Panwozzo?

It was my birthday on Monday (a mere 78 if you want to know) and Sue dragged me off to big London for a gastronomic few days, the highlight of which was lunch at Moro on the day.

Arrived Saturday evening in the pissing rain, the train only two hours late. Took a cab to the hotel. The plan was to go to Zadel in Piccadilly but it was 8.00p.m. and the pavements were awash. 10 minutes walk up to Mount Pleasance so that’s where we went. Tried the Eagle – mobbed. Crossed the road to the Quality Chop House – fully booked.

Exmouth Market is only a couple of hundred yards long and virtually every address is a restaurant (including Moro and it’s little sister Morito). Walked to the bottom and started back again. Big Italian restaurant, Santore, was busy but you could see the odd gap. Dived in and claimed the last table for two.

Civilization. Full of lively people having a good time. No noticeable music. Bustling waiters.

Snuggled up to a negroni and calmed down.

It was great to get a table out of the rain, even better to get an unexpectedly good meal rather than something mediocre for the sake of it.

Anyway, the point of all this is: Panuozzi. You probably know all about them but I’d never heard of them – a sort of pizza sandwich but quite different to calzoni.

So I had to have one there and I had to make one when we got back.

200g per panuozzo using 24 hour old 80% hydration dough. Pressed out into shape, brushed with olive oil, sprinkled with salt and oregano. Baked at 300C top and bottom for about 10 minutes until puffed up and golden.

Cooled, then split from edge to edge, leaving them attached along one long edge (not top to bottom like this dickhead did with the first one as you can see in the photo below).

Covered one half of each with slices of mozzarella and the other with the filling (aubergine, tomato sauce, sausage, shredded lettuce). Returned to the oven, breads open for a few minutes until the cheese was melted.

Removed from the oven, folded over the tops, returned to the heat for a few more minutes.

Results were seriously good: crisp outside, soft inside, gooey with the cheese, moist with the right amount of filling.

Definitely one for the repertoire with an endless variety of fillings waiting to be devised.

The jokey title? We’ve always had silly names for things and, now that we are old with deficient memories, it’s often easier to remember silliness that the real thing. Fifty odd years ago, at a friend’s 21st birthday bash, the conversation turned to budgies as it tends to do on such occasions. “We had a budgie” said one guy in a broad Yorkshire accent, “We called it Wozzo.” Short silence until someone said “Why did you call it that?”. “It’s French for ‘bird’, stupid.”

We’ve lived with Wozzo for a long time so, when Sue couldn’t think of Panuozzo she called it Panwozzo …

And so it shall be for evermore.