Muristek
Rachel Roddy’s recipe for polenta with butter, parmesan and greens | A kitchen in Rome
Whether you choose to use proper polenta or the instant type, this buttery, cheesy, garlicky bowlful is a winter winner
Two sorts of rain today. One is bouncing off the brown terrace tiles, and giving them a clean, at least. The other is of polenta, raining down into a pan of boiling water. I’d planned a downpour of instant polenta, but then it went dark and the sky opened, so standing by a warm cooker, stirring and listening to the radio, was suddenly a good idea. Also, I’m convinced that the option of instant – be that polenta, custard, chocolate pudding, coffee or tan – makes the long version more appealing, because it is a choice.
In Elena Previde Massara’s Il Grande Libro della Polenta, there is a line illustration in which Italy’s lower half is a familiar boot, but then midway up becomes a cob of maize that mimics the shape of the country and reveals the kernels, ready to be dried and ground into polenta. A half-corn Italy, though, only began in the 16th century, when maize was introduced to Europe from Mesoamerica, where it is thought to have been celebrated, harvested, ground and eaten as early as 10,000 years ago. The word polenta is ancient, deriving from the Latin polĕnta, which means something made of pollen, or “fine flour”, and cooked into a mush, or puls as it was known in ancient Rome, and made from barley, farro, chickpeas or chestnuts.
UK readers: click to buy these ingredients from Ocado
Continue reading...