It’s only in the past few years that I’ve discovered the delicious wonder that is polenta.
Polenta is a maize porridge whose name derives from the Latin for hulled or crushed grain. Yellow in colour, the end result often has a soft texture and is gloopy-like, but don’t let this description put you off.
With a little love and a mixture of ingredients, you can come up with something that is quite filling and very enjoyable.
Here’s a take on this ingredient with added curry and cheese (don’t worry, if you can’t stand the heat, this is incredibly mild). I promise that it doesn’t taste like gruel!
Ingredients:
- 140g polenta
- 900mls water
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp curry powder
- 100g Parmesan or Grana Padano
Method:
- Bring the water to the boil in a medium saucepan then add a teaspoon of salt.
- Add in your polenta steadily with a whisk and continue to stir in until it thickens.
- Turn your heat down to low and cook for about 40 minutes. Unfortunately you have to keep an eye on it, so I would recommend stirring or whisking every 10 minutes. If it starts to look a bit clumpy, simply add a dash of water and stir quickly to loosen it up.
- After 40 minutes or it looks swollen and doesn’t taste raw, stir in your Parmesan and curry powder. Take off the heat.
At this point you can choose to firm up your polenta by cooling, but I often prefer to eat it out of a bowl like rice pudding!
To firm the polenta, lightly butter a baking sheet or some sort of shallow dish and pour in your polenta. With a spatula, spread it evenly and leave it to cool at room temperature. This will make your polenta easy to cut into shapes for deep frying or baking.
