New Technique Creates Old-Fashioned Taste For Polenta No More Constant Stirring; Just Combine Ingredients, Put It In 350-Degree Oven For Half An Hour And Stir Just Once

After spending a couple of days testing highquality shortcut polenta recipes several years ago, I’d come to the forlorn conclusion that there was no such thing. If you wanted to get deep corn flavor and perfect texture, you had to do it the old-fashioned way, which means standing and stirring for the better part of an hour.

Then Paula Wolfert called.

Wolfert, the queen of Mediterranean cookery, had been testing recipes for an upcoming book and she’d run across a new no-fuss technique for making polenta. It wasn’t fast, but it was easy - no standing over the stove. She wanted me to try it.

I was a little reluctant. My last experiments had been pretty disappointing. I’d tried cooking polenta in a double-boiler and I’d tried cooking polenta in a covered pan. I’d tried cooking polenta from different kinds of cornmeal. I’d tried sifting polenta through my fingers and shaking it from a cup. I’d tried starting it in a cold-water slurry. I’d even tried cooking quick polenta with quick (instant) polenta.

No matter what I did, nothing came close in flavor or texture to polenta made using the oldfashioned method of slowly adding dry cornmeal to boiling water, then standing and stirring until it forms a dry porridge that clumps together and pulls clean from the sides of the pan.

I figured it was the direct contact between mush and heat that made polenta good. The germ of cornmeal is sensitive to heat, and the “toasting” that comes with this direct contact is what provides the deeper flavor.

As a result, I think I’ve made polenta exactly four times in the last three years.

But Wolfert was excited about this new method, which she found in Michele Anna Jordan’s “Polenta” (Broadway Books, 1997), in which you combine polenta, cold water, butter and salt and stick it in a 350-degree oven. There is exactly one stir in the entire process.

This sounded too good to be true, but just on the off chance that it wasn’t, I ran right home to try it. I couldn’t believe the results. The flavor was deep and corny, the texture was perfectly smooth. The real deal.

Eureka.

In my view, the only shortcoming to Jordan’s recipe is the quantity. She says it will serve four to six. Maybe - as an appetizer. In the portions I prefer, I think it’s more like three or four.

So I tried doubling the recipe to feed more people. After 40 minutes, all I had was water with a cornmeal sludge on the bottom. I stirred it anyway and returned it to the oven for 15 minutes. Then another 15, then another 15. Finally, after about 1-1/2 hours, the polenta came together.

My best guess is that doubling the amount of water increased the amount of time necessary for it to come to an effective temperature. The good news is that the flavor and texture were still perfect at the end and that all of that stirring was unnecessary. When I tried it again, I stirred it only once and everything was fine.

To speed things up, Los Angeles Times Test Kitchen Director Donna Deane suggested bringing the ingredients to a boil on top of the stove before sticking them in the oven. It worked. But oddly, even after cooking to a very stiff texture (about 45 minutes), the flavor still hadn’t deepened the way the other batch did.

This I’m still trying to puzzle out. But at least while I’m thinking, I’m eating a lot of polenta.

Jordan’s polenta is so good it could be served by itself, with only a little butter and grated Parmigiano-Reggiano beaten in at the last minute, maybe.

But I find polenta is a wonderful sponge to serve under juicy stews, or ragus, like this one I came up with using spareribs. For feeding a crowd, add whole sausages for the last 20 minutes of cooking.

With the left over sauce, serve it the next day with some lightly buttered boiled noodles.

Ragu With Soft Polenta

2 tablespoons olive oil

6 meaty pork spareribs (sometimes called country-style)

Salt, pepper

3 Italian sausages

2 onions, diced

2 carrots, diced

1 stalk celery, diced

4 cloves garlic, minced

2 teaspoons minced rosemary

1 cup dry red wine

1 (28-ounce) can crushed tomatoes

1/4 cup tomato paste

Soft polenta (recipe follows)

Heat olive oil in bottom of Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Season spareribs with salt and pepper to taste. When oil is hot, almost smoking, add spareribs to pot and brown quickly on all sides, about 15 minutes.

Leave spareribs in pan and crumble sausages over top. Reduce heat to medium, stir and cook until sausage is no longer raw, about 5 minutes.

Add onions, carrots and celery to pan and cook, stirring until lightly brown, about 5 more minutes. Add garlic and rosemary and cook until fragrant, 2 to 3 minutes. Pour wine over top, increase heat to high and cook until wine reduces, about 5 minutes.

Add tomatoes and tomato paste. Stir to combine well, cover and bake at 300 degrees until pork is fork-tender, about 2 hours.

To serve, spoon polenta into each of 6 warmed shallow pasta bowls. Place one rib on each and spoon ragu over top. Garnish with parsley. Serve immediately.

Yield: 6 servings.

Nutrition information per serving: 623 calories, 82 milligrams cholesterol, 35 grams fat (51 percent fat calories), 50 grams carbohydrate, 21 grams protein, 1,327 milligrams sodium.

Soft Polenta

From “Polenta,” by Michele Anna Jordan (Broadway Books, 1997).

2 quarts water

2 teaspoons salt

2 cups coarse-ground cornmeal

2 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons minced parsley

Combine water, salt, cornmeal and butter in 3- to 4-quart oven-proof saucepan. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour 20 minutes. Stir polenta and bake 10 more minutes. Remove from oven and set aside 5 minutes to rest before serving.