The recent Jamie Does… series has thrown up some delicious recipes. This cornmeal cake, from his Athens trip, is light, fluffy and stuffed with gooey honey. If I had one criticism, there’s not quite enough honey. I’d up it to 150ml next time. The flavours are still there though, it’s great for sharing. It also lasts for days with no noticeable drying out. Result!
Honey and pistachio cake:
225g caster sugar
75g ground almonds
150g plain flour
200g semolina / cornmeal / fine polenta
1 teaspoon baking powder
Pinch of salt
Zest of 1 lemon
Zest of 1 orange
225g Greek yoghurt
5 eggs
200ml olive oil
150g pistachios
100ml honey
Juice of 1 lemon
Juice of 1 orange
Preheat the oven to 180°C.
Combine the sugar, almonds, flour, cornmeal, baking powder in a bowl. Add the eggs, zest, yoghurt and oil and stir well until you have a thick, gloopy batter.
Pour this into a lined baking dish or cake tin (it will be quite large), or drizzle with oil and dust with cornmeal as an alternative lining. Bake for 30 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean. Leave to cool for 1 hour.
In a dry frying pan toast the pistachios, lightly crushing them with a wooden spoon. Pour in the honey and juices and get everything fluid. Pierce the top of the cake many times with a knife and pour the honey nut mixture all over. Serve in wedges with more Greek yoghurt and some sliced strawberries.
My poor snap is a billion times worse than the one in Ottolenghi’s new book, Plenty. I didn’t trust my polenta to keep still on a wooden board though. This is mighty good, powerful in flavour and the mushrooms give it a real meaty presence. The original calls for a whole bunch o’ mixed mushrooms, but to save foraging and potential fungal-induced death I used good old chestnut mushrooms supplemented with a jar of Sacla antipasto mushrooms. This takes a lot of graft out of it (not that it was difficult in the first place) however the pickled flavours can unbalance the seasoning, so taste well. Otherwise feel free to use any mushrooms you can find for an interesting mouthful.
Adapted from a recipe by Yotam Ottolenghi
Mushroom and herb polenta (serves 2):
500ml vegetable stock
80g polenta
2 tablespoons rosemary, chopped
2 tablespoons thyme, chopped
50g butter, melted
50g parmesan, grated
200g chestnut mushrooms
200g jar antipasto mushrooms
1 clove garlic, grated
1 tablespoon truffle oil
100g comté, grated
Get some oil heated in a pan and begin frying the chestnut mushrooms. Don’t move them too much, let them colour. Let them cook down for about ten minutes, until they have some give when prodded.
Get the grill on hot while you make the polenta. Bring the stock to the boil and whisk in the polenta in a steady stream. Keep whisking until the polenta starts to come away from the edge of the pan. If you’re using old-school polenta this will take a ruddy lifetime. Use the quick-cook stuff and it will take about 3 minutes.
Take the polenta off the heat and beat in the parmesan, butter and half the herbs. Spread into a baking dish into an even layer and pop under the grill for a minute. Let’s return to the mushrooms.
Add the garlic, fry for a minute and then add the remaining herbs and mushrooms. Give it a good stir to warm everything through and taste for seasoning. Add the truffle oil. Get the polenta out, pour the mushrooms on top and grate a thin layer of comté over. Return to the grill and cook for another minute or two until the cheese bubbles.
Not much of a recipe here – cubed halloumi basted with egg, then turned in fine polenta, fried golden – but just yummy. You feel like you could eat a mountain of them. It turns out you get enormously stuffed after three.
Merchant Gourmet have recently been kind enough to send me some of their instant polenta. It’s got a rapid cooking time so you don’t have to spend 45 minutes beating a volcanic pot of yellow. The freebie came with a caveat however; come up with an interesting recipe for them.
I originally thought of crumbing halloumi cubes and frying them, but it didn’t seem inventive enough. I then went through a lasagne-style tower with polenta substituting for the pasta, but struggled to think of a timely way to retain the shape while melting the mozzarella. I then hit on keeping the mince but forming it into patties and making über-cute sliders instead; mini-burgers that are currently all the rage.
To make a nice neat slider the size of it all comes down to your mozzarella. Whatever width slices you can carve out of your cheese, make your mince and polenta rounds roughly the same size.
The great thing about this recipe is you can adapt the mince part to your taste and whatever you have in the cupboard. I’ve gone for an Italian-style flavouring to reinforce the heritage of polenta. A slice of tomato works well in there too, providing sweet juiciness. Give them a try!
Polenta sliders (makes 8 sliders):
50g quick-cook polenta
200ml beef stock plus a couple of extra tablespoons
2 tablespoons grated parmesan
400g beef mince
1 tablespoon tomato puree
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 tablespoon breadcrumbs
1 garlic clove, grated
1 tablespoon olive oil
150g ball mozzarella, cut into 8 thick slices
Green salad, to serve
Preheat the grill to high.
To make the polenta, bring 200ml beef stock to the boil and slowly pour in the polenta, whisking all the time. Turn the heat down low and continue to stir for another 2 minutes. Spread on to a baking sheet to a thickness of about 5mm. Sprinkle with parmesan and pop under the grill. Keep an eye on it while you make the burgers – you are looking for it to form a crisp crust.
Combine the beef, puree, oregano, breadcrumbs and garlic in a bowl and season well. Form into golf-ball sized chunks and flatten to form patties (you may find it easy to do this with damp hands, it prevents the meat from sticking).
Heat the oil in a large pan over a medium heat and fry the burgers for 3 minutes on each side (this will cook them medium-rare, cook slightly longer if you prefer). As they finish spoon over a little leftover beef stock to keep them moist.
Your polenta should be out of the grill now; put this to one side. Top the burgers with a slice of mozzarella and pop them under the grill so the mozzarella just starts to melt (this should only take a minute).
Cut out rounds of polenta to roughly the same size as your meat (I used a circular pastry cutter). Put a slice of polenta on the plate, meat & cheese on that, and top with a final slice of polenta. Serve with a green salad.
