Why do Italians, who already have the world's most popular savoury pastry, bother with calzone? After all, it's essentially just a pizza folded around its centre. As someone with a certain fetishistic love for all things doughy and stuffed, I believe I have the answer: it is all about surprise, contrast and delayed gratification.
Take the Cornish pasty. Folklore has it that it was devised as apractical way of carrying food – protein and starch, all in one – downthe tin mines, where the filling would stay warm for a few hours. While that may well be the case, Isuspect it also had something to do with the fun of digging through the mundane crust to get to that rich, spicy filling. With its luscious texture and comforting warmth, the inside of the pasty was a concealed surprise, something to look forward to.
Every culture has a variation on this theme. Cantonese steamed char siu bao (barbecue pork buns) have an airy pastry casing that is as white as polystyrene and just as bland; on itsown, it is all but inedible. But once you get to the warm, sweet, intensely rich, porky filling, a proper miracle happens and the casing turns fantastically delicious.
In Turkey I came across yufka, a thin flatbread used mainly for open pies, though it's also stuffed with cheese, rolled into fingers and fried or baked. Greeks have endless similar pastries, while Arab and Indian cultures have sambusak and samosa, stuffed with veg, cheese or meat.
Essentially, what they all share is the principle that behind a perfectly ordinary piece of pastry that looks nothing special on the outside lies something unexpectedly rich and delectable, something worth a short wait and a little poke around.
Tuna and tomato pockets
I based these on a Galician tuna pierecipe in Claudia Roden's tremendous new book, The Food OfSpain (Michael Joseph, £20). Makes eight snack-sized pieces.
2 tbsp olive oil
1 small onion, peeled and chopped
1 red pepper, cored and cut into rough 1cm dice
400g tinned plum tomatoes
1½ tsp caster sugar
1½ tbsp harissa paste
Chopped skin of 1 small preservedlemon
Salt
320g tinned tuna in oil, drained
2 hard-boiled eggs, peeled and roughly chopped
200g pitted kalamata olives, quartered
10g parsley, chopped
500g puff pastry
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp poppy seeds
Pour the oil into a medium frying pan, add the onion and red pepper, and sauté over medium heat for 10 minutes. Add the tomatoes, sugar, harissa, preserved lemon and ateaspoon of salt, and cook on lowheat for 20 minutes, until the peppers are completely soft and the sauce is very thick. Remove from the heat, gently stir in the tuna, eggs, olives and parsley, then transfer to afine sieve to drain off any liquid that may be left in the sauce.
Roll the puff pastry into two squares around 30cm long x 4mm thick, then put in the fridge to rest for 30 minutes, separating the two sheets with parchment paper.
Heat the oven to 200C/400F/gas mark 6. Cut each pastry sheet into four 15cm squares and spoon 80g-90g of the filling into the centre of each square. Brush the edges of two neighbouring sides of each pastry square with egg, then fold along the centre, placing the unbrushed corner over the brushed one to create a triangle. Push out any air and pinch the sides firmly, so they don't open during the baking. If you want, press the edges with the end of a fork to decorate. Place the pastries, spaced well apart, on two baking sheets lined with greaseproof paper and chill for at least 15 minutes to firm up.
Before baking, brush the pastries with beaten egg and with a serrated knife make three small, shallow incisions on top. Sprinkle with poppy seeds and bake for 20-25 minutes, until golden-brown on top and underneath. Serve warmish or at room temperature.
Cheese and coriander flatbreads (V)
These are inspired by pupusa, an ElSalvadoran snack made with maize flour stuffed with cheese, pork or refried beans. Serve with ashredded cabbage salad dressed with lemon juice, olive oil and chopped chilli, or with a salsa made of diced tomato, chopped red onion, garlic, red-wine vinegar and olive oil. Serves four (ie two per person).
280g masa harina flour
Salt
450ml lukewarm water
About 80g ghee or clarified butter
For the filling
60g mature cheddar, coarsely grated
60g gruyère, coarsely grated
75g ricotta
10g chopped coriander
2 medium-heat green chillies, finelychopped
3 spring onions, finely chopped
Put the flour in a large mixing bowl, add half a teaspoon of salt and the water, and stir first with a wooden spoon and then with your hand until you have a uniform, soft and sticky dough. When pressing the dough down, it should crack only a little at the edge, so add a little extra water or flour as needed. Wrap in clingfilm and set aside for a few minutes.
Stir together the filling ingredients, along with a quarter teaspoon of salt, until you get a firm paste.
Divide the dough into eight 90g balls and cover with a cloth or tea towel. One by one, flatten each ball and spoon 30g of the filling into its centre. Fold the edges over the filling to seal it inside and roll into aperfect ball. With a rolling pin, roll each ball between two sheets of clingfilm into a flat disc around 15cmin diameter and 0.5cm thick. Repeat with the remaining dough balls and filling.
To cook, heat about a teaspoon ofghee in an iron pan. Cook each flatbread on medium to high heat for about three minutes on each side, until it turns golden-brown and crispy, and blisters on the surface. Remove and keep warm while you cook the remaining breads one by one, adding more ghee as needed. Serve at once.
Sweet potato brick cigars (V)
Serve these as party finger food or asa starter. The sauce is optional. Adrizzle of lemon juice is also fine. Makes 20 cigars, or enough to serve four to six.
2 large sweet potatoes (900g in all)
70g feta, crumbled
2½ tsp maple syrup
5 spring onions, finely chopped
1½ tbsp chopped parsley
1 tbsp chopped coriander
¾ tsp cayenne pepper
Salt
1 pack Feuilles De Brick pastry (10round sheets)
1 egg, beaten
About 400ml sunflower oil
For the sauce (optional)
150ml soured cream
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp olive oil
½ a garlic clove, crushed
½ tsp salt
Heat the oven to 200C/400F/gas mark 6. Put the unpeeled sweet potatoes in a roasting tray and roast for 40-50 minutes, until the flesh is soft. When cool enough to handle, spoon out the flesh and place in abowl. Stir in the feta, maple syrup, spring onions, herbs, cayenne and ateaspoon of salt. Set aside to cool.
To make the sauce, whisk all the ingredients in a bowl and chill.
Carefully remove a round disc of pastry from its packet and cut in half and then in half again, so you have four quarters of a circle. Take two quarters and stack them neatly on top of each other. With the pointed end facing away from you, place two tablespoonfuls of the sweet potato mix horizontally in a rectangular dollop 2cm from the edge nearest you. Brush the top 4cm of the pointy end with egg. Fold in the two corners at the sides, bring the bottom flap up and roll it tightly to get a neat cigar with minimal air inside and sealed at the top. Repeat with the remaining pastry and filling, laying the cigars on their seams as you go.
Pour enough sunflower oil into amedium saucepan to come about 4cm up the sides of the pan. Place on medium heat for a few minutes, then fry the pastries in batches for about two minutes, turning once, until nice and dark; make sure the oil isn't too hot so they don't fry too quickly. Transfer to absorbent paper. Serve hot with the soured cream sauce, or a wedge of lemon.
