Polenta

I want to talk about polenta, the favourite of Northern Italians. Most people don't associate polenta with porridge, but really it is the Northern Italian equivalent of porridge. Traditionally made with Chestnut flour.
In many recipes, the instructions are to cook polenta for anywhere from one to three hours. In Italy, apparently they have special implements which stir the polenta for you. I have heard anecdotally that Australian polenta is softer and you don't need to cook it for long. I can vouch for that.
I cook polenta on a regular basis and my family love it. But the measurements are intuitive, so this is a hard one to put in a recipe. The main thing with polenta is to get your water to polenta ratio right. I would generally say it's a 1:4 or 1:5 ratio. (That is polenta:liquid)

Best Polenta Recipe
INGREDIENTS
1-2 tsp salt
1 litre water
250 gm coarse cornmeal (Polenta, not instant. I prefer a whole grain polenta.)
Rosemary (optional)
Small amount of stock cube or Bragg's seasoning (optional, available at good delicatessan or organic food shop)
50 gm Finely grated Parmesan (Italian or Australian and not prepackaged grated parmesan)
50gm Butter
Extra butter for serving bowl

IMPLEMENTS
Saucepan
Spoon whisk (available from hospitality stores - see photo)
Grater

METHOD

1. Put salt in water and bring to boil.

2. Add rosemary or stock if you like.

3. When boiling, take off hot plate and pour in polenta in steady stream, stirring all the while. Use the spoon whisk to stop any lumps from forming.

4. Return to heat (low) and continue stirring for at least 20 minutes. (You may need to use a simmer ring to stop the polenta from bubbling.)









5. Take off the heat and add butter and parmesan cheese. Mix through until all the butter is melted.

6. Pour into buttered bowl, or spoon directly onto plate.(Make sure you fill the bowl with water immediately.)












SERVING
I serve polenta with the following:

• Chicken cacciatore (or similar, something with sauce)
• Spinach cooked with tomato
• Eggplant Parmigiana

Jorge loves polenta.. see photo.

If you have polenta left over, it's great fried in olive oil the next day. Just remember to cook it slowly, don't need a lot of oil.

Best Smoky Eggplant Recipes

These are two recipes on the same theme: one Indian, the other middle eastern. The first part is the same.

STAGE 1

1. Place two eggplants on a barbecue grill.
2. Turn regularly until the skin is crisp and the eggplant is heavy and soft.
3. When cool, peel the skin off the eggplant and discard. Roughly chop the eggplant pulp and place into bowl.

MARK'S BABAGANOUSH RECIPE
Ingredients
2 large eggplants
Lime or lemon juice
Garlic (preferably organic)
Tahini
Salt
Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Method
4. Place all ingredients into bowl (except olive oil) and puree with stab blender, until smooth and fluffy. Adjust ingredients to your taste.
5. Place in serving bowl and drizzle with olive oil.


PUNJAB EGGPLANT PUREE RECIPE
(Adapted from a Charmaine Solomon's very old - circa 1978 - "Indian - Cooking for Pleasure")

Ingredients
2 large eggplants
Oil
1 large, or 2 small onions
1 teaspoon coriander seeds
1 teaspoon cummin seeds
3 dried red chillis (omit for children) with seeds removed
1/2 tin chopped tomatoes or 2 fresh tomatoes (skinned, seeded and chopped)
Bunch fresh coriander
3 spring onions (optional)
salt to taste
1/2 teaspoon garam masala (optional)

Method
4. Prepare eggplants as above.
5. Heat oil in large cast iron fry pan or pot, and fry onions over a low heat until well cooked (soft).
6. At the same time, dry roast coriander, cummin seeds and chilli in fry pan and pound in mortar and pestle.
7. Add spices to onion mixture and cook for around one minute, then add tomatoes and eggplant and cook for around 5 to 10 minutes, until most of the liquid evaporates.
8. Add coriander, springs onions, salt and garam masala and simmer uncovered for around one minute.

