Tim Maddams
LATIN NAME
Zea mays
ALSO KNOWN AS
Cornmeal
MORE RECIPES
Sunflower seed and caraway corn crackers; Lemon, honey and courgette cake
Polenta is milled maize meal, aka cornmeal: dried sweetcorn ground to varying degrees of coarseness. When we think of polenta, we think of Italy but actually maize meal porridges are cooked all over the world – wherever maize is a staple crop – and notably in South America, where they are called angu. In fact, polenta is a relative newcomer to the European kitchen because maize was not commonly grown here until the sixteenth century, when it was first introduced from the new world. Prior to that, ‘polenta’ in Italy simply meant a porridge made from any grain you could lay your hands on, pulverised to a meal then boiled, with lots of stirring, until edible.
There is some confusion between the terms ‘cornmeal’ and ‘polenta’. Technically, it’s cornmeal until it’s cooked, at which point it becomes polenta but the dry uncooked granules are often sold as ‘polenta’ too. Either way, for the finished dish we call polenta, the granules are cooked by boiling in 4–5 times their volume of liquid. The cooked polenta can be eaten as it is, ‘wet’, or left to set and then sliced and baked, grilled or fried to achieve a crunchy crust and soft interior. A staple of the Italian north (where corn grows easily), it’s classically served with rich meaty ragus, mushrooms, cheese and wild meats, particularly pigeon.
The most common kind of polenta now is ‘quick cook’. This is polenta that has actually already been cooked and is then dried and re-ground to make it effectively instant. It’s so ‘quick cook’ that it often takes you by surprise and is ready before you planned: a brief simmer is all that’s needed. Instant polenta isn’t really my thing, partly because there aren’t many organic brands (though some exist). I enjoy the long, gentle cooking of traditional polenta too: I think it encourages a state of focused attention on the meal at hand. But quick-cook can certainly do the job. It works well in the next recipe, for instance.
When I’m cooking my polenta the old-fashioned way, using ‘raw’ cornmeal, I start with a simmering liquid such as well-seasoned milk or stock. You can use water too, but it’s important that you add plenty of salt because cornmeal is inherently bland. I add the polenta/cornmeal to this in a thin stream, stirring until it softens and thickens. I then cook it gently, stirring, for about 30 minutes. In Italy, polenta was traditionally stirred with a long wooden stick called a cannella until it was thick enough for the stick to stand up in it. When it reaches this point, I season the hot, soft polenta further and usually add some fat – butter, cheese, olive oil or all three. It can then be served as it is in similar ways to mashed potatoes, rice or bulgar wheat or left to set, cut into slices and fried.
Whatever kind of polenta you’re cooking, it will try very hard to stick to the bottom of the pan and burn: use a good spatula and stir constantly to avoid this. And you must always watch out for white-hot volcanic outbursts as the polenta simmers and splutters away: catch some on your bare skin and you will remember the experience for some time.
Sometimes polenta is cooked and then sweetened with honey, raisins or even chocolate and eaten as a dessert. A far more common sweet use for fine cornmeal/polenta however, is in cakes – often made with olive oil rather than butter and flavoured with almonds and lemon. They can be delicious and have the added bonus of being gluten-free (maize contains no gluten). Don’t, however, try to make a polenta cake with quick-cook polenta: it’s the cooking of fine grains of raw polenta within the batter that makes the cake work. As the instant stuff is already cooked (and coarsely textured), it just goes horribly, heavily wrong.
With ‘raw’ polentas, or cornmeals, the main variation is the grade of the grind, ranging from very fine to very coarse, giving a subtly different end result once cooked. A good guide is to use fine polenta to serve wet or soft, and more granular polenta for the set kind – suitable for grilling and frying. But do look out for more unusual polentas with added buckwheat flour or even chestnut flour: these rustic multigrain versions can be more earthy and interesting than plain polenta.
In the cooking of the southern US, cornmeal is found in another guise. Whole grains of maize are soaked with an alkali, such as lime, which makes them more nutritious and digestible. Whole, hulled grains of this treated maize are called hominy, and can be cooked and eaten whole. However, they are often ground to produce a meal: if left coarse, the meal is used to make grits – a sort of porridge – or it can be ground finely for cornbread.
Alkali-treated maize is also used in Mexican cuisine, where it is processed into a dough, masa harina. This is often then dried and re-ground to make a flour, also known as masa harina, which is used to make cornmeal tortillas.
Cornflour
As the name suggests, this is ground from maize but it is completely different from polenta. Cornflour, known as cornstarch in the US, is the extracted starch of the maize kernel and is available in two forms, white and yellow. It is very finely powdered and is used to thicken sauces, make batters and as a coating for food to be deep-fried.
Cornmeal is often used to give a crisp coating to fried foods, but in this recipe the roles are reversed and the polenta forms the tender, cheesy filling inside a crisp, breadcrumb crust. Serves 4–6 as a nibble
2 tbsp olive or rapeseed oil
1 medium onion, sliced
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
Leaves from 2 sprigs of thyme
5–6 sage leaves, chopped
Leaves from 1 small sprig of rosemary, finely chopped
500ml whole milk
100g quick-cook polenta
150g mature Cheddar or other well-flavoured hard cheese, grated
25g butter
1 tbsp chopped parsley
1 small, sharp eating apple, such as a Cox or Worcester
75g plain flour
3 eggs, beaten
200g fine breadcrumbs
Vegetable oil (refined rapeseed oil), for deep-frying
Sea salt and black pepper
Line a baking tray, about 20 x 30cm and at least 2cm deep, with baking parchment.
Heat the oil in a wide saucepan over a medium-low heat. Add the onion and garlic and sweat for 10–12 minutes, until the onion softens and starts to take on a little colour. Add the thyme, sage, rosemary and milk, then stir in the polenta. Bring slowly to a simmer, stirring all the time, then cook gently for a couple of minutes until the polenta is smooth and thick.
Add the cheese, butter and parsley and mix until the cheese and butter melts in. Remove from the heat and allow the polenta to cool a little. Meanwhile, peel, quarter, core and cut the apple into roughly 3mm dice. Mix the chopped apple into the polenta mix.
Spread the mixture evenly into the lined tray. Once cool, cover with cling film and refrigerate until cold and set.
Have the flour, egg and breadcrumbs for coating ready in 3 separate bowls and add a little salt and pepper to each. Turn the slab of polenta out on to a board and cut it into finger-sized pieces. Roll each one in the flour, then the egg, then the breadcrumbs.
Heat a 5–7cm depth of oil in a deep, heavy-based pan to 180°C or until a cube of bread, dropped in, turns golden brown in about a minute. Fry the breaded polenta, a few fingers at a time, in the hot oil for 1–2 minutes, or until golden. Drain on kitchen paper.
Serve the croquettes as soon as possible, with a spicy fruity chutney (such as the Green Tomato, Cumin and Green Chilli Chutney).