Polenta gratin is a baked casserole made from cornmeal and cheese, with various recipes available. Polenta is a blank slate, mixed with cheese, spices, and vegetable puree. The top is often crusted with vegetables, and it can be served for dessert or breakfast.
A polenta gratin is basically a baked casserole made from cornmeal and cheese. Of course, most cooks add more of those two ingredients to this dish, creating a wide variety of polenta gratin recipes. Polenta is a food eaten in many parts of the world, which means that it combines quite well with many different types of flavors and foods. Any cook with a batch of polenta on hand and some delicious cheese should be able to whip up one of these gratins with little more than a few odds and ends already in the cupboard. Creating a perfect dish can be tricky, but it’s usually less work than grating a potato.
Every polenta gratin recipe starts with some kind of polenta. New store-bought versions are usually found in the refrigerated section of a grocery store and are usually shaped like bricks. Instant polenta is available in boxes usually sold alongside packs of instant potatoes. Simply put, polenta is little more than cornmeal mixed with boiling water. It is stirred until it becomes thick, like pudding or porridge. Cooks who use instant polenta usually notice that the cornmeal absorbs water very quickly. Fresh polenta is already boiled and can usually be mashed with a fork after opening the package.
Cooks who love to create and experiment can quickly fall in love with a polenta gratin because the polenta itself is a blank slate. These recipes usually call for the cook to mix the polenta with one or more types of cheese, some spices, and sometimes vegetable puree. For example, a recipe might instruct the cook to add grated fontina, gruyere, and Parmesan cheese to the polenta, along with pumpkin puree, garlic, and chopped mushrooms. This mixture would then be spread evenly across the bottom of a greased and cooked saucepan.
The top of a polenta au gratin is often crusted with the vegetables mixed into the saucepan. The cook generally cuts slices of vegetables about 0.5 cm (0.25 inch) and lays them in neat rows on top of the polenta. Rows usually overlap and sections are usually circular. This makes squash an ideal vegetable to include in these recipes. The cook can cut the body of the pumpkin to flavor the polenta and cut the neck to give it a tasty crust.
While the polenta gratin dessert is rare, it can be a tasty and nutritious way to end a meal. Some cooks also like to make it for breakfast. The versatile polenta can be flavored with sugar, cinnamon and mascarpone. The slices for the top of the casserole could be pears, apples, or peaches. Cooks with more time could even line the top with sliced and pitted cherries.
Protect your devices with Threat Protection by NordVPN
