Wednesday 7 May 2014

Post Week

Post Week

I've learnt I love polenta. I love its texture and its ability to take on flavours. I find it's a perfect accompaniment for so many dishes, especially those which come in red! It's great smooth and it's great when it's solidified.

I followed Chef John's instructions on the cooking of polenta. That's another thing I love, Chef John!! I've been following him on youtube for quite some time and always look forward to a new video! <3 Chef John. He's informative, inspiring and has a terrible sense of humour! Ticks all the boxes for me!

So with this polenta I made various red sauces. Some from tomato and some from Capsicum (Bell Pepper). Capsicum being a treat as it is quite expensive!

  • I cooked 3 cheap sausages, then chopped them up and cooked them a little more to crisp them on all sides, while reserving 1/2 a sausage to cool down for my mini foxy Jasper!
  •  When the sausages are well done I turned the stove to low and added in some onion and a pinch of salt (to help sweat the onion) 
  • Once onion is nicely sweated I add in 2 cloves of finely diced garlic, 1tsp cumin powder, 1 tsp coriander powder, 2tsp freshly ground black pepper,  1tsp garlic powder (depends on strength of brand) pinch of dried thyme and a pinch of mixed dried herbs and cook till fragrant.

At this stage the sauce may vary from a tomato based to a capsicum based one. For tomato;

  • Add 1/2 tsp minced garlic, 1tsp minced chilli, 1tsp tomato paste. mix thoroughly. Cook till paste takes on a semi sweet smell. (5 to 10 mins)
  • Add in 1 can of chopped tomatos (I like cans of whole tomatos that I chop myself for more flavour) mix well and adjust seasoning to taste.
  • Cook down till wateryness is gone.
  • server over polenta.
  • mmm Polenta.

For a capsicum based red sauce things get a little trickier. Roasted capsicums are much nicer than fried ones in these sorts of dishes as they give another level of "heartiness", a slightly smokey, sweeter flavour to the sauces. So firstly one must prepare the capsicums. Since I have a gas stove I followed these instructions by Laura Vitale, till she cut them up, then I went off on my own and my instructions are as follows;

 The roasting of a capsicum

After having just added your spices to the dry pan you must now make the sauce and that begins with a salsa.
  
Salsa pre-stickblender
  • Chop up 2 roasted capsicums, 1 small finely diced onion, 1 stock cube, 1tsp freshly ground black pepper and using a stick blender, blend till smaller chunks. Taste and adjust for seasoning.
  • Add to pan and cook till wateryness is gone
  • serve over polenta what i did was mix in some boiled then panfried and crisped-up potato cubes! om nom nom!

  
Capsicum, sausage and potatoes. It may not look pretty but it certainly tasted it!

Sausages in a tomato based sauce on creamy polenta.

With the left over polenta, the next night I made pan fried polenta. Once it has solidified, as all polentas will it is easily sliced. then i coated it in flour
Polenta cut and floured.

Then to pan fry, I spray then pan with cooking spray and fried them, never looking away! and they did fall apart, but ohh how I did love them!
And to serve I made a red sauce with the sausages as above although instead of the capsicum or tomato recipes, I added 1/2 a jar of salsa that needed to be used and it all turned out rather well! i was quite pleased and I'm looking forward to my next polenta adventures!

Pan fried polenta with sausage and salsa!

I also made a Croque Monsieur which was really rather nice! My husband did indeed quite like it! 

1 comment:

  1. I think the capsicum, sausage and potatoes looks delicious. Can't wait to try it.

    ReplyDelete