Polenta - what is it?
So called the traditional method of cooking
cornmeal, which is common in North Italian cuisine. And also this dish itself.
How to cook polenta and how to serve it?
It is customary to eat such corn porridge with a variety of sauces, grated cheese, cream, some vegetables. In addition to the above flour, buckwheat or chestnut flour is sometimes used. You can make a dish of finely ground corn grits. Italians cook polenta in special pots and pans made of copper. After boiling, it is sometimes baked or fried in a pan, cut into slices (this can be done, given the high density that the polenta has). What are these secrets that will help us reproduce this Italian dish at home?
Let's step by step consider the recipe for its preparation. First, heat half a liter of chicken stock over high heat. After boiling, reduce heat and pour one and a half cups of finely ground corn grits in portions. You need to stir constantly and intensively, otherwise you are likely to have burnt polenta. What will it give, besides the fact that your dish does not stick to the bottom of the pan? Homogeneity and lack of lumps. The cooking process with stirring will take you up to half an hour. The groats will become soft. At the end of boiling, you must add salt, a tablespoon of olive and butter, half a glass of cream.
After that, you need to quickly remove the polenta from the fire. We will prepare separately a dressing for it, frying the grains of young corn to a brown crust. Add them to the porridge, sprinkle with chopped basil and grated cheese. The sauce with which the polenta will be served is very important. What does this give the dish? Tasteful accent, since
corn grits are fresh in itself. For the sauce, you need to melt the butter, chop the garlic finely, add paprika and oregano. Stir and simmer over low heat. Then put the sliced tomatoes into the oil (if these are cherry tomatoes, you can simply cut them in half). Fry until soft, then crush with a spatula, add vinegar and parsley.
Polenta serving: little secrets
Serve this dish better with sliced and watered sauce. You can also optionally sprinkle with cheese (hard or feta cheese) and parsley. If you did not manage to boil the corn grits so that there were no lumps in it, then add a little broth and they will disappear. Corn cobs for the extraction of young grains need to choose juicy and fresh. Yesterday's polenta can be browned in the oven and fry in oil. A combination of cornmeal or cereal with mushrooms (dried or seasonal) is very tasty. They need to be fried separately. Or, if they are dried, boil first and then brown. In the latter case, polenta with mushrooms is cooked on a mushroom broth. Make sure that the cereal is well cooked and not burnt. Add cream to the mushroom polenta should be at the very end. Otherwise they will evaporate. Dried mushrooms are pre-soaked for 15 minutes.