Multicultural Melbourne: Polenta

Showing posts with label Polenta. Show all posts

Thursday, 11 August 2011

Nonna Gemma's Veal Scallopine

This blog has moved to http://multiculturalmelbourne.com/

Multicultural Inspiration from... Italy

It's common knowledge in my family that mum's mum, Nonna Gemma (Nonna is Italian for grandmother) is bloody fantastic in the kitchen. Some of my fondest childhood memories involve following Nonna around the Preston Market to gather all of our ingredients, then going back to her house, putting on an over-sized apron, and helping her make a big fat pot of risotto, or crostoli (traditional Northern Italian biscuits), with Nonno (grandfather) watching on and telling us we weren't doing it properly. Unfortunately for me though, Nonna rarely records any of her culinary genius on paper - she just knows what to do. So, you can imagine my excitement when one of Nonna's recipes was bestowed upon me at my Kitchen Tea party a month before our wedding last year! And not just any recipe - one of my favourites; Nonna's veal scalopine!

Luckily for me, I'm getting much better at cooking by instinct, because Nonna's recipes have absolutely no quantities or measurements. They're also written completely in Italian. Poor Sous-Jeff hasn't the foggiest idea what he was looking at when I got ready to cook this up. Thankfully, I understood every word!

My very treasured recipe is for veal scalopine - veal pieces coated in flour, and grilled in a fry pan with garlic, olive oil, mushrooms and white wine. I also like to serve it with polenta, because polenta brings back some of my most comforting and loving childhood memories :) And I threw some roast veggies in for the healthiness factor! Given that this recipe isn't technically a recipe, I haven't listen everything I did and used... but here's how it turned out...

And to my utter and complete joy, it tasted just like Nonna's!! I guess I must have been paying more attention than I thought when I used to watch her make it! If only I'd recorded how much of everything I'd used... must make it again!

And while I took a break in typing this up to grab some lunch, Kitchen Bug decided he'd keep my seat warm and try to contribute a bit too...

Over to you guys... do you have a famous family recipe that you've been able to successfully recreate? Or a pet who likes to help you blog?!

Wednesday, 6 July 2011

Quick & Healthy: Stuffed Mushrooms and Polenta

This blog has moved to http://multiculturalmelbourne.com/

Multicultural Inspiration from... Italy

Another long day at work, not much left in the fridge the day before grocery day, and another quick and healthy dinner required. And to make it even harder, I'm attempting to go gluten free at the moment. So no quick bowl of pasta or cous cous for me!

Why gluten free? For reasons that are my own, I haven't been entirely kind to my body lately. And it is suffering for it. I've been feeling quick lethargic, sluggish, bloated, have put on a few kilos (which bless them, my lovely friends have been kind enough to ignore and not draw to my attention - don't worry guys, I plan on having the weight I put on off within the next 8 weeks!) and I actually have a pimple (I never ever ever get pimples - in fact, I got teased at high school for not having any!). After some of my own research, a chat to a nutritionist, and a good hard look at Leanne Vogel's blog "A Healthful Pursuit," I decided to try out a month of no alcohol and no gluten. The reported benefits of a non-gluten diet include easier digestion, less bloating, improved concentration and a decrease in sugar and fat intake. I may go into my reasons behind trying this out and why I've been so horrible to my poor body in another post, but for now, let me know you one of my first gluten free Quick & Healthy meals...

First, turn on the oven to around 220°C, and grab 5 medium sized mushrooms, take out the stalks and cut a little more flesh out of the middle, to make little holes like this:

Next, dice up some veggies - my favourites are butternut pumpkin, zucchini and eggplant, with a few cherry tomatoes thrown in too. Put them on a lined baking dish or tray, spray a little oil and sprinkle with sea salt and herbs - I like thyme for this dish. Then, into the oven while you get everything else going.

While the veggies are going, grab 2 handfuls of baby spinach and roughly chop. Put a tiny bit of spray oil in a small saucepan and add in a tablespoon of pine nuts and toast them until golden brown. Add the spinach in and cook until wilted, then throw in a little bit of lemon zest and salt and set aside.

Heat another spray of oil in a fry pan and heat the mushrooms a little on each side.

Once slightly browned, take them off the fry pan, and put a small spoon of ricotta in the holes.

Spoon a bit of the spinach mix on top of that...

... sprinkle a little parmesan cheese on top (if you want)...

... and quickly pull the oven tray out with the veggies, pop the mushrooms onto the end, turn the heat down a little, and put it back into the oven!

While I was waiting for that, I decided to quickly whip up some soft polenta, because I absolutely LOVE it! Half a cup of milk and half a cup of water into a small saucepan and bring to the boil, slowly adding the cornmeal bit by bit, whisking as you go, until it's nice and thick and yellow, trailing a little as you whisk, and coming away from the edges of the pot.

At this point, I like to throw in a small handful of grated parmesan and a pinch of salt, stir it up and spoon it onto my plate!

Out with the veggies and mushrooms, and onto the plate...

... and dig in!

The roasted veggies on the soft, creamy polenta takes me back to my childhood at my Nonna's house, and the combination of the lemon, ricotta, spinach and pine nuts are one of my favourite -the zesty, citrusy punch with the crunchy nuts and creamy ricotta is just amazing! I know it might seem a bit time consuming, contrary to my "quick" label, but if you wash as you go, it actually is quite time efficient - by the time you're ready to eat, all your dishes are done and you can just kick back and relax!

And over to you lovely readers - what are your current quick and healthy meals?

(*** NOTE: Not all of my next few posts will be gluten free, as I still have a few posts on the wait list to be blogged when I have time to write them up! But I swear, I'm not eating gluten in July!***)

Tuesday, 24 May 2011

Orange Polenta Cookies

This blog has moved to http://multiculturalmelbourne.com/

Multicultural Inspiration from... Italy

I love polenta. Being from a strong Italian background, I ate a lot of it growing up. Since moving out of home a few years ago and living with a very Australian Sous-Jeff, I'd all but forgotten about it. But a few weeks ago, I found a recipe for a polenta pizza that looked just irresistible, and decided to whip some up, like old times. Since then, I'm hooked again, and now, so is Sous-Jeff! So, while flicking through a recipe book this evening looking for a strawberry cupcake recipe (to come later in the week...), a recipe for orange polenta cookies caught my eye. I've seen various recipes for polenta cookies sooo many times, and have just never gotten around to cooking them. But tonight I'm feeling inspired. I have all the ingredients already (except an egg, which Sous-Jeff kindly picks up from his parents' house on his way home from footy training), so I figure why not?!

Eat Me! cook book provides the recipe, as follows...

85g butter, softened
140g granulated sugar
grated zest of 1 orange
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 large egg
140g plain flour
55g polenta

How it's made...

Preheat oven to 170°C and line a baking tray with baking paper.

Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

Add in the orange zest, vanilla and egg, and beat together until it resembles this:

Add the flour and polenta...

...and stir to combine, until it looks like this...

Roll up walnut-sized balls and place them on a baking tray

Flatten them slightly and sprinkle the cookies with granulated sugar.

Pop the cookies into the oven, wait 12 minutes...

...take them out of the oven, let them rest on a wire rack for 5 minutes, and enjoy!

They're a little crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside, with crunchy little bits of polenta that get stuck in your teeth, and a sweet but citrus-y punch of orange. And awfully moorish. In fact, we've already devoured half the batch. i'm going to pack the rest up to take to work tomorrow to share the cookie love!

My only regret is that I didn't make them sooner... How about you guys? What are your long time "I-must-get-around-to-making-these" recipes, and how'd they go?!