Polenta

This is a poor man’s simple recipe, a warm filler for cold winter days in Friuli. I use spinach, but any available green vegetable would have been used, and would be good. Cornmeal lovers will appreciate this; it has all the comforts of porridge, filled with the flavors of Friuli.

The next time you feel like throwing a raging party for all your tripe-loving friends, this is the dish for you! If you’re making a face while reading this allow me to offer a cliché: don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it. Yes, even the best honeycomb tripe could be described as mild with an edge of musk. But all that means is that it needs a good, savory vehicle to deliver that fabulous texture straight to your mouth. Here, tomato sauce enhances the flavor, while beans provide a creamy textural counterpoint. I add mint, too, to give it some zing. This is a truly comforting dish that would be especially welcome on a cold fall or winter evening.

Hedgehog mushrooms are close relatives to chanterelles, with a similar flavor profile but a little bigger. They are abundant beginning in mid-winter; if you can find them in the market, grab them up. Their richness makes them a fantastic match for aged provolone and crispy polenta. This dish makes a great side, but it is also substantial enough to make vegetarian guests very, very happy. If you like, you can grill the polenta instead of sautéing it.

Seattle summers are our best-kept secret—with long, lovely days just hot enough to make you want to stay out of the kitchen and linger outside. The perfect appetizer for a patio barbecue, grilled polenta is easy, crisp, and luscious, and is played to its best advantage when topped with juicy heirloom tomatoes brightened with garlic and anchovy. If you like, substitute basil or another favorite tender herb for the mint. This would also be nice served with a handful of baby greens on the plate.

This is my kind of comfort food—an accessible entrée to that old standby of liver and onions, yet fancy enough to be a company dish. Chicken livers have a deep, minerally flavor that I love, and they’re economical to boot. Wild mushrooms accent the rich flavor with their own woodsy quality, while a silken puddle of polenta forms a savory pillow for the dish. Doesn’t that sound better than meatloaf? This is a job for the biggest frying pan you have—the whole dish cooks in one pan.

When you pour out the polenta to chill, don’t worry about making it pretty. Do what we do at the restaurants and use a cookie or biscuit cutter to create even shapes, or cut out wedges or squares—use your imagination. Grilled or sautéed polenta makes an excellent accompaniment to meat, game, or poultry. Try a couple of disks nestled next to a pork chop, roasted chicken, or guinea hen. Firm polenta should be crispy outside, soft and creamy inside, like a good French fry. In short, everything you could want.

Adding the cornmeal to the water, and avoiding lumps, is the only challenging part of making good polenta. In the restaurants, we make it to order, and I vacillate between using fine and medium grinds, depending on the finished consistency I am looking for. The coarser polenta has more presence on the plate and such a deep corn flavor that I think it’s a good place to start. Of course, fine or “instant” polenta has the advantage of being quicker to make. Traditionally, polenta is made using a wooden spoon, though I use a whisk. If you don’t need or want this much polenta, you can halve the recipe with good results.

This is what I call a “close your eyes and sigh” dish—one of those fragrant and comforting meals that remind us what makes eating such a soul-satisfying experience. It can be served as a vegetarian entrée or as a side dish with chicken, veal, or lamb. Polenta provides the creamy base that melds alternating layers of cheese and vegetables. During baking, the flavors intermingle, and the fontina and roasted garlic provide a pleasing gooey texture. A simple tomato basil sauce brightens up the mellow flavor of the polenta. The result: a perfect confluence of luscious Italian flavors. If you have never had real Val d’Aosta fontina cheese, this is an excellent time to try it. The difference is noticeable: Val d’Aosta is firm and has a savory, slightly grassy flavor. If you are short on time, forgo the sauce; this polenta is delicious without it.

This recipe is a spin on something I tasted in France, and I don’t mind saying that we’ve done a way better job than they did. Cooking the polenta from scratch gives the best results, but you could also buy a roll of cooked polenta (find it near the pasta in the supermarket). Trim a little off the ends of the roll and slice it into eight slices. Brown two slices for each serving.

Chef Quincy Adams Erickson and I worked together in Austin during my stint as executive chef for a national chain. A graduate of the famed cooking school Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, Quincy now owns Austin’s Fête Accompli, a catering company specializing in fresh, handmade appetizers. I asked Quincy to give me a cocktail party recipe for this book and, as usual, she came up with a winner. Make sure you have a small cookie cutter that will make bite-size shapes that your guests can easily pop in their mouths. Use whatever shape you’d like: circles, hearts, stars, triangles, or squares.

I love the smoky flavor of eggplants charred on the stovetop. A “quick and dirty” technique used in restaurants, cooking eggplants on an open flame gets a little messy, but it’s fast. This savory pie is made with traditional Italian ingredients and brightened with fresh herbs. Slice it into wedges and serve as a main course, or cut it into small squares for an appetizer. Serve with a simple green salad and fresh bread.

