remember an pasty shaped object filled with the same toppings as on pizza. I make no claim as to authenticity, just adding a data point.

http://www.ballyhoo.ws/pizza_menu.htm

WillG wrote:... they had a very thin shell, which got very crisp, and let you fill up on healthy cheese and ham, without a lot of empty starch...

Hmm, "empty starch"... This doesn't seem to speak well for the quality of their dough. The crust of Italian savoury pies, as with pizzas, should be no less a featured element of the dish than the fillings or condiments. Of course, with pizzas, I think it reasonable to state that more as follows: the crust is the main element and the quality thereof is what makes or breaks a given cook's products. But a savoury filled pie, either with bread dough or a short dough, should also have a properly made and delicious crust.

Antonius

To add further to the already confusing nomenclature, Bacci Pizzeria on Chicago Avenue produces something very similar to the item pictured above and calls it a "panzerotti."

It is actually the deep-fried variant which they call a "calzone."

Bacci Pizzeria
2356 W. Chicago Ave.
773.342.6500

Menu

E.M.

I remember the stromboli, too, back in IN. My dad always ordered the stromboli from Pizza King. I remember it looking more like a sub or toasted sandwich, oozing with meaty sauce. He also wasn't willing to share or give out many bites!

East coast (PA, NY, NJ) Stromboli - always a rolled up version of a pizza, usually with less sauce. Calzone - folded over with pizza fillings inside, usually no sauce, served with sauce, half-moon shaped. Panzarotti - squared off calzone, fried, usually with some sauce inside, always seemed like one of those things they would buy already frozen in a box, not made on premises.

Isn't Stromboli one of the offerings at Sabarro?

Sorry to have posted and run off.

A-- no, my family never called these pies stromboli. Growing up, they were usually called something descriptive in English -- spinach bread, sausage bread, etc. In Western PA, bakeries tend to call the rabe version "pizza greens." I have seen the term rotoloni used in reference to the rabe pie, and in a specific reference to Napolitano bakeries.

Bill, no one seems to have mentioned the fact that Chicago has a home-grown fast food empire that is based on this specific product. Pompei Bakery, which started on Taylor, has lots of varieties that can be purchased by the slice or whole. I'm not a huge fan of these particular "pizza strudels" as Pompeii calls them (the dough), but some are better than others. Pompei's pies are essentially identical in structure to yours.

My family never cut vents in our rolled up pizzas. Can't recall if Pompei does. Otherwise, same jelly-roll construction.

http://www.pompeipizza.com/Menu.html

JeffB wrote:My family never cut vents in our rolled up pizzas. Can't recall if Pompei does. Otherwise, same jelly-roll construction.

http://www.pompeipizza.com/Menu.html

The boss here likes pompei, so he puts in a big order every few months or so. Some regular pizzas, some "strudel". Perhaps the weirdest is the turkey and stuffing strudel.

I'm definitely not a fan.

On the other hand, Freddy's in Cicero also always has some available, and theirs are pretty good. I don't recall their name for it, though.

My memory is that neither Freddy's nor Pompei cut vents.