Last week, I made a sandwich called the Unsealed Greek Calzone.
You’re probably thinking: “what’s a calzone doing on a sandwich blog?”
“Isn’t that cheating?” you ask. Well, no, it isn’t, and that is a rude question. Wow.
Well, moving on I guess.
Get ready for one fun sandy! You can’t buy this one in a store unless someone stole and successfully marketed my recipe, in which case, kudos to you, sandwich spy!
Rather than review it right out, let me first tell you how I made it.
Unsealed Greek Calzone
1 pita, non-pocketed
3 tablespoons of hummus (I recommend feta and pesto hummus from
Sunflower Market, no, not that Sunflower Market)
3 slices of provolone or other mild cheese
Some sliced ham (skip if you are a hippie or vegan or both)
1 small handful of sliced olives (black would be best, see below)
1 splash of balsamic vinegar (can skip if you don’t have/want any, no biggie)
Several splashes of hot sauce (ditto)
First, preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Put the pita flat on a plate and pretend it’s dough and you’re making a pizza.
If you did this correctly, you should now be looking at a circular piece of flatbread
with nothing on it. If it looks different, then start over. Perhaps you folded the
pita or bought one with a pocket?
Using a tablespoon, scoop out three scoops of hummus and plop them on the
pita. Spread it around somewhat evenly with the back of the spoon. If you’re
still following the pizza analogy, this would be the tomato sauce. Sprinkle the
olive slices on top and smash them down slightly into the hummus. Follow the
olives with the splash of vinegar and splashes of hot sauce.
Lay the three slices of provolone on top of all that and finish with several slices
of ham. If you did this right, you’ll now be looking at the ham with nothing else
on top of it. If not, throw the whole thing out and start over.
Without folding it, put the sandwich hamface up on a baking tray and slide it in
the oven for 15 minutes, or however long it takes for the cheese to melt. I can't
recall. Just don’t burn it.
When it’s ready, take it out and fold it in half. It should now look like a giant
Taco Bell gordita, but better-smelling. Eat the sandwich, or just eat half and
give the other half to someone else or eat it later. I don’t care; do what you want.
But don’t make the sandwich just yet — you should read the review first and decide if it sounds like something worth taking the time preparing.
Good news: it is. The sandwich tastes like gold and it's nutritious to boot. It’s cheesy and hot and alive with the unique flavors and textures of the Mediterranean. It has a proper balance of fats, proteins and carbohydrates — the essential building blocks of food. It gets its flavor from things like hot sauce and vinegar and olives, which are all high in flavor and low in calories. The only part of questionable healthiness is the cheese, but that really makes the sandwich, so you need to just accept that cheese is fatty and move on. And don’t try to use low-fat cheese — it has nearly as many calories and tastes awful.
Of course, how the Unsealed Greek Calzone will taste depends on how it’s prepared. Screw up and you’ll have a one-sandy (out of five) meal on your hands. Key to the Unsealed Greek Calzone’s success is the kind of hummus used. Use a boring variety and it will be a boring sandwich. Use an exciting, flavorful variety, such as feta pesto hummus, and your taste buds will make out with you, or themselves, or however that works; it’s not clear.
The olives are surprisingly important as well. I used Kalamata olives keeping with the Greek theme, and it was a mistake. Although they were pitted, I had to slice them up, which wasted my precious time, which was like getting robbed by the olives because time is money. Even worse, they were an especially briny batch, and paired with the ham, made the sandwich too salty. I’d recommend black olives instead since they often come sliced already and they're less salty. The whole olive incident cost me one sandy (out of five), which hurts but that’s the sandwich game for you.
Comments