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Pizza puff

Filled deep-fried dough pocket

Pizza puff

Filled deep-fried dough pocket

A pizza puff
An Iltaco pizza puff

A pizza puff is a deep-fried dough pocket filled with cheese, tomato sauce, and other pizza ingredients such as sausage or pepperoni. Originally from Chicago, pizza puffs can be found at many casual dining restaurants there.

Pizza puffs are similar to panzerotti. They are also somewhat like calzones, but calzones are baked instead of fried, and do not always include tomato sauce.

Some Italian restaurants and casual dining establishments make their own pizza puffs from scratch. These pizza puffs feature a pizza dough wrapper, and tend to be somewhat larger than the pre-made ones.

Commercial varieties

Some hot dog stands in the Chicago area serve mass-produced pizza puffs that they purchase from the Iltaco company. The frozen pizza puffs are deep-fried before serving. The dough wrapper of these pizza puffs is similar to a flour tortilla. Iltaco was founded in 1927 and was originally called the Illinois Tamale Company ("Il-Ta-Co"). It has been suggested that Iltaco invented the pizza puff. Iltaco pizza puffs are also sold in the frozen food section of some local area grocery stores.

Arco Frozen Foods is another company that mass-produced pizza puffs, and introduced a retail pizza puff circa 1968.

References

References

  1. Kindelsperger, Nick. (December 7, 2017). "Where Did the Pizza Puff Come From? Can It Even Be Considered a Chicago Classic?".
  2. (July 2, 2015). "Pizza Puff: Your New Favorite Fried Pizza Product".
  3. Lee, Dennis. (May 16, 2022). "The Origins of the Pizza Puff, Chicago's Quiet Local Legend". The Takeout.
  4. Kuban, Adam. (December 15, 2010). "What Is a Pizza Puff?".
  5. Pirnia, Garin. (January 26, 2016). "15 Foods Invented in Chicago Besides Deep Dish Pizza".
  6. (July 16, 2015). "Iltaco Pizza Puff Review".
  7. Zemans, Daniel. (August 12, 2009). "Albano's Pizzeria in Cicero: The Biggest and Best Pizza Puff in Chicago".
  8. Bizzarri, A.. (2016). "Iconic Chicago Dishes, Drinks and Desserts". Arcadia Publishing Incorporated.
  9. (1968). "Quick Frozen Foods". E.W. Williams Publications.
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