Soft Polenta
Coarse polenta, forty-five minutes at a bare blip, and butter and cheese beaten in at the very end. Instant is a different food.
- Prep
- 5m
- Cook
- 55m
- Total
- 1h
- Serves
- 6
- Effort
- Easy
Method
Tap a step number to mark it done. Tap an ingredient once for got it, twice for need it.
| 1 l | Bring the liquid to a bare simmer with the bay and salt 6m | Rain the grain into the simmering liquid, whisking constantly 5m A slow stream and a moving whisk. Dumped in at once it seizes into lumps you cannot rescue. | Cook at a bare blip until it pulls away from the side of the pan 45m A lazy bubble every few seconds is right. A rolling boil throws scalding polenta at you. | Beat in the butter and cheese off the heat, then season again 3m Off the heat, so the cheese melts without the fat splitting out. | |
| 250 ml | |||||
| 2 tsp | |||||
| 1 | |||||
| 200 g | |||||
| 200 ml | |||||
| 70 g | |||||
| 70 g | |||||
| plenty | |||||
-
Bring the liquid to a bare simmer with the bay and salt
6m- water 1 l
- whole milk 250 ml
- salt 2 tsp
- bay leaf 1
-
Rain the grain into the simmering liquid, whisking constantly
5m- from 1 Bring the liquid to a bare simmer with the bay and salt
- coarse polenta 200 g
A slow stream and a moving whisk. Dumped in at once it seizes into lumps you cannot rescue.
-
Cook at a bare blip until it pulls away from the side of the pan
45m- from 2 Rain the grain into the simmering liquid, whisking constantly
- hot water 200 ml
A lazy bubble every few seconds is right. A rolling boil throws scalding polenta at you.
-
Beat in the butter and cheese off the heat, then season again
3m- from 3 Cook at a bare blip until it pulls away from the side of the pan
- butter 70 g
- hard cheese 70 g
- black pepper plenty
Off the heat, so the cheese melts without the fat splitting out.
Why it takes forty-five minutes
Cornmeal is not simply hydrating — the starch granules have to swell and burst, and the coarse bran-flecked particles of stone-ground polenta take a long time at just under boiling to do it. Rushed, the grains stay gritty in the middle no matter how thick the pot looks, because thickness comes from the outside of the grain long before the centre has cooked. The liquid you add along the way keeps the ratio right as water evaporates.
Notes
- Whisk for the first five minutes, then switch to a wooden spoon and stir every few minutes only.
- Leftovers set firm in a tray overnight. Cut into slabs and fry or grill them.
- Milk in the liquid gives a softer, sweeter result. All water is more austere and better under a strong ragù.