Serve warm with rice. A great accompaniment to an Indian vegetarian meal, for example with vegetable kofta or palak paneer.

(A variation is to replace onions with asafoetida)

Eggplant - To Salt or not to Salt

Eggplants seem to have a long season, and recently I have purchased some lovely small thin local eggplants. And no, you don't need to salt them.
The matter of whether or not to salt, seems to be uppermost, on the matter of eggplants.
I still salt large eggplants (other than for recipes such as Babaganoush or Punjabi Eggplant puree), particularly those with lots of seeds. Small eggplants do not need salting.
Salting eggplant takes out excess water and the bitterness of the eggplant.

HOW TO SALT?

1. Slice or cut your eggplant as per your recipe. Sprinkle or rub salt into the eggplant. (You don't need to use good quality salt.)
2. Places slices on top of each other in a colander.
3. Put a sheet of plastic film over the eggplant, and place a large heavy object on top. I use a very heavy mortal and pestle. Place on a sink. (Sometimes the metal can react with the eggplant, so I always put plastic between.)
   
4. Brown liquid should gradually come out.
5. After around a half hour, take off the weight.
6. At this point I quickly rinse off the salt and put the eggplant into a tea towel and sqeeze it tightly to take out any excess liquid.
   
7. The eggplant should look half cooked.
8. Now you are ready to cook with them, the easiest dish of course is to brush with olive oil and bake in the oven.

Sweetcorn

Sweetcorn is one of those end of summer vegetables, which is around all year. Did you know that sweetcorn is actually the immature corn, which is picked at the 'milk stage? Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_corn.

Most people think of eating sweet corn, on the cob, boiled or grilled, and then covered with lashings of butter. Yum! But you might be on a diet or not be a butter lover like me, so another great way of eating corn is cooked on the barbecue and served with lime juice and chilli. And salt.
If you like corn bread, you can always put in the fresh kernels of corn - to give it a bit of texture.

Plums

Glorious plums in the supermarket or fruit & veg shops always indicates, for me, the end of the stone fruit season. It was with heavy heart then last week, I purchased a small amount of unattractive speckled plums, thinking to do some cooking with them. I was surprised to see my fella, hoeing into them when I got home and praising their flavour. I bit into one, and wow! Not only was it a dark deep red, it also tasted amazing. (I went back to the shop later that week and suggested that they cut them in half to attract customers - not sure if they've taken my advice yet.) Betty, on ABC Radio, advised us that it was a blood plum. Of course! What else!

Several years ago a friend made me a cornmeal plum upside down cake. I've looked for ages for the recipe and came across one at Girl Detective (http://www.girldetective.net/?p=2578). It's a bit pointless my repeating the recipe, and it's close and good - but still not quite there for me. The only thing I would add, is that I use coarse yellow cornmeal, and if you can get a variety of plums (blood etc), the cake looks beautiful.

Tomatoes aka Pomodora

Tomatoes are in season now in Alice Springs, which really means they are a good price in the shops and they're in season in the southern states of Australia. It must be late summer or autumn. (Local tomatoes are a rarity.)
I'm happy that tomatoes are good, but sad that there are never ample quantities of tomatoes in Alice Springs to warrant a big Tomato Gathering.
I do love a Good Tomato Gathering and a good tomato.
I don't think I had ever really tasted a good tomato until I went to Italy many years ago and ate fresh sliced tomatoes on a plate with olive oil and oregano. The tomatoes were sweet and red all the way through. Not the pale orange tasteless fruit I was accustomed to.
My favourite is a roma tomato, it looks good and tastes good and can be used fresh and in cooking. My second favourite is the ox-heart type. They don't look great. They're weird shaped and have imperfections. But they taste fantastic.
Tomatoes must be ripe to in order to really appreciate their flavour, both fresh and in cooking. I refuse to put tomato in a salad unless it is sweet and ripe. And not a fan of sun-dried tomato, unless they're home made, by me.
On the off-chance you come across enough tomatoes for a Tomato Gathering, a tomato puree making session is a lot of fun, and will ensure great tasting pasta dishes for the next twelve months.
Here is my favourite recipe for tomato puree, taught to me by the Italian parents of a friend in Melbourne. But before you begin there is a lot of must haves, that extend beyond the notion of implements.

