In the latest edition of Zingerman's News, the zippy broadsheet produced by the renowned Ann Arbor deli and bakery, Zingerman's, Ari Weinzweig writes the following about polenta: "In a sense, polenta is about as simple a food as you'll find. It's just cornmeal cooked in water. Yet, in all my years, I've encountered few foods that seem to carry more emotional weight, with more nuances and subtleties."
Weinzweig is right. Mention polenta to people such as my friend Maureen Daly, who had to eat it as a child, and she splutters "Corn mush. Ugh!" The distasteful memory of that food of hard times is as vivid for her today as it was decades ago. But talk to Italians about it, and suddenly the room is a torrent of opinion and passion.
Personally, I adore it. There is a therapeutic element to polenta, not just the comfort of eating it, but also the comfort of letting it slip through your fingers into the pot of popping water, and then the therapy of stirring the golden gloop until it comes clean away from the sides of the pot, ready to be poured on to the plates for dinner. Eaten with a tomatoey, stewey casserole made with veal or chicken, it is heaven.
To make it is simplicity itself: bring a pot of water to the boil, chuck in some salt, then gradually add the polenta, stirring all the time, so the grains take in the water and don't clump together. As a general rule, 300 grams of polenta needs three pints of water, but I actually use three pints of water and cut the volume of polenta down to about 200 grams. This gives me a runny polenta which is close to the consistency of a very moist potato puree, which I serve straight from the pot, and whatever remains I pour it straight into a loaf tin and let it set. This way, you get the original runny polenta, and then when the remaining polenta is set, you slice it and use it in various different ways, such as these:
Baked polenta with blue cheese
The best cheese to use for this is probably Gorgonzola, but Cashel Blue works well, and so does any left-over Stilton.
Cook the polenta and then pour it in to a loaf tin and let it set. Cut slices of the polenta, about half an inch thick. Lightly butter a gratin dish, and then cover the bottom with a layer of polenta slices. Top this with a layer of thinly sliced blue cheese. Another layer of polenta, then another of cheese, then finish with a layer of polenta (if you want to be dramatic, you can of course multiply the layers even more). The blue cheese should supply sufficient saltiness, so simply add some freshly grated black pepper as you work. Drizzle a little olive oil over the top, and bake in a 180C/375F oven for 15 to 20 minutes. The cheese should have gone deliciously gooey and have diffused between the slices of polenta. This is very good with pork dishes. You could add a little grated Parmesan on the top, but personally I like to leave the blue cheese flavour on its own.
Another popular modern idea is to use slices of polenta in a lasagna. Again, simply place a layer of thinly-sliced polenta in a lightly buttered baking dish. Spoon on some tomato sauce, then add strips of sliced mozzarella. Cover with polenta slices and repeat. Give this a good dusting of freshly grated Parmesan on top, then bake in a 180C/375F oven until the top is crisp and golden.
This can also be done with a Bolognese sauce, giving the sauce a dusting of Parmesan on each layer as you work.
Polenta Fritters
Polenta works very well as a dusting on crab cakes and fish cakes, with the fried polenta giving a golden sheen and a slight crunchiness to the exterior. But the simplest way to get that nice, fried, crispy effect is just to slice your polenta, then roll it in grains of polenta so the exterior is dusted, then fry it in very hot olive oil until the exterior is golden and crisped and the slice of polenta is hot. Think of it as a polenta chip, and sell it to the kids as such. I like to eat these fritters with a salad at lunchtime, and also with lentils and sausages.
If you have a grill, or you have the barbecue lit, then you can also achieve a nice effect by allowing the grill to make stripes on the polenta: simply heat the grill until hot, then brush the polenta slices with olive oil (if you don't do this, they will stick to the grill), then let them crisp on the grill bars. When they are crisped, turn them over. The dark, singed stripes against the golden polenta is especially handsome.
One of the nicest soups I have ever eaten in a restaurant was a polenta soup cooked by Serge Coustrain, in Adare's Wild Geese restaurant. Coustrain is nowadays cooking that soup somewhere in the US, and the talented David Foley has taken over the running of the Wild Geese, but here is a version, from California's Chez Panisse restaurant, of polenta soup.
This is simple, inexpensive and soulful food. I don't want to decry it in any way by suggesting that it is excellent invalid food, but anyone laid up with illness will thank you for a bowl of this. I think this soup is best served fairly thin, as Coustrain served it.
Polenta Soup Stew
Cook some diced white onion in duck fat or butter. When it is soft, add some sliced garlic, cook a little more, and add flavourful chicken stock and a bouquet garni (thyme, parsley, bay leaf, a leaf or two of sage).
Bring it all to a rolling boil, whisk in cornmeal (from quarter cup to half cup per quart of liquid, depending on how thick you like it), season with salt, lower the heat, and continue simmering, stirring frequently, until the cornmeal is done, 15 to 20 minutes. Keep stirring the soup as you ladle it out, or the cornmeal will tend to settle to the bottom. Garnish each bowl with some freshly sauted or stir-fried greens, roughly chopped, and a thin shaving or two of Parmesan.
TWO words of caution regarding polenta. You will find "instant" polenta for sale in supermarkets, which promises to be cooked in five minutes. You should avoid it like the plague - it can be ghastly stuff, and doesn't behave properly cut from the block when cooked. You can buy good quality polenta in wholefood shops, and commercial varieties such as Carluccio's are very good. Corte dei Crescenzi has an especially good polenta for sale at its shop at 14 South Frederick Street: tel 01 6717450 for details.
Finally, when stirring polenta, make sure you stir in one direction only. Stirring in the opposite direction releases the bad spirits!