Cheesesteak Stromboli: Taking homemade dough and sauce to a whole new level.

We weren’t aware the the Stromboli isn’t a popular nationwide dish until we moved across the country. That means that finding one here is next to impossible. Calzones are close…but not quite a stromboli, at least where we are from.

Usually an easy way to explain our experience with the two is that a calzone is the smaller version of a stromboli. Stromboli in some areas are rolled and not folded over like a calzone. However the restaurants we grew up eating at go with the first version.

We started by making some fresh tomato sauce in our Vitamix. Usually stromboli leaves the sauce out, and when you get one, you’ll get a side of sauce to dip it in.

Matt’s been working on his dough stretching skills for a while with our homemade pizza dough. Basically just stretch and work it until its the size you want and the dough is thin but not see though.

For the inside Matt pan fried some onions and mushrooms, and fried some Steakumms. Steakumms are thinly sliced minute steaks, perfect for cheesesteaks.

I shredded some mozzarella cheese with our Kitchen Aid. We still keep the pre packaged stuff around, but when shredding cheese for a stromboli (or pizza), this is the best way to go for sure. Pre-shredded mozzarella has additives that keep the cheese from sticking together inside the bag – unforutnately, it also prevents the cheese from melting together nicely like you’d want it to in a pizza or stromboli.

The time came to put our stromboli/calzone love child together. We started with a layer of the Steakumms, next a layer of veggies, a little bit of sauce, repeated the Steakumms and veggie layers, then covered with cheese. We topped everything with a bit of sauce. We kept the rest of the sauce to dip in once everything was cooked. I also plan to use it next week for a meal.

Matt folded one half over the other and pinched the edges. A few slits in the top of the stromboli, because…well we don’t know why. I asked Matt while writing this, and his response was : “well, every stromboli I’ve ever had has slits cut in the top.” Good enough for me.

Another issue we’ve had overtime was transferring dough to the stone from the slider. It would stick, cheese would fall off, then while everything baked the smoke alarm would go off…every single time. For some reason, this slid right off so beautifully onto the stone. Matt thinks this is because after so many attempts, he’s finally starting to get the hang of how much to flour the dough ball as it is being stretched to make sure it doesn’t stick to the peel.

It went into the oven for 10 minutes at 550 Fahrenheit. I think next time we will try for 8 minutes as the dough was a bit burnt in spots.

And there you have it. A Schuylkill County Italian Restaurant inspired Stromboli. Have you ever had stromboli? If so was it like this or the rolled variety I’ve read about? Let us know!!!