Chestnut Polenta
By Russell Wallack
Centuries before the arrival of corn in Italy from the New World, the original polenta was made with chestnuts. Chestnut polenta is a quick, delicious, and satisfying base you can make with just a few ingredients and combine with (almost) any other food you can dream up. An alternative for situations where you might otherwise make rice or oatmeal. Cooks much more quickly than corn polenta.
Ingredients:
3 cups water (can substitute broth if you like)
2 cups coarse chestnut flour
1/2 cup olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
Anything else you want to add
Steps:
Add all liquid ingredients to a pot, and heat until just before boiling.
Add the flour and lower heat to low-medium.
Stir or whisk while cooking, until all liquid is absorbed (3-5 minutes).
Enjoy hot. If you’d like, place the extra into a shallow glass container, cover, and refrigerate.
Once cold, it will form a more solid brick you can cut up and pan-fry (utterly delicious). We always make extra so we can do this with the leftovers.
Notes & Variations:
We make chestnut polenta for most of our team dinners, and have served it in so many different ways and forms over the year:
Marissa Alfiero taught us to caramelize a big pan of onions and garlic in a luxurious amount of olive oil and stir that through the polenta at the end.
We sometimes cut our polenta 50/50 with corn grits, but just be advised that it will then take a lot longer to cook.
For a savory direction, we have enjoyed making up bowls with any kind of protein (slow-braised meats, ground meat, chickpeas, beans, eggs, etc) and veggies (stewed greens, roasted squash or broccoli or cauliflower etc). Very good with parmesan cheese grated on top, or any kind of saucy drizzle you like.
We are also big fans of a drizzle of Carr’s cider syrup for sweet or savory purposes.
As a breakfast porridge, add fruit, toasted nuts, coconut flakes, sesame seeds, etc — or stir in some chestnut miso and scallions and top with an egg.
Our current favorite version is 100% chestnut polenta with Alison Roman’s Quick Lamb Ragù. If you need some excellent lamb, we sell half and whole animal boxes that come with a lot of ground meat.