Making Polenta
I love polenta, and we have it often. I love it as a side dish, or grilled or baked. I typically make mine in the oven with gruyere and fried sage, but I was excited to make it the authentic way of slow stirring. I was excited until about half way through the process of standing at a hot stove and stirring FOREVER!
OK, 40-45 minutes, said the recipe. That is a LONG time to stand over a hot bubbling pot! My weak fat arm was tired after 10 minutes! My husband arrived home in time to take over. Perfetto!
After the second ten minutes, I let him sit down with a glass of wine, and went back to my task. THIS must be why I love my oven-baked polenta so much. I was thinking, I won’t be doing this again soon! Every time I go to a good copper store in Italy, I lust over the beautiful polenta pots. I can now pass them right by, knowing I won’t need one!
At 35 minutes, the polenta looked and tasted done. As Marcella suggests, I poured it into a shallow large bowl, and evened out the top with a spoon to set. I made a salad and removed my braised pork from the oven.
After 10 minutes, I unmolded the dome of polenta onto a round platter.
I LOVE Marcella’s idea of scooping out the top of the dome, and using the polenta as a bowl for your meat or stew! I filled mine with braised pork with fennel and figs.
The polenta was delicious and a perfect consistency, but a little salty for us. It is very lovely as a serving bowl, and I can imagine it with a nice lamb stew or filled with sausages! I will let my arm rest before trying this again, and split the stirring with my sous chef in the future.
Palma- it looks delicious. The stew sounds perfect with the polenta.
The finished dish looks lovely Palma.
We have one of those beautiful copper polenta pots, but once we started cooking polenta using Marcella’s no-stir method, it was relegated to decorative status!
Good job and glad you had some help!
Palma, that is a beautiful, beautiful dish with the braised pork. So elegant and at the same time very comfort-foody.
I wonder why it is that people who love good food so often begrudge the time it takes to make it right. Palma, I hope you are pleased that you have made polenta as it ought to be made and had the opportunity to taste it as it should taste. You are now part of an elite group of home cooks, nearly of whom reside very far from Palm Desert.
I am intrigued that you do so much cooking in the oven. I use it mostly for gratineeing, which I love, for some desserts, and occasionally for such dishes as the now-famous chicken with 2 lemons, but on most days I turn it on only to reheat bread and warm up plates and platters because warm food served on cold plates makes me very nervous.
Congratulations on your very successful effort.
The polenta looks great, Palma – especially in the bowl format with your braised pork.