Eggless Cauliflower Crust Calzones | Baking With Vegetables

Appearances can be deceptive! This is so true for the clicks in this post!

I fell in love with these calzones the moment I saw them here and made them on the same day. They tasted great but the clicks may say otherwise!

This is one of those recipes that will have you craving from more, gives you room to try out a lot of alternative stuffing to experiment with, a gluten free alternative,makes a cauliflower ‘hater’ fall in love with this veggie and so on….

Just because I was making this for the first time, I made just 2 of these calzones. But trust me when I say  you can make a big batch of these when you try because they are sure to disappear in no time!

This dish is prepared with cauliflower ‘rice’. This was in rage a couple of years back when there were so many dishes prepared with it and at that time, I was not in a mood to try them out. I have several recipes bookmarked but never got to make anything with riced cauliflower till now.

So coming back to this recipe,the only criteria for a perfect cauliflower crust calzone is to drain the water [used to cook it] completely. Else you will land up with an unpalatable and soggy/mushy calzone!

The original recipe uses eggs to bind the mixture. I have made it eggless by using corn flour and yogurt as the binding agent.

I used:
Adapted from: The Iron You

Cauliflower -1, medium sized
Corn flour-2 tablespoons
Yogurt, thick-1 tablespoon + a little extra if needed
Grated cheese- 1 small cube[I used amul cheese cubes]
Cheese slices-2
Tomato sauce-2 teaspoons
Oregano-as per taste
Red chili flakes -1/2 teaspoon
Salt to taste

Break the cauliflower florets and put them in a pot of water, wash well and drain.Transfer the florets into a blender jar and run the mixer in short bursts to get a rice rava texture. It should not be mushy.Do this in batches and transfer the riced cauliflower into a bowl. I got almost 1 1/2 cups of this riced cauliflower.

Heat a large pot of water and put in the riced cauliflower and simmer for 5 minutes.Drain well and transfer the drained cauliflower onto a cheese cloth to drain out further. Squeeze out as much water as possible. This step is very, very important.

Once the cauliflower is out of water content, add the yogurt, cornflour,grated cheese,salt, chili flakes and mix well.If needed add a little more yogurt. If its too ‘wet’ add a little more corn flour.
Divide this mixture into 2 portions and pat it into equal sized disc over a tray lined with parchment paper.

Bake in a pre heated oven at 200 degrees for 10 minutes. Remove the tray from the oven and work quickly to spread a spoon of tomato sauce over each calzone,place pieces of the cheese slice over the sauce.Use a spatula to lift half of the calzone and place it over the other half, like closing it up.Seal the edges . I forgot this step and the cheese oozed out![If after 10 minutes you are not able to lift the sides of the calzone,
bake for another 4-5 minutes.But keep a close watch over them]
Bake again for 10-15 minutes till the crust is brown.

Serve immediately with tomato sauce…

Note:

• Add herbs to suit your taste
• The filling can also be changed but I feel this tomato cheese combo is tastier!
• Oven timings will vary so bake accordingly.