Certain recipes are “supposed” to be made in only one certain way — which is why we often don’t make them, the supposing having become a nuisance.
Risotto is like that. Among its Ten Commandments (such as “thou shalt use short grain rice only”) is the admonition that “thou shalt stir the risotto constantly.”
Kitchen agnostics then arise to suggest that, in truth, a stir every five minutes suffices, or that — heresy — the Instant Pot produces killer risotto. (It does not.) These alternate liturgies get passed on, with the varying results that alternate liturgies always promise. You end up choosing your religion and hope for the best.
For centuries, the “constantly stir” admonition has been recipe catechism for another Italian recipe, polenta, a ritual romanticized after a countless cooking school vacations in Italy. How could you evernotconstantly stir your polenta after a dimple-elbowed Mamma turns out hers from a copper pot as old as Garibaldi, onto a mammoth dark wood table under a pergola at her farm in Emilia-Romagna?
It’s easy; turn the page on the prayer book. That Mamma is one myth; other Mammas exist who also are worthy of worship. I found my polenta Mamma by reading of one, from Piedmont, who bakes her polenta in her oven, and remembering another Mamma (this one a Tuscan) who taught me how best to cook beans — by baking, not boiling, them. And leaving them be, for hours if necessary.
The discipline was good for my soul, not merely my mouth.
Polenta has been a mainstay food in Italy ever since Columbus brought back to the Old World the maize that he found Native Americans eating as a large part of their diet in the New. Corn became a big hit, especially in northern Italy where it figures prominently there in the diet to this day.
It is one of Italy’s marvelous “canvas” foods (such as risotto or those Tuscan beans) onto which cooks can paint both sweet and savory flavors and multiple other textures, in the instance of polenta in both its warm (runny) and cooler (stiff) showings. Which is better? Waves of piping hot yellow, on a pretty plate, studded with chunks of cheese or nobs of butter? Or slivers of firm polenta, fried crisp in olive oil or clarified butter and topped with a spiced ragu? It’s a choice never easy to make.
But in the first place, why all the stovetop stirring? Apart from its bonafide service in myth-making, unless vigorously stirred the grits of cornmeal form niggling lumps in the heating polenta. But they do this only when the grits become warm, not hot.
It was to prevent the water at the top of the pot from becoming tepid (and therefore instigating lumps) that the cook was instructed to “constantly stir,” in order to bring the hotter bottom water to the surface and thereby to even out the temperature of the polenta as a whole. (Which is why some recipes for polenta dictate that the constant stirring is truly necessary only at the beginning and then intermittently.)
Placing the pot in an oven surrounds it with a uniform, unvarying temperature. When the temperature is constant, the stirring need not be.
In this recipe, the time it takes to finish the polenta depends on the type of cornmeal you use. Coarser, stone-milled grits take upwards of two hours, start of cooking to finish; finer, softer grits (such as those from white corn, a form of corn difficult to avoid making pasty, so I avoid them) take about an hour.
Also, buy good grits such as those from Anson Mills or Bob’s Red Mill. They are more costly than run-of-the-mill cornmeal, but just barely and well worth the selection if you want terrific corn aroma and taste.
Finally, this doesn’t turn out the kind of macho polenta always pitched in another polenta myth, the stiff kind that, when cooked-through after 45 minutes of constant stirring, will hold a wooden spoon pointing up from the pot.
This is a softer, gentler polenta, also easier to spoon off a plate and slurp from a spoon. I take it that that’s the idea.
Oven-cooked Soft Polenta
Ingredients
- 2 cups coarse-milled yellow cornmeal grits
- 10 cups of filtered water
- 1 tablespoon kosher salt
Directions
Before preparing the polenta, to a large oven-ready pot or Dutch oven add all the ingredients, stirring well to combine the salt into the mix. Skim any chaff the floats up, using a tea strainer or a fine-meshed spider.
Cover the pot (optional) and let the cornmeal soak at room temperature overnight or for at least 8 hours.
Heat the oven to 375 degrees. Place the pot on the stove over medium-high heat and give the mix several very healthy whisks. Bring the polenta just to the simmer, whisking well a couple of times and using a wooden spoon to distribute anything that settles at or sticks to the bottom or along the sides or corner edges of the pot.
Place the pot in the oven, uncovered (very important), and let it bake undisturbed for 1 hour.
After the hour, take up the pot and whisk the polenta heartily (including the skin that may form on top), also giving it a turn or two with the wooden spoon. Put back into the oven, uncovered, for another 30 minutes.
Now, you just need to take the polenta out to see if the grits are cooked sufficiently through to your liking. Honor an al dente smattering.
If the polenta is too runny for you, or the grits need another 15-20 minutes, give it any more necessary time in the oven and a finishing whisking.
Serve very warm with whatever flavorings you like (or none at all, if you want mere corn awesomeness): pats of butter, chunks of cheese, tomato sauce, herbs or spices–or honey, maple syrup, or agave syrup and anything cinnamon-y if eating earlier in the day or for dessert. Flavoring possibilities are legion.
Cool leftover polenta (or make a whole batch for this purpose) on a flat, parchment paper-lined baking sheet until cool enough to place in the refrigerator. When cold, cut into whatever shapes (“fingers,” squares, punched-out rounds) that you later will fry, bake, or grill and then flavor accordingly.
