recipe: poisson de polenta
Corn meal mash is one of those seeming universal recipes that any culture discovering corn meal decided to make a variety of. The Italians have some of the most well known polenta recipes, many of which are stewed, chilled, rolled and then fried, but what you may not know is grits in the south are nothing more than the American variant of polenta. Add a little cheese, or some fish, or a pork product or eggs or a variant of salsa, honey, molasses, herbs, etc and you can take this from breakfast or desert treat and turn it into a wonderful savory or sweet dish. French have been doing both and you’ll find a lot of Delta variants not under the polenta name to draw from with an open mind. My first exposure to this was seared cheese grits with a prawn etouffee topping (fan-freakin-tastic, it was the fried version of grits with a butter-garlic and alligator-andoullie egg side-dish, argh, I’ll have to share that recipe another time… as I drool over my keyboard now). You can do great things with grits and these are some special grits…
onion
bell pepper
celery
garlic
cayenne pepper
black pepper
butter
corn meal
water (or veggie stock) *
bay leaf
rosemary
black pepper
house seasoning
cilantro
fish fillet **
chicory or collard (or other dark leafy green) ***
butter
Dice the onion, bell pepper, celery, garlic
Saute the veggies over low heat until the flavors begin to meld and they begin to brown
Add the stock (will be a 4:1 stock to corn, or as low as 2:1 for a thicker, heavier recipe – increase the corn meal slightly if using straight water in the ratio), dried rosemary, bay, bring up to a boil
Add the corn meal at the boil and bring to a simmer
Add the cayenne pepper, black pepper and allow to steep for 15-20 minutes, be sure to check on the liquid level to ensure the proper viscosity
** If serving with fish fillet, season both sides of the fillet with house seasoning, place over the fillets over the polenta to steam while cooking
*** If serving the dark leafy greens fresh, place the leaves above the fish fillets at the same time over the polenta to steam while cooking, you can use frozen and integrate it into the polenta, you can add them under the fish.
Once the whole thing is finished cooking, place the greens on the side (drench in ice water to retain the green leaves if necessary)
Remove the fish fillets to set
Place leaves of greens on the bottom of a bowl
Pour the polenta into the bowl
Set the fish fillets over the polenta
Garnish with sprigs of the greens and the cilantro
Serve with hot sauce, i suggest Crystal in this case
You can fry the polenta in this case, it’ll be just as good as the sausy dish, simply let your mash cool in the fridge to a thick pasty texture, roll out on a board using wax paper or your rolling skills, till you have a 1 inch or so log, cut about 1/2 to 1 inch patties out of it, preheat your cast iron skillet till just below smoking, drop each patty on the skillet for 1/2 to 2 minutes depending on your preference of doneness and reserve with above assets, a completely different treat and just as splendid. A really nice variant on this is to include the collard or chicory inside the polenta, which will be even that much richer a flavor. Also, with the fried version, you can do more sauce wise to go with it… so have fun!
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