November 23, 2008: Cornmeal Crunch

Though I revile them inward their raw state, I dear love love caramelised onions. They're all it took to stimulate got me bookmarking Heidi Swanson's cornmeal crunch recipe a yoke of weeks ago, in addition to to ready it for Dominicus lunch. Sweet melting onions aside, I'm unsure whether this turned out quite equally Heidi intended. The the United States of America seems to offering a broad multifariousness of cornmeal - fine or coarse, steel or rock ground, yellow, white or fifty-fifty blue! Here all I readily meet is polenta. Thankfully my polenta seemed to become through the textural changes that Heidi described inward her recipe, thus my rendition may live on a worthy imitation.

I was pessimistic almost this modest amount of parmesan translating whatever cheesy flavor to the concluding dish, but it did fine; genuinely it was the onions that tended to disappear into the mix. Nevertheless the consequence is real pleasing indeed, specially alongside or thus babe spinach leaves in addition to baked asparagus spears on the side. It's a piddling heavier than I expected, in addition to I'll conception to add together smaller chunks of it to a salad or soak upward a soup alongside it adjacent time. The solely argue that 'next time' isn't this evening is that this recipe takes patience - teach started good earlier your stomach's grumbling for service!

Cornmeal Crunch
(from 101 Cookbooks)

1 1/2 cups cornmeal/polenta
pinch of salt
3 medium onions, chopped
olive oil
1/2 loving cup parmesan cheese, grated
3 cups H2O or vege stock (I added a vegetable stock cube to my water)

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C. Grease a baking or pie dish.

In a medium bowl, stir together the cornmeal, tabular array salt in addition to 1 1/2 cups of H2O in addition to laid them aside.

Splash or thus olive crude oil into a frying pan on high heat, in addition to thus add together the onions. Stir occasionally to forestall the onions from sticking to the bottom - you'll take away to stir increasingly oftentimes equally they brown. Continue until they're collapsing into a sugariness mush, this took me at to the lowest degree 10 minutes, in addition to in all probability 20. Take them off the oestrus when they're done.

Pour 1 1/2 cups of H2O into a saucepan in addition to choose it to the boil (this is when I added my stock cube). Add the cornmeal mush, choose it dorsum upward to the boil, in addition to stir regularly for almost five minutes. Heidi says that y'all desire a texture 'thicker than a heavy frosting'. Take it off the oestrus when it's ready, in addition to stir inward the cheese in addition to ii thirds of the onions. Pour the cornmeal into your baking dish, smoothing over the top, a drizzle over a piddling to a greater extent than olive oil.

Bake the cornmeal until the edges are golden in addition to they describe away from the side of the dish a bit. It'll stimulate got almost 45 minutes. When it's done, spell it upward in addition to sprinkle it alongside the remaining onions.