Poutine Calzones

If you did a double-take on the title, then you sadly missed my facebook feed with a sneak peek of this dish. If you think I must be losing it to make a poutine calzone, then you're probably right, but I was pleasantly surprised with how well this recipe turned out.

At work this week, we had pizza for one of our seminar series ... feta cheese with olives and tomato. I was contemplating making my own and browsing through cookbooks for inspiration when I stumbled across a calzone recipe. I've never made a calzone, so that seemed like a good idea. While thinking about the calzone though, the thought of a poutine calzone popped into my head. The reason I've never made poutine at home (in addition to living so close to La Banquise and Ma'am Bolduc) is fear of not being able to make good crispy fries. I'd seen a recipe for poutine pizza on foodgawker, but was worried about the fries being too soggy. A poutine calzone seems to solve that because soft fries seem more natural ... almost like a poutine samosa calzone.

I did take an out of character shortcut while making this though ...

 Mostly, I was worried about maintain the authentic flavour of the poutine, so I cheated on the sauce.  I've never made a velouté before.  Next time I think I'll try to actually make it as it sounds relatively simple.  To make it extra delicious, I splurged on good cheese curds from Val-Mont.  If you've never tried these before, I highly recommend them for snacking!

You could take another shortcut and buy frozen french fries, but I opted to oven roast potato wedges (probably making it closer to samosa filling than classic poutine, but that's okay!).  The end result filling still looked great if I do say so myself:

A little folding over and crimping it closed:

Some egg yolk to be sure it browns up and you have a beautiful golden brown calzone:

Measurements below are rough approximations. I only made 1 recipe of pizza dough and ended up with extra filling (which I thought made a fine snack on its own). I'd estimate that each calzone is 2 servings. You should be able to flash freeze the uncooked calzones and bake them up later.

Ingredients
4 baking potatoes
olive oil
salt & pepper
1 package St. Hubert poutine sauce (or 2 cups velouté)
160 - 200g cheese curds
2 recipes of quick and easy pizza dough (or other pizza dough)
1 egg

1. Preheat oven to 400F. Peel potatoes and cut into wedges. Layer potatoes on a baking dish, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and drizzle with olive oil. Bake for 45 minutes, turning every 10 - 15 minutes to ensure even browning. When done, reduce oven heat to 350F.
2. Meanwhile, cook poutine sauce.
3. Divide each dough recipe in 2 (for a total of 4 balls of pizza dough). Roll out dough into a 9 or 10 inch circle.
4. Top lower half of each circle of dough with 1/4 of potatoes, 1/4 of cheese, and 1/4 cup poutine sauce (roughly, reserve extra for later) being sure to leave enough room to close the calzone.
5. Fold dough over the filling and crimp the dough closed.
6. In a small bowl or cup, beat egg with 1 tsp of water. Brush calzones with egg wash.
7. Bake calzones in oven at 350F for 45 minutes or until golden brown.
8. Serve calzone with another 1/4 cup poutine sauce poured over the top.