Polenta Roll
Makes 2 large Rolls, Preparation Time 60 minutes
Our Polenta Roll is an easily made type of bread. Polenta is an Italian dish of boiled cornmeal, simply cornmeal simmered in liquid and stirred, and served either as hot porridge or cooled to form a solid like the Polenta Roll we are making. It can be baked, fried, grilled, or as sliced and eaten like any other loaf of bread.
Our Polenta Roll was made for our Christmas dinner party. We like to serve the Polenta as a party appetizer or hors d’oeuvres, with a smear of hot pepper jam on each slice. To enrich the experience, we also included herbs, sun dried tomatoes and olives to roll. Give it a try. Buon appetito!
Base Ingredients
- 2 cups (500 g) coarse or fine ground corn meal
- 2 teaspoon salt
- 6 to 8 cups water, Adjust water depending on the fineness of your corn meal, which ranges from a fine to coarse grind. Start with 6 cups water for finer grinds and add more water accordingly.
Optional Ingredients
Choose one or more of the following options:
- Use vegetable broth instead of water
- 20 sun dried tomatoes, chopped finely
- 2 clove garlic, minced or ½ teaspoon of dried granulated garlic
- 2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
- ½ cup Nutritional Yeast
- 3 tablespoons almond or other nut butter
- herbs, for example 1 tablespoon of dried basil and 1 teaspoon of dried oregano to create an Italian seasoning
- dried fruit
- Dried chili flakes or hot sauce
- Stir & Simmer: In a medium-size pot, add the water, salt, and cornmeal. Stir with a whisk to incorporate and remove lumps. Add in the extra ingredients of your choice. Turn on the heat to medium-high and bring the mixture to a boil. Reduce heat to a low simmer. Stir frequently using a spatula or a wooden spoon to scrape the sides and bottom of the pot. Be careful because the hot mixture sputters as it cooks. As it thickens, stir more frequently and adjust heat so the polenta slowly simmers. We don't want rolling boil because the cornmeal with more likely will burn to the bottom of the pot. Depending on your cornmeal it may take between 10 and 40 minutes. Cook your polenta until the ground corn is tender and it pulls away easily from the sides of the pot. The mixture will be like thick mashed potatoes and a wooden spoon will stand upright for a second or more.
- Once cooked remove your polenta from the heat and allow cooling for 15 to 30 minutes. You want to be able to handle the dough by hand without burning yourself.
- While you cornmeal dough is still warm form into the shape you wish to see. You can even press into a mould. In case we wanted rolls. We opened a large sheet of parchment paper, moulded the dough into a cylinder, then wrapped the cylinder in parchment paper and rolled the cylinder on the kitchen counter top to smooth out the shape.
- Allow your Polenta Roll to cool for 30 minutes or more at room temperature then refrigerate for at least 3 hours or overnight. For best results an overnight rest is best.
- To serve unwrap your roll from the parchment paper and cut into thick slices. We recommend at least ½ inch (1.5 cm). Like any other sliced bread you can serve with an accompanying spread or jam.
For quicker a result use "Polenta Instantanea", known as precooked corn flour. When we used precooked corn flour for our Polenta Roll, we needed only 6 cups of liquid and the cooking time was reduce 2 minutes before.
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