Polenta - a popular dish of northern Italy, which is prepared on the basis of cornmeal. There are many variations of the basic recipe. Cheese, mushrooms, meat, vegetables, seafood, herbs and even wine are added to cornmeal. The result is a hearty and nutritious main course or a great side dish.
Pick your recipe
You need to cook polenta in a thick-walled pan. Pour 1 liter of salted water into it and bring to a boil. Pour 250 g of cornmeal in a thin stream into boiling water, stirring continuously. Then reduce the heat and cook porridge for about half an hour, without ceasing to interfere with it. When the polenta is free to lag behind the walls, you can consider it ready. If the polenta is too thick, pour some more hot water into it, and keep the liquid porridge a little more on fire.
Polenta can be cooked in milk. This option is usually served with cheese.
The variety of flavors depends on the ingredients that you add to the finished polenta. Try making a mushroom dish. Thinly chop 400 g of mushrooms, chop the onion and 2 cloves of garlic. In hot olive oil, fry the onions and garlic until golden brown, then add the mushrooms and simmer them until tender. Mushrooms with onions, move to a bowl, and in a pan where they were cooked, put the polenta and level it. Spread the mushroom mixture on top and bake the dish in an oven preheated to 180 ° C for 10-15 minutes. Remove the pan, sprinkle the polenta with 100 g of grated parmesan and put it back in the oven. When the cheese is melted, remove the dish from the oven and serve.
Instead of parmesan, you can use cheese grüyer.
A very sophisticated option - polenta with shrimp. Prepare corn porridge according to the basic recipe, it should turn out quite thick. Cool it, put on a board and cut into pieces. Boil 500 g of shrimp and peel. Crush 2 cloves of garlic in a mortar, chop a bunch of parsley and dill. Heat olive oil in a pan, quickly fry the garlic in it, add greens, 1 cup of dry white wine, salt, freshly ground black pepper and a pinch of nutmeg. Bring the mixture to a boil and put the shrimp in it. Cover the pan and simmer for 5 minutes.
Lubricate the refractory form with oil, put pieces of polenta on the bottom and pour them with shrimp wine sauce. Place the mold in the oven, heated to 220 ° C, for 7-10 minutes. Serve polenta hot.
Cheese polenta with tomato sauce is an excellent dish for a festive table. Through the use of several varieties of cheese at once, polenta acquires new flavoring shades. Cook the corn porridge according to the basic recipe. Scalp 6 ripe meaty tomatoes with boiling water, remove the skin, remove the grains and finely chop the pulp. Heat olive oil in a pan and add 300 g of minced pork to it. Stir with a wooden spatula, fry the minced meat until tender, add salt, ground black pepper, chopped tomatoes. Cover the pan and simmer for 10 minutes.
Crush 100 g of sheep’s cheese, 100 g pecorino and grate the same amount of parmesan. Mix the cheeses in a bowl. Cut the cooled polenta into strips and lay in a greased form. On top, place half the minced meat in tomato sauce, sprinkle with a mixture of cheeses, put the remaining minced meat and also sprinkle it with cheese. Put the mold in the oven, heated to 200 ° C, for 30 minutes. Serve hot polenta as a main course.