The Theme
Southern foods from the Lee Bros. Cookbook

The Date
January 24, 2008

The Location
Billie’s House

The Menu
Mint Juleps - Joe
Pimento cheese platter with celery sticks, baguette, pain de montagne - Kathleen
Crab cakes - Brian
Lemon grits - Craig/Jenny
Sneaky collards - Elph
Fried apples with bourbon caramel - Billie
Buttermilk ice cream - Billie

I was reading about Polenta in Marcella Hazan’s book, “Essentials of Italian Cooking” (available at the Deli) because I’ve always enjoyed grits, and polenta is like yellow grits. She has an extensive write-up on Polenta and admonishes that the best way to cook it is by stirring in an open pot for 45 minutes. I was aghast. I’d never spent that long on polenta or grits and they tasted fine! Besides my limp geek wrists would give out long before the end. Then I saw that she had a cheater recipe that called for stirring for a minute every ten minutes of cooking - that I could do! So this morning I put 3 1/8 Cups of water, 3/4 Cups coarse italian polenta, and 1/2 Tablespoon salt in a pot and brought it to a boil. Her ratio for polenta to water is 1 x 4.2 which I honored and it worked great. I set the heat and my timer and walked away. First ten revealed soupy lava. Ouch, it’s amazing how hot polenta is when it splashes on you! Second ten pretty much what I’m used to seeing. Third ten same thing. Then something happened between 30 and 40 minutes - the polenta went from grainy to creamy and soft. I did another 10 minutes with an open pot stirring every few minutes and it thickened up a bit more. Though it did NOT pull away cleanly (!) from the sides of the pot, as she writes, it seemed ready to my hungry self. I added some butter, grated Parm, and half a tin of warmed Ortiz spanish tuna. Wow. Unlike any polenta I have ever made - there is something definitely magic that happens around 45 minutes in to the cooking and it is so much better I don’t think I can ever go back. The yield was a bit greater than 2 Cups which is perfect for me.