MUST HAVES

• One very large pot
• One very large wooden spoon for the very large pot
• A large gas burner or plenty of wood and something to put the pot on
• Large quantity of clean glass bottles with clean screw top lids.
• Vegetable knives
• Tomato puree machine (preferable electric)
• An old bath tub (not essential)
• Lots of large clean bowls or food grade buckets
• Lots of clean pieces of cloth (old table clothes)
• Lots of helpers

If you don't have an electric puree machine, then perhaps make smaller quanities. It is very tiresome using a hand cranked puree machine. A moulee will drive you crazy, so don't attempt it, and opt for preserved whole tomatoes instead.
One last tip - this is an outdoor activity. Don't attempt to do it in a kitchen unless it is an outdoor kitchen.

INGREDIENTS

• Boxes of ripe roma tomatoes
• Salt
• Fresh basil

METHOD

1. Wash and sort through the tomatoes. Throwing away any that look rotten or not worth cooking. You many need to spread the tomatoes on a table.
2. Cut each tomato in halves or quarters and put them in a pot. This is a good chance to cut out any bad bits.
3. When the pot is full, put it on a fire or gas burner. Heat through until the pot begins to boil and the skins begin to pull away from the tomato flesh. Stir the pot regularly with the large wooden spoon to prevent sticking.
4. Pour the tomatoes back into the box they came from, which has now been washed and lined with two layers of cloth. Drain off excess liquid.
5. Now you are ready to start pureeing. Feed the partially cooked tomatoes into the puree machine. You may need to catch the puree in a clean bucket or bowl underneath the long spout. Another bucket will be needed for the skins and seeds which will be great for compost.
6. Once the full batch is done, add some salt to the puree and stir it through. (Don't bottle the puree until you have put through all the tomatoes from the pot, as the puree will get thicker the further you get to the bottom.)
7. Pour the mixture into the clean bottles and put three leaves of basil in the top of each. Screw on the lids tight.
8. Place all the bottles long side down in the bottom of a bath tub which has been place over a fire (or the pot for the puree). Between each layer of glass bottles, but a layer of cloth to stop the bottles moving against each other. Pour water over the pot/into the bath tub with a hose.
9. Heat the tub/pot and let the bottles boil for about three hours.
10. Let the bottles come to room temperature before storing.

Make sure you have a large quantity of your favourite pasta ready to go at the end of the day. The fresh puree is great as a simple pasta sauce, particularly when fresh.

VARIATIONS
1. Salt the tomatoes and let them drain overnight. Feed them through the puree machine as per the above recipe.
2. Puree the tomatoes raw (uncooked). This works, but you need to feed the tomatoes through at least three times to get all the pulp.
Enjoy!

Bagnette (My Sister Jan's recipe)

While this is a traditional Piedmontese recipe, variations are found throughout parts of Italy, France and Spain. The variations are based on the availability of fresh herbs.
Ingredients:
1 bunch flat leaf Italian parsley
1 bunch curly leaf parsley
Fresh mint, tarragon or basil. (optional)
7-8 cloves good quality garlic (to taste)
Juice and finely grated rind of half lemon
6 Anchovies
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Salt and freshly ground pepper

Method
Put all ingredients in food processor and pulse till well blended (but not smooth). Taste and adjust (more oil, lemon juice, salt or pepper.)

Serve immediately with fish, prawns, pasta, fresh bread, in minestrone.

Best eaten within a few days. If storing, be sure do pour a layer of olive oil over top.