For most of us, the mention of lasagna conjures up mouthwatering images of rich tomato sauce layered with rich cheeses and thin noodles. But a type of lasagna can also be made using polenta rather than pasta. In this polenta lasagna, the old familiar formula appears, but the packaging (polenta instead of lasagna noodles) is new. I recommend making the tomato sauce a day ahead of time, and possibly having two slow cookers on hand so that you can pour the polenta quickly from one into the other.

I’m a big fan of fruit crisps. When I worked at Chez Panisse, I learned I wasn’t alone—they were more popular than our signature dark chocolate cake. But I’m not entirely convinced that I’d choose a fruit crisp over chocolate cake. Maybe I’d order both in the name of research. This fruit crisp topping, made with crunchy polenta, stands up well to the juiciest mélange of fruits. Here, I mix apples and pears, and it may seem like a lot of fruit when you’re doing all that peeling and slicing, but it cooks down considerably during baking. Use a good baking apple, such as Gravenstein, Winesap, Pippin, Northern Spy, or Cortland.

I once found a long-forgotten jar of homemade quince marmalade in the back of my refrigerator. Rather than throw it out, I took it with me to a friend’s house out in the country with the hope that one morning I could slip it onto the breakfast table and no one would be the wiser. But I was so mesmerized by the gorgeous rosy hue of the quince preserves that, instead, I used the marmalade as a filling for this amazingly easy-to-make jam tart. The tart is easy for a couple of reasons. The first is that there is no filling to make or fruit to cut up—any type of thick jam or marmalade, homemade or otherwise, is all you’ll need. The second is that the dough doesn’t require rolling: two-thirds of it is pressed into the tart pan, and the rest is formed into a log, sliced like refrigerator cookie dough, then layered onto the tart to create the top crust. Truly a piece of cake to make, this tart serves as a wonderful breakfast pastry. In the end, the marmalade did indeed make an early (well, not too early) morning appearance on the table, and I didn’t have to be sneaky about it.

Cornmeal is often thought of as purely an American ingredient, probably because of our infatuation with cornbread, but Italians love cornmeal as much as we do. It’s not unusual in Italian bakeries to see rows of golden cakes and baskets of crumbly cookies made with polenta and sometimes flavored with a pour of olive oil, just in case you forget you’re in Italy. A bit of minced fresh rosemary infuses this cake with a familiar, yet elusive flavor. I wouldn’t dream of leaving the rosemary out. Polenta gives the cake a rustic feel; you can use stone-ground cornmeal instead to make a cake with a more refined texture that retains that agreeable crunch. As for the olive oil, use one that’s strong and fruity; its flavor is more important than its provenance.

Polenta is the frequent flier of the cornmeal set. Just about anywhere there’s an airport, you’re likely to find some version of this staple. Hungarians call it puliszka, the Turks call it mamalika, and us Americans—well, we just call it grits. Polenta is fabulous to work with because it morphs itself amiably into so many settings. I’ve seen it prepared with tomato sauce, different cheeses, various oils, garlicky greens, you name it. This version is somewhat similar to oatmeal (think thin oatmeal, not the stuff that doubles as wallpaper paste) using Magic Mineral Broth to add taste and nutritional value far beyond what you’d get with plain water.

Tofu is like a sponge and will absorb whatever flavors you give it if you squeeze it dry first. I often sandwich the block of tofu between several layers of paper towels and then set the Dutch oven on top to press out as much liquid as possible. If you’re not into tofu, substitute eight ounces of ricotta cheese. Using freshly grated nutmeg is always a treat. I keep a few whole nutmegs in a jar and simply run one across a Microplane grater. Save the rest of the nut in a jar so it will be fresh and aromatic the next time you want it. A whole nutmeg can last a year or longer. Try to break a block of frozen spinach into pieces before adding it to the pot, and realize that it will add some liquid as it melts. Let the pot sit for a few minutes with the lid off before serving to allow the polenta to absorb any extra liquid.

Turkey sausage—especially the hot and spicy kind—is excellent in this dish. Wild mushrooms add a hearty flavor that complements the sausage, but common white mushrooms do just fine here as well. To use dried mushrooms, place in a bowl, cover with boiling water, and steep while you prepare the rest of the ingredients (ten to twenty minutes). When softened, drain well and slice. If using frozen spinach, try to break the block into a few pieces to spread around in the pot. If it is simply too hard to break, don’t worry. It will still cook fine, although you may find you need to cook the meal another five to ten minutes for the polenta to soften completely. As always with these recipes, use your nose as your guide.