A warming winter dish which is vegan friendly and makes for a great use of Polenta. Polenta is one of my absolute favourite things to cook from my regional heritage and I will spend quite a bit of time in this post to introduce this surprisingly versatile element.
Micheal has been telling me for a while now that I should be creating a post revolving around polenta. I guess for me polenta has always been something so deeply embedded into my regional heritage, that I often forget other countries might not be so familiar with it. Until we met, Micheal had never heard of or eaten polenta - so I decided to listen to his advice and create this post mostly about polenta; and ended up doing a little historical research on this dish too!
For the POLENTA (I always end up with leftover polenta!)
Ingredients:
- 1 litre of water
- 10g of sea salt
- roughly 200g of polenta flour (various types are available and I will talk about them more below)
- a dash of olive oil (optional)
Method:
Making polenta is really uncomplicated - there are just a couple of important things to keep in mind and you are unlikely to go wrong.
The best piece of advice I can give is: be prepared to stir A LOT and be very patient!
Start by bringing the water to a boil in a deep saucepan. Once the water is boiling, add the salt and a dash of olive oil - I add the oil to ensure my polenta does not stick, but this is not essential.
Now grab your whisk and the polenta flour (corn flour) - add the flour to boiling water a little bit at a time and simultaneously whisk it in so that you get no lumps. This is the most important part of the process: you need to be very patient and only add a little flour at a time and you really need to be constantly whisking the content of the saucepan.
Once you have added all of the flour you pan should have a homogeneous content; now you can lower the flame and let the polenta cook away for up to 35-40mins. Don't leave your pan unattended as the surface will still bubble up and you need to be stirring the pot periodically to avoid the polenta at the bottom getting burnt. Best to stir with a wooden spoon.
Once the polenta is cooked, pour the content of the pan on a flat plate or a large wooden board; the polenta will cool and set. Depending on the ratio of flour to water and for how long you let it set, you might have spoonable polenta or slicing consistency.
I have left an extra section which will tell you more about polenta at the bottom of the post.
For the CABBAGE WRAPS
Ingredients:
- 600g potatoes
- 1 onion
- 10 chestnut mushrooms
- 14 savoy cabbage leaves
- 1X 1/2 tablespoon of butter (I used veggie spread so this will make it vegan)
- salt & pepper
Method:
Bring a saucepan of water to the boil - add the potatoes and boil them for about 40 mins.
In the meantime, dice your onion and slice your mushrooms; remove the bottom of the cabbage leaves - the hard white part which links to the central stem.
Separately boil another sauce pan of water and blench the cabbage leaves to soften them - about 5 mins. Remove from them from the pan and let them drain on a cloth.
Once the potatoes are done, use a potato masher to create a rough mash. Add a tablespoon of butter or spread to make it creamier and adjust salt & pepper to taste.
In a frying pan, warm the rest of the butter and add the onion & mushrooms to sauté for 8-10 mins. Once the mushrooms & onion are done, add them to the mash.
Pre-heat the oven at 180C.
Assemble the wraps: take a cabbage leaf and spoon some mash into it. Roll it up and seal it. Place in an ovenproof dish. Once you have all of the leaves filled and ready, grind some extra pepper on top and add some flakes of butter or spread into the dish. Cook in the oven for about 30 mins.
You can serve it with your polenta, as in the photo, or as a winter starter.
A little more about POLENTA
Some form of polenta dish can be identified all the way back to Roman times. In Italy, polenta is a dish which is more commonly found in Northern regions and traditionally is a staple food in the Veneto region. So much is polenta a part of our culture and heritage, that people from the Veneto region are often referred to as "polentoni".
There are various different types of polenta, as well as various ways the dish is prepared and presented: what I grew up with, is commonly referred to as "yellow polenta" because the flour it is made with, is corn flour. Mind you, there are many different varieties of corn flour as well: Bramata, Fioretto, Fumetto etc. Different ways of grinding the flour will yield different thickness of grain and therefore impact the consistency of the polenta.
Polenta can however be made with different flours which aren't necessarily corn flours and can therefore be much whiter in colour.
Polenta was a huge staple dish in the Veneto region, especially during poorer and harder times, with corn being readily available in the Padana planes of Northern Italy. Polenta did undergo a period of bad reputation as people believed it to cause Pellagra - later it was however discovered that it was not the polenta itself, but rather the fact the poorer people tended to ONLY eat polenta and therefore lacked a healthy varied diet.
Because polenta is make from corn, it is in fact a decent source of protein, as well as carbs and fibre.
Some of my favourite polenta dishes and versions are
"Messy polenta": this is what my mum used to call it when I was a kid, but I am sure it is a version of Polenta alla valtellinese. It is based on a slightly looser polenta, which is then baked in the oven with cheese & ham and served with a few spoonfuls of tomato sauce
"Polenta onta": from the dialect it literally translates into "dirty polenta"; this works best with well set polenta, so you could even make it the day before for maximum setting time. This is then sliced and re-fried in the pan with butter or spread. In our family we like to have this with Sunday roasts
"Polenta brustolá": this is basically a different version of the polenta onta up to the point where it gets cooked. Instead of pan-frying this, you. cook on the barbecue or grill until it gets a nice lightly blackened crust. This is a staple of our barbecues in the family.
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