Roasted Monster Arm AKA Halloween Meat Lover's Stromboli and Calzone

Alright, let's say you're looking for something gruesome yet edible as a centerpiece for your Halloween party.    Well, I've got something for you, it's a Roasted Monster Arm!

OK, it's not really any type of flesh.  It's a fat meat lover's stromboli-like dish that's coated in overcooked mozzarella cheese.  It's actually three different parts.  The length of the arm is a tapered stromboli filled with all sorts of meat and sauce for that perfect combination of gore.  The palm of the hand is a rounded calzone with the same sort of filling. Finally, each finger is a breadstick stuffed with Mozzarella cheese.

Now you can fill this thing with anything you want, but I figured that stuffing it full of animal flesh gives it more of a gory look.  I used some pepperoni, salami, sweet italian sausage, and ham as my meats.  And by the way, save yourself some money and buy just the amount you need from the deli and butcher block in your grocery store.  The quality of the meat is better and in most cases, it's the same price as the prepakaged items in the cooler cases. I added a few mushrooms in because we like the taste.  You can put anything you'd like in there.  Matter of fact, if you cut an onion into rings, then make one cut to turn it into one large strip, you'll have the perfect look of a tendon.  Also, if you want to change it into a roasted alien arm, stuff it full of spinach, mushrooms, onions and some ricotta and mozzarella cheese.  Basically, be as creative as you'd like and add any ingredients you enjoy.

To get the nasty looking exterior, we've performed a few tasks.  First,  we've basted it in pizza sauce so we get a meaty and bloody covering.  Then we've rovered it entirely in cheese.  Finally, when the baking is done, it goes back under the broiler to scorch the cheese to give it that charred flesh look.

Serving it on a tray like this with warm pizza sauce makes it looks like a bloody mess.

Roasted Monster Arm AKA Halloween Meat Lover's Stromboli and Calzone

One batch of our pizza dough

2 cups pizza sauce

1/4 pound pepperoni

1/4 pound mushrooms

1/2 pound browned Italian sausage

1/4 pound salami
1/4 pound sliced ham or canadian bacon

1-2 pound block of mozzarella cheese
5 whole almonds (Optional)

Make your pizza sauce and crust ahead of time.  The crust can spend up to 48 hours in the fridge after it's risen.  The sauce can stay good in the fridge for up to a week.  When you're ready to assemble, grate yourself some cheese, but leave at least a 1 inch by 2 inch by 3 inch slab of the block for the fingers.  Now start making each piece....

For the length of the arm, roll out one pizza crust to approximately a 9 inch by 6-7 inch rectangle.  Coat it with pizza sauce, leave a one inch border on each side.  Load the meat and mushrooms onto the sauce and then cover with grated cheese.  Roll the crust up into a tube shape and fold/crimp one end closed.  Stretch the uncrimped end slightly to create that tapered look.  Fold or crimp this end at this point.

For the palm of the hand, roll out a piece that's about 3 inches by 5 inches wide.  Cover with sauce, but leave a 1/2 inch border around the edge.  Cover with meat, mushrooms and cheese.  Fold it over by the long end, so you'll end up with a 2 1/2 inch by 3 inch calzone.  Seal all of the edges and set aside.
 
For the fingers, cut some of the block of mozzarella into 1/4 inch by 1/4 inch by whatever length strips.  Trim them to the length of the fingers you want.  I suggest to measure them all out before you start wrapping. Start wrapping the fingers by pulling a small piece of dough from the remaining bread ball and roll it out so it's wide enough to cover the cheese.

Wrap the mozzarella with the leftover dough to cover the fingers and seal them tightly.







Now assemble the arm.  Place the length of the arm on a greased cookie sheet.  Place the calzone at the tapered end of the arm and crimp the edges of the pieces together to join.  Place the fingers in place at the end of the palm and crimp them to attach. Grab your basting brush and coat the entire monstrosity with pizza sauce.  This will give it that gory interior that will shine through the cheese on top



Speaking of the cheese, start grabbing handfuls of the cheese and spread it all over the arm.  Pat it down on all sides.  The pizza sauce will act as a glue, so it should not fall off.  Make sure to put enough on there so it's thoroughly covered, but not enough that you can't see some of the sauce.  The spaces in-between the shreds will allow some of the gore to shine through.  If you happen to have those almonds around, you can stick at the end of the fingertips to make rotten fingernails.  If you don't, don't worry, they're not mandatory.

Now poke a few slits along the stromboli and the calzone to allow the air to escape the interior as it cooks.  If you do it at this stage, the cheese will eventually melt over the holes just enough to hide them. Place it in a 375 degree oven for 30-35 minutes.  Now at this point, the bread will be cooked, but the cheese may not be completely browned to your liking.  You have a few options.  I placed mine under the broiler for about 2 minutes, watching it the whole time and moving it slightly so it browns evenly.  You can also brown it using a creme brulee torch.  If you don't have the little torch, go grab the blowtorch out of the garage and fry that cheese like a MAN!!!   There may also be a chance that the cheese has melted across the fingers so they look like one large webbed paw.  If that's the case, use a sharp knife to slice through the cheese.   That happened with this example, and as you can see, slicing the cheese looks just fine.

Once it looks the the way you want, slide it off onto a large platter.  If you want a little more gore, you can pour more pizza sauce around the platter.  Serve soon, so the cheese inside stays nice and gooey.  Or if you want to just use it as a centerpiece, you can... then slice it up, place it in the fridge and eat it for lunch for a few days.  You'll have a great lunch and the hand portion is a great conversation starter with the other employees in the break room.

So make one of these for your Halloween party and gorge yourself on the meaty gore hidden within!