Last night I took a chance with something that has been sitting in my cabinet for almost half a year and has accompanied Mike and I through one move: A plastic wraped roll of ‘hardened’ Polenta!
What do you do with your polenta once it’s been cooked?
Share your recipes, tips and tricks here. It can be simple or creative but keep in mind I cooked all of the polenta. I’ll pick one good suggestion to share here later this week and will try to make it happen in my kitchen! Leave a comment here with your suggestion, and if you want me to share some details about you if you win please leave an email!
Now onto my own personal Polenta Challenge, cooking it for the first time.
Polenta, As described by Foodista, is a yellow cornmeal ‘mush’ of italian background. Interestingly, it is also used throughout other nationalities as a stable side, base or on it’s own. I had picked the roll up in the international food isle of a local stop and shop, particularly under the spanish food section, so I decided to take a stab at making a Mexican themed Polenta dish.
I cut the roll into several half inch thick medallions and cooked them on the stove top with a bit of olive oil and chili powder:
I cooked them for approximately 5 minutes each side, or until they were golden brown. Meanwhile I whipped up some chunky homemade guacamole (4 avocados, onion, green pepper, salt, pepper, chipotle seasoning and garlic powder). I went the chunky route figuring that would bring more texture and taste to the polenta.
I topped each cooked polenta with an assortment of the guacamole, salsa and colby jack cheese, sprinkling chili powder and crunchy bits of polenta that remained in the pan on top of each. The final product was these savory babies:
They were an instant hit, Mike and I loved them! The flavors and textures worked really well together to create a very tasty yet light meal. Also, which is good for me, the dish contained no meat! I tend to eat way too much…
WHAT DO YOU DO WITH YOUR POLENTA? I challenge you to share for a change to be posted on my blog. Please leave an email so I can email you if you win to get some personal info to share with my readers, if you wish!
Check out this entry as part of August 2011’s Go Ahead Honey Round-Up!
Wow, I’d never thought of pairing avocado and polenta – that sounds delicious!
I like to use polenta in place of lasagne noodles. No precise recipe, but the steps are:
– slice roll of polenta thinly (~1 cm or 1/2 inch)
– saute slices in olive oil (optional – I have skipped this step and it still turns out well)
– coat the inside of a casserole/baking pan with a little tomato paste or pasta sauce
– put a layer of polenta slices in the bottom of the pan
– continue alternating polenta layers with pasta sauce and vegetables (mushrooms, spinach, sliced zucchini all work well) and mozzarella cheese
– cover the top layer of polenta with more mozzarella and bake at 375ºF/190ºC for around 30 minutes
It’s very yummy and easy, and much less expensive than most GF lasagne noodles!
– Meg (email is on my Blogger profile)
Wow! Those polenta rounds are so cute and look so tasty!
I’ve never bought a polenta roll before, I usually make my own with corn meal. I like to eat it as a side like cheesy mashed potato-style, or flatten it into a dish and bake it, seasoning with parmesan and basil and marinara sauce. But my favorite is POLENTA PIZZA!
First, make the polenta:
buy some yellow corn meal, bring 3.5 cups of water to a boil. add as much salt as you want.
measure out 1 cup of cornmeal and stir it in REALLY SLOWLY. It you do a lot, it becomes a chunk in a split second. try doing a tiny bit, stir, tiny bit, stir, until its all in.
Stir once every minute until its done. this might take 20 minutes. If the polenta is “peeling” form the sides, its definitely done.
take a cookie sheet and coat it in olive oil. plop the polenta onto it and spread it as flat as you want (I did mine pretty thick).
If you wait until it is cool enough to touch, you can squish it with your hands. I put mine in the fridge for an hour so it would harden. I don’t know if this is super important, since when you cook it it gets moist again anyway.
Preheat to 400 degrees.
Coat the top of the polenta with more olive oil. then add all the spices you want – i did italian seasoning, pepper, garlic, and some crushed red pepper.
Then put down the tomato sauce.
Cheese- I did mozzarella and parmesan and it turned out awesomely delicious.
Put more spices on top, and drizzle a bit of olive oil over it all.
Cook for 15 minutes! 😀
I don’t have a recipe yet, but now I feel encouraged to pull my bag of corn meal for polenta out of the freezer (I keep most grains and flours in the freezer, to insure freshness) and try making some. I’ve seen it done on TV cooking shows, but just hadn’t gotten around to it yet. I was also thinking of making my own corn tortillas from scratch, as I made a Mexican-style taco salad this week, with black beans, roasted corn, thin beef slices, avacado slices, chopped peppers, red onion, and a simple thousand Island-style dresing (mayonnaise and ketchup and cider vinegar). This was topped with broken up corn tortillas first crisped in a hot oven. It’s delish!
My sister and I once created SoyMuchinni. It’s quite simple and it doesn’t have to contain soy for the soy-sensitive folks.
Chop up Polenta (that I endearingly call “corn-mush”) into bite-size cubes
Throw in a pan of Olive Oil and Salt (whatever amounts you desire.
Random Veggies, dice, cut, slice, whatever you’d like.
We make it with Mushrooms, Zuchinni, Tofu(not a vegetable, I know), Red and Yellow Peppers, Spinach, and Broccoli.
For the Sauce, we used a Soyaki-type Sauce (From Trader Joe’s).
I pretty sure the Soyaki has Gluten (this was before my gf days)
I haven’t had this dish in a long time.
Any ideas for enhancing this would be nice 😀 I have no idea what to do for a sauce now…hm.
In essence, I would call this CornMush StirFri…but SoyMuchinni sounds better to me 😀
Great blog, and I love the polenta experimentation! I’m half Irish, half Italian, and my Italian father cooked polenta regularly when I was a kid. The basic method is cooking it from the grain, and topping with tomato sauce and good parmesan, or topping it with sauteed mushrooms and an alfredo sauce. It can also be baked and cut into squares to be topped with any number of things. Enjoy!
Found you on glutenfreefaces.
Kathleen
http://www.coulditbeceliac.blogspot.com