I can see why Mario Batali refers to polenta pasticciata as 'messy polenta.' It was a real challenge--almost like a reverse game of Jenga--getting it out of the dish in any less than three completely unphotgenic blobs, despite my attempts at giving it structural integrity.
However, I suspect that peasants living in hillside rusticos cared far more about taste than appearances when they devised this polenta dish many, many years ago. And they certainly didn't mess around with a camera at dinner-time!
According to Anna del Conte, polenta pasticciata is made in many different variations, each polenta-loving region having their own spin on it. This recipe hails from Lombardy, but even within the region itself there are many variations. Some add bechamel sauce, bringing the dish even closer to lasagne, and others further enrich the meat sauce with lots of lovely salami and pancetta.
Previously I've found polenta to be both bland and stodgy. This was apparently user-error on my part. It's still stodgy, but when done right, it's stodgy in a good way. Filling and warming, in fact, and when seasoned correctly, it's rather tasty, too Polenta can really soak up salt. I started off with the tablespoon that Anna stipulated and then--very carefully!--tasted and corrected the volcanically bubbling and spitting polenta until it tasted good.
When making the meat sauce I had to have very stern words with myself as I instinctively reached for the garlic. One of the reasons for Cooking The Boot was to gain a greater appreciation for regional food, and that means not chucking garlic in where there shouldn't be garlic! I suspect a bit of palate-retraining may be in order as I really do adore garlic in almost all savoury food. (I did go through a brief phase of munching pickled garlic cloves once. Shamefully, I wasn't pregnant at the time, so there was absolutely no excuse for it!)
Even without garlic the sauce tasted pretty good. The porcini enhanced the flavour of the beef--as well as retaining their own robust earthiness--and created some pretty heady aromas in the house.
I served the pasticciata with some green beans which I simply dressed with a tiny drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil and some balsamic vinegar. I think they worked really well together to cut through the rich, unctuousness of the pasticciata.
Polenta Pasticciata
--Baked polenta with meat and dried porcini
Serves 2
WW (UK) estimated points: 9 per portion
150g instant polenta
900ml water
1 tablespoon salt
12g dried porcini
1 tablespoon olive oil
10g unsalted butter
1/2 small onion, finely chopped
1/2 small carrot, finely chopped
1/4 celery stick, finely chopped
175g extra-lean beef mince
1 bay leaf
salt and pepper
1 tablespoon tomato paste diluted with about 60ml beef stock
butter for greasing the dish
3 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
First make the polenta. Bring the water and salt to the boil and sprinkle in the polenta in a fine stream, whisking the mixture to prevent lumps from forming. Switch to a wooden spoon and cook for about five minute, until very thick. Pour the polenta out onto a wet surface--marble, plastic, a baking sheet, but not wood--and spread it out to a thickness of about 2.5cm/1 inch. Leave to cool.
Soak the dried porcini in enough boiling water to cover for about 30 minutes. Lift them out gently, wash under cold water, squeeze and dry. Chop them coarsely. Strain the soaking liquid through a sieve lined with muslin and set aside.
Put the oil, butter and onion in a saucepan and saute until the onion is soft. Mix in the porcini, carrot and celery and saute for a further few minutes. Add the minced beef and cook until it has lost its raw colour, then add the bay leave and salt and peper to taste. Turn the heat down to low and pour in the diluted tomato puree and the mushroom soaking liquid.
When the sauce is boiling, turn the head down as low as possibleand cook uncovered for about 2 hours. Taste and check seasoning and remove the bay leaf.
Heat the oven to 200C/fan oven 180C.
Grease a shallow gratin dish generously with butter. Cut the polenta into 1cm slices and cover the bottom of the dish with a layer of polenta. Spoon over about 1/3 of the sauce and sprinkle with 2 tablespoons of the Pamesan. Repeat the layers of polenta, sauce and Parmesan until all the ingredients are used, then baked in the preheated oven for about 30 minute.
Allow to stand for 10 minutes before serving.
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