I have a new favorite comfort food: Baked Polenta with Braised Bitter Greens. There is just something about it that hits the spot on a winter day. I’ve been getting my polenta freshly ground from Tierra Vegetables farm stand.
The first batch I made was with a red corn with the ominous name “Bloody Butcher”. Luckily it tastes much better than it sounds. Then I tried a sweet yellow corn called “North Stein Dent”. There was a third variety of blue corn, but I think that one is already sold out.
These are heirloom varieties, which means that they were commonly grown at one time but are not used in modern large-scale agriculture. Slow Foods, a grass roots food movement, supports the cultivation of heirloom vegetables as a way to provide more diversity in our plant gene pool. Modern methods put us at risk for losing many of the old (and often flavorful) varieties.
While this polenta is especially good with the freshly ground cornmeal, you can do it with any cornmeal or polenta. These are basically different words for the same thing, although sometimes polenta is more coarsely ground.
Not only did I get the cornmeal from Tierra Vegetables, but I also got the baked polenta recipe from them and the idea of having it with sautéed greens (or other sautéed vegetables).
This recipe takes awhile to cook – if you use the fresh cornmeal it takes two hours- but it only takes a few minutes to mix and get into the oven. The greens are fast, so if you have something else you can do while it’s cooking it is a fast, healthy and easy dinner. And sooooo good.
Just one warning. The polenta baking dish needs soaking to get it clean.
Baked Polenta
1 cup coarse ground cornmeal
1 TBSP butter*, cut into pieces
1/2 Tbsp kosher salt (which I don’t add)
½ tsp fresh ground pepper
½ cup grated parmesan or asiago cheese*
*these add flavor but are not necessary. You could make this recipe vegan by eliminating the butter and cheese, or substituting olive oil and/or a soy cheese.
This cooks in about an hour with regular cornmeal and takes about 2 hours with freshly ground cornmeal.
Preheat oven to 350. Combine the cornmeal with 4 cups of water in a 1 ½ quart baking dish. Add butter, salt and pepper. Stir and bake, uncovered, for 45 (or 90) minutes. Stir the polenta, add cheese and bake another 15 (or30) minutes. Cook until the cornmeal is tender and the liquid has been absorbed. Let it rest for 5 minutes before serving. The fresh cornmeal never does fully set, and has a lovely pudding-like consistency.
Braised Greens
1 Onion, thinly sliced
3 cloves Garlic, minced
Olive oil
Greens* – 6-8 cups – Washed and chopped.
Apple cider vinegar
Vegetable broth
*I particularly like a combination of bitter greens like radicchio, kale, mustard greens and arugula, but you can also use spinach and red or green cabbage.
Sauté the onion in olive oil until tender (I like to sauté it long and slow to make it sweeter, often adding a little vinegar as it cooks). Add the garlic towards the end and then stir in the greens. Sprinkle with a little apple cider vinegar and vegetable broth, then cover and let it steam for a few minutes. Stir frequently. Depending on which greens you choose and how tender you like them, the greens will only take 10 – 20 minutes. Add quick cooking greens like spinach at the end.
Serve the greens on the polenta. Yum!
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