RECIPE #9: Polenta and Sauce

Sorry the monthly recipe report is a few days late, but from the lack of clamor, I suspect you will forgive me. I know, it's my mantra this year, but I have indeed been very busy. I've spent virtually all my free time hovering over my Sassy Frassy Lassie in the wake of her aforementioned medical procedure. She's recovering nicely, aside from the pain associated with healing. Thanks from both of us to all of you who expressed well wishes.

The downside is that her cats are pretty pissed at us for locking them in the hallway at night. They peed in one of her plants! This is why I am personally a big fan of other people's pets. Like other people's children, you can play with them and have fun for a while, maybe look after them for small stretches, but when they're pitching a serious fit or spitefully excreting on everything of value that you own, you can hand over the cute little buggers with a guilt-free grin. On the other hand, I'd like to stay in this pair of cats' good graces. Who knows? I may find myself sharing living quarters with them some day. (Yes, I'd say things are going pretty well.)

I was inspired for September's recipe by a restaurant Sassy Frass and I stumbled across one fateful night in August. We had gone to another place thinking it was a German eatery, only to discover a dingy bar that offered brats for $2. The "2" looked like it had recently been erased and rewritten - was this a mark-up or a discount? Not in the mood for shady sausages, we wandered the mean streets of Elgin, dodging bullets and hungry jackals until a zealously friendly dude ushered us into a joint which turned out to be his. I think we were only ones eating, although the place was filled with people playing a "pub quiz." A sort of Trivial Pursuit for knowledgeable alcoholics, the game spurred much hollering and guffawing. You'd think that such boisterous japery would ruin a nice romantic dinner, but Sassy Frass and I like people-watching, and I in particular am fascinated by observing in-jokes born of clannish devotion in their natural environment. It was interesting.

Anyway, the place was nice, although they had a painting that bothered my lady for reasons undetermined, and the food was delicious, particularly the polenta torte appetizer. I said, "I've never cooked polenta. That's my recipe for next month!" Sassy Frass, flashing a smile that could light up a coal mine, said, "My mom has a really good polenta recipe." Thinking immediately of the zucchini parmesan from July, I was sold without a description. Now, some may feel that using two recipes from the same source for this cooking endeavor is cheating, but I beg to differ. The zucchini was prepared without a recipe via my girlfriend's expert instruction and assistance. For the polenta, I worked from a genuine handwritten/photocopied recipe, and my lady only assisted by answering questions, chopping or stirring the pots while I ducked away to smoke or buy more cheese. Different experience completely.

This is a two-part recipe in that you make the polenta and the sauce separately. I assumed the sauce would take longer, but after I'd started it Sassy Frass told me that she usually makes the polenta first. I now see the wisdom in that, although at the time I was already well into the sauce preparations and I wasn't about to switch horses mid-race. No matter which one might choose to begin with, the first step of the sauce is to heat 1/4 cup of olive oil in a large, heavy skillet. After doing this, I plopped in 1/2 cup of onion chopped as finely as I could, 1 cup of freshly sliced mushrooms and a large clove of crushed garlic. No, I don't own a contraption for that. I used a big can (foreshadowing!) and mashed the clove on the cutting board, preserving as much garlic juice as I could. When these were golden brown, I added 1 pound of ground beef, breaking it up with a fork as it browned. It smelled great already.

The recipe didn't indicate that you should move your food to more voluminous cookware. Still, the amount of stuff that I needed to add would have spilled out of my trusty skillet. Thus, the contents of the skillet went into the biggest pot I have, a huge glass jobber that still didn't seem big enough when I pulled it out. I sliced two carrots, while Sassy Frass finely chopped a cup of celery. These, along with a beef boullion cube, 2 teaspoons of salt, 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of lemon juice, 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of Italian seasoning (it only calls for oregano, but I have a bunch of this mix), 1/8 teaspoon of powdered cloves, 1/8 teaspoon of black pepper, a pinch of red pepper and an entire 1 pound, 12. oz. can of diced tomatoes (aka the garlic crusher) all went into the pot. A zealous mixing followed. I set the pot over the lowest flame my stove allows and stirred it occasionally for about an hour - give or take a few minutes, since I had to shut off the flame for a bit. Why?

When I finally got to the actual polenta, it became clear that I had bought far too little parmesan cheese. When I wrote down the ingredients for shopping, I neglected to note how much the recipe called for, and I had to make an emergency cheese run. Thankfully, Sassy Frass was there to watch the stove, growing hungrier by the minute but never bitching about how long this dish was taking me to concoct. Anyway, when I returned with the jumbo package of parmesan, I could begin. I boiled 3 cups of water, simultaneously mixing 3 cups of cold water with 2 cups of yellow corn meal. The recipe notes that "coarse ground is best," but my local supermarket offered exactly one variety of yellow corn meal. There were a few white corn meals, even several factory-assembled polenta mixes, but just one yellow, and it gave no indication of how coarsely it was ground.

Once the water started boiling, I poured in the corn meal solution, 2 teaspoons of salt and 1/8 teaspoon of black pepper. The next steps were to stir it until smooth and then continue cooking and stirring until it thickened. Sassy Frass kindly took over the spoon while I stepped outside for a smoke and a respite from sweating. By the time I came back in, the mixture was ready. I mixed in 1 cup of parmesan cheese, buttered up a casserole dish (well, two casserole dishes, since the lady advised me to switch to the deeper one after I'd buttered the other) and poured the liquid polenta into it. Another 1/2 cup of parmesan sprinkled the top of the mixture. Then I baked it for about 25 minutes, restarting the burner under the sauce so it could finish cooking as well. At the very end, I switched to the broiler to brown the top of the polenta. We were ready to go. A final piece of advice: let this sucker cool before you try to slice it up! It will become firm with a little patience. Me? I was fucking starving.

Okay, the dish looked much more appetizing than that picture does, but the image is there to give you the gist. You grab yourself a chunk of polenta, spoon a fair amount of the sauce over it and chow down. The sauce is amazing; it's a little like a stew due to the carrots and celery, a little like sloppy Joes with the hearty beef and tomato chunks, a little like pasta sauce because of the spices, but it's ultimately its own delectable southern Italian entity. The polenta tastes like cheesy, savory cornbread. Together, this is something I could eat all the time. F'real. On paper it looked okay, but once it was in my mouth, I decided it was the best damn recipe I've followed so far this year. If you prepare correctly, it's not very labor-intensive considering how much food it yields. Vegetarians can use a soy beef substitute, so I cannot imagine why anyone should not give it a whirl.