Polenta is a great side dish for Italian meals that few people in this country have ever made, but it’s so easy to make that once you try it you’ll wonder why you’ve never made polenta. Made with a ground cornmeal, polenta is boiled to seduce a velvety creaminess that is a great addition to any meal.
The first thing you need to make polenta is ground cornmeal. I prefer a course ground cornmeal because I enjoy the texture it produces in the final product. When shopping for polenta, don’t look for polenta. Look instead for grits. If someone expects you to be making polenta from the cornmeal, you’ll end up paying a premium for it.
My favorite brand is Bob’s Red Mill. You can order off of their website or you can find it at your local grocery store. My store keeps it in the health foods section. As you can see from the close-up picture, their product is very coarse, just what we’re after.
Polenta Recipe
Ingredients:
2 Cups cornmeal
6 Cups water
1 Teaspoon salt
2 Tablespoons butter
1/2 Cup of shaved Parmesan cheese
Preheat oven to 350°
Now there are many variations on making polenta, in this one I take it an extra step to increase the texture variation by putting it in the oven.
The first thing we need to do is get that water boiling. Put the salt in there so that it dissolves into the water. Measure out your cornmeal and once the water starts doing this:
dump in your measured out cornmeal and start stirring. Turn the heat down to medium. While the water is working its magic on the cornmeal, grease a casserole dish with some olive oil, doesn’t matter what kind, for the trip to the oven. Make sure its well coated, it should look like this:
You’ll notice that the polenta is now very loose. If you were to pick up a spoonful, it should drip right off without any hesitation and it should feel light. Continue stirring the mixture as it can burn.
As the water is absorbed and the gluten from the cornmeal is developed, you’ll notice the mixture become thick. The process usually takes 30 minutes. You’ll know you’ve reached the right consistency when you can pull a spatula across the bottom of the pot and the polenta does not fill it back in. Like this:
See how it stays together? That is exactly what you want to see. Now toss in the butter and stir to combine.
At this point, if you’d like a smooth creamy polenta, you can stop right here, it will be delicious. But, you’re not gonna stop, are you? I didn’t think so.
Turn out your newly formed polenta into your greased baking dish, making sure to pack it in to form a tight layer. This will help to form a crust when in the oven. Sprinkle the top with the Parmesan cheese and place in the oven for 15 minutes. You’ll be greeted with this beautiful dish:
Does that look good or what? Hell yes it does.
Let your polenta sit for 10 or 15 minutes so that it can set-up a bit. What you’ll have is a dish of polenta with a firm crust on the top, sides and bottom, but the middle will be completely creamy. It’s such a great contrast of textures.
You can serve your polenta with just about any meal, but it obviously is well suited as a side for meat dishes and especially those with a sauce it can soak up. The salty creaminess is sure to become a family favorite.
Unfortunately, polenta is one of those eat it now or forget it things. If you don’t finish it all, it will never be the same. That being said, once it has chilled in the fridge overnight, it sets up into this firm cake that when fried makes just about the best breakfast food known to mankind.
Stay tuned for my follow-up showcasing the wonders of fried polenta.
Tagged with: creamy polenta • easy polenta recipe • Polenta recipe
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December 8th, 2008 at 6:42 am
[...] gave you my favorite creamy polenta recipe a few weeks ago and although I love the taste of polenta made that way, I think what you can do [...]
January 4th, 2009 at 5:05 pm
First time I had polenta was at a local Shenandoah Valley restaurant. It came with scallops, I think, but that was too expensive, so I just ordered the polenta without the scallops. That way I got a piece of their great polenta for only $1.85. They must have taken a loss on it because they stopped making it.
So I was at a grocery store in northern Virginia and saw 6-minute polenta mix in a box for $3.50. Right next to it was a bag of Indian Head Stone Ground Corn Meal with a polenta recipe on it for $1.39.
But their recipe called for me to boil the cornmeal and water, 1 part to 3 parts, for 18 minutes, then pour it into a pan and chill it before cutting it into slices and frying it. That worked fine, although I think that when I changed the recipe to add more salt, it didn’t get as solid. But it was not what I had at that restaurant.
Your baked polenta dish above is probably what the restaurant made. My question to you is:
Can I just use cornmeal? That’s gritty enough for me. Will it hold up as well?
Thanks. Michele
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January 26th, 2009 at 10:01 am
Ah, the mysterious aura of grits. And cornmeal.
- you can cook many grains like cracked corn or cornmeal and if you use only a small amount of water it will harden a bit when cooled into a thick mush that can solidify. But we typically use corn products for the mush as it tends to taste better when used in other recipes like being fried.
- if corn is steeped in lye, it changes to what is called hominy… a soft, white glutenous material that can be used in many stews and so forth. If it is dried and ground, it also can be used for grits and for polenta.
- another good source for making grits is to use masa harina – a corn based flour. Using this for the basis of the grits can remove some of the gritiness – if that is a word – that cornmeal can have if it is not cooked long enough.
I tend to prefer the hominy-based grits over the plain cracked cornmeal grits.
But please, try all the different ways of making grits and choose what you like for yourself.
Good luck and enjoy,
Bill
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May 15th, 2009 at 5:16 pm
YUM, I am going to make this tonight to go with salmon I just got at the fish market. Looks delicious, thanks!
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October 22nd, 2009 at 10:05 am
My husband and I had dinner at an Italian restaurant last night and I ordered polenta and shrimp. Oh, it was divine. The polenta was in the middle of the plate and looked as though it had been cooked in a medium pyrex dish and turned upside down with sauted spinach on top. Some kind of light sauce was poured over it and there were 6 large shrimp surrounding the polenta. I am not sure how the shrimp were cooked either.Can you help me with reproducing this recipe for my next dinner party??
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January 12th, 2010 at 10:44 am
I just wanted to clear something up — corn does not have gluten! It does act like gluten in some ways, but it is gluten free. Polenta is safe for Celiac and other Gluten Free folks!
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January 26th, 2010 at 10:17 am
I too wondered about that gluten reference but I have to say having just tried this recipe (I’m in England by the way) I made it absolutely verbatim to the recipe we find here. The result looked good but it had an overwhelming taste of nothing at all but an aftertaste that was bitter and had a hint of parmesan cheese.
I bought some high grade polenta because the grits were not available here. It was less exciting than salted porridge. I can’t see what all the fuss is about this stuff.
Unfathomable that in Italy they have parties where they eat nothing else. What a sad life if Polenta is regarded as something special.
We don’t have such a tradition of eating Corn in the UK as much as in America where Popcorn and corn based foods are more popular. We have corn on the cob and sweetcorn but Polenta seems to be something that can’t make up its mind if it’s a pudding or a savoury main course.
As for using it warmed up next day fried with a breakfast, I can think of better things to have with a breakfast fry-up such as Bacon and Egg with tomatoes and a “Savoury Duck” a North of England speciality.
Sorry but this Polenta leaves me cold, and I’m going to throw the rest of the packet away as I can’t think of any other way to make clotted water tasting strongly of nothing be more appealing!
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March 30th, 2010 at 12:59 pm
Holy crap, lol. This was the best written recipe/description of Polenta – I have ever heard or read. Awesome. <3
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April 24th, 2010 at 6:06 pm
I tend to agree with Jeremy, but I can live forever without grits too, and I’m from the south. Polenta, like grits, is tasteless without the cheese, and I figured it would fit in well on an English table. As students at the American School in Thorpe, now some thirty years ago, we were appaled by what passed as cooking. Take Yorkshire pudding, for example: nothing more than eggs and flour oven-fried in suet! Talk about unexciting!
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