Polenta is yet one more starch in the Italian canon of carbohydrates, popular enough in Northern Italy that other Italians sometimes call Northern Italians , "the big polentas." Polenta itself is nothing more than a basic gruel, typically made from cornmeal and not all that different from American grits.should be smooth and soft, without any hard or grainy bits. Achieving that result requires using enough water to hydrate the cornmeal properly.
I also recommend starting with just water and olive oil—as good as polenta can be when cooked in milk and loaded with cheese, those "creamy" polentas tend to be too rich when served with toppings. When made well, polenta cooked with water will have a creamy effect and a clean flavor that supports but doesn't overshadow whatever you serve with it.
To serve, try Sara Jenkins's suggestion: garnished with olive oil, fried bread cubes, and a sprinkling of grated cheese. It's very simple, but when made well, it's deeply satisfying. Once more, good basic ingredients and a solid understanding of a basic technique lead to incredible results. Get any part wrong, though—bad supermarket olive oil, improperly cooked polenta, dusty pre-grated cheese—and anything that would have been special about the dish is lost.
Learning to love the intense bitterness of some vegetables is one approach. Another is to learn how to tame that bitterness. The, to my mind, is not briefly blanched so it remains bitingly bitter. Instead, it has the vigor cooked out of it—part of a vast and wonderful Italian tradition of cooking vegetables to death in the best possible way—until all its harsh edges have softened and grown faint.
But small fish? Italian cooking wouldn't be what it is without them, and, of course, no fish better represents this than the humble anchovy. Many folks are still scarred by encounters with unfortunately fuzzy anchovy fillets on a slice at their local pizzeria. But those anchovies are to the good ones what a green tomato is to a ripe, red one, picked straight off the vine in August. I always keep a jar of good-quality, oil-packed anchovy fillets in my refrigerator.
If you aren't cooking like their Italian mother, it's not right.
1. The best-looking ingredients are often not the tastiest. 2. ONE clove of garlic - and take it back out before serving. 3. Start with great ingredients - and get out of the way. 4. Keep it light and simple. 5. Italian =/= Italian-American.
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