Perfect Polenta - How to Make Soft Polenta

[Music] hello this is chef john from food wishes comm with perfect polenta that's right we're doing polenta or as i used to call it as a kid planned uh yes my mispronouncing ethnic food words goes way back but anyway we did get a ton of requests for this after you guys saw it underneath our pork and milk video and you know me I'm kind of a people pleaser and I have been wanting to do an updated plan to video for a long time so here we go okay so step one here we're gonna measure out some polenta and this is polenta it's nothing more than a coarsely ground cornmeal and we're gonna go ahead and measure out one cup of that and the classic ratio for polenta the water is one part polenta to four parts water but I like to go just a hair under the one cup alright so we're gonna call this a scant cup meaning we're gonna fill it almost to the top like 95 percent of the way but anyway we're gonna measure out a cup and set that aside while we heat our liquid so I'm going to put four cups of water into a saucepan you could certainly use chicken broth for this I often do but for this recipe I decided to keep it vegetarian I know we got a lot of those people I just did air quotes they watch the channel and we love you guys too so every once a while I do like to throw the vegetarians a bone we're also gonna add a teaspoon of fine salt and then we're gonna place that on high heat until it just starts to come to a boil and it's gonna start bubbling like that and then we're gonna do the most critical and most important step in this whole process the whisking in of the polenta so take a whisk in one hand and you're gonna whisk constantly as you pour the polenta in slowly in a steady stream alright not too fast but just do like you see here in a nice steady stream whisking stirring the entire time and if you do that you will not have lumps and once it's all stirred in and you are absolutely confident there are no lumps forming go ahead and turn your heat down to low and we're just gonna continue to stir that with the whisk until it just starts to thicken and again you've lowered the heat you just want to maintain a steady very gentle simmer you don't want your heat to high you're gonna lose too much water but also it could splash up and burn your hand I still remember as a kid that's happening to my grandfather once a while and whenever that would happen he would say something that sounded like hey fun girl hey fun girl which I have no idea what that meant an Italian probably something like ouch but anyway keep stirring on low heat until it thickens up to about this point and at that point we're gonna stop stirring and we're gonna cover it and we're gonna set our timer for 30 minutes and we're gonna let that cook and every five or six minutes we're gonna uncover it and give it a stir so one of the big myths about cooking polenta and one of the reasons people love to order it out but never make it at home is that people think they have to stand there and stir for 30 minutes non-stop you don't just simply take off the lid give it a stir put the lid back on let it cook another five six seven minutes take the lid off give it another stir and you'll see it'll cook beautifully and you will not have any lumps and once it starts getting nice and thick I like to switch to a wooden spoon the official polenta stirring device all right you can stir with anything but a wooden spoon just looks right and we're just gonna keep doing that and after about 30 minutes your polenta could be cooked but you won't know until you try it okay so you're gonna taste it and if it still seems a little gritty if it's not nice and soft and tender let it keep cooking you are the Jason born of your ground corn so you got to figure that out our different brands of polenta are gonna have different size grinds some are gonna be a little finer a little coarser so you will have to adjust all right as long as you're on low heat and you keep it covered and you stir once in a while there's really not much that can go wrong and then for the sake of argument let's say you did figure out yours is perfectly cooked his mind was right at this stage to finish this you're gonna turn off the heat you're gonna throw in a couple tablespoons of butter you're gonna give that a stir till about half the butter is melted and now we're gonna throw in a whole bunch of grated Parmesan cheese the real stuff the parmigiano-reggiano and you can see in this close-up just that gorgeous gorgeous creamy soft texture I mean look at that that looks amazing so comforting and once that cheese and butter stirred in the last official step cover it put it on the back of the stove and just let it sit for five minutes and to this day scientists are still not exactly sure what happens in that pot during those five minutes mostly because no one's cared enough to study it but something happens and it gets better and then five minutes later we're going to go back uncover it and give it one last final stir if you're smart you'll taste it one more time and adjust for salt if necessary and at that point we're ready to eat and if you're thinking that looks a little soft if I put a bunch of saucy meat on there it's gonna turn into a soup it does not is this sits for a few minutes it really firms up and even though we're usually gonna serve this with some kind of meat that has a gravy or sauce it really does hold up well and of course you could serve it as is or you could decorate it with a nice slice of butter and a little more freshly grated parmesan if for no other reason than to just watch that slice of butter melt on the top that's always one of the great sights and we're gonna give it a taste which if you did everything as instructed should be incredible smooth sweet creamy a little cheesy just a perfect base for any kind of saucy meter stew this pork and milk was just absolutely stellar on it but so would a simple fall vegetable and mushroom ragout that would be fantastic on this all right so anyway there you go perfect polenta like I said we got a ton of requests for it so I was more than happy to do this demo to show you exactly how simple and foolproof polenta can be so I really do hope you give that a try head over to food wishes comm for all the ingredient amounts and more info as usual and as always enjoy [Music]

Channel: Food Wishes

Views: 1,514,506

Rating: 4.9109545 out of 5

Keywords: Polenta (Dish), recipe, corn, mush, grits, chef, john, foodwishes, Food, Cooking, Kitchen, Restaurant, Recipes, Italian Food (Cuisine), side dish, starch

Id: jE2NemX-FO4

Length: 5min 51sec (351 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 27 2013

Reddit Comments

[u/Roadcrosser]

This is one of the recipes that I've actually made, and it tastes divine.

I'd do it again, once I get my hands on more cornmeal.