Panzerotti Pugliesi

In Bari, you find panzerotti at every corner friggitoria, handed to you in wax paper still hot from the oil. They are not calzones. Do not call them that. Calzones are baked. Panzerotti are fried. This distinction matters more than you might think.

The dough must be soft, almost too soft to handle. This is correct. A stiff dough fries tough and chewy. You want something pillowy, alive with yeast, that blisters into golden bubbles the moment it hits the oil. The filling is sparse: drained tomatoes, cubed mozzarella, nothing more. Americans want to add things. They think more ingredients mean more flavor. The opposite is true.

What you keep out is as significant as what you put in. No garlic. No herbs beyond a whisper of oregano. No ricotta, no sausage, no spinach. When you bite through that crisp shell into molten mozzarella and sweet tomato, you understand why Pugliese grandmothers have made them exactly this way for generations.