Creamy Baked Polenta

I made this to serve with the sausages and pepers that I cooked as a tribute to Marcella Hazan a few weeks back. I love polenta but hate cooking it as the long process usually involves burns from splatters of hot polenta bubbling up like a volcano and hitting my arm. This recipe, by Sara Moulton, promised to be easy!

I like easy!

The cornmeal mush known as polenta, one of the national dishes of Italy, emerged in its original form as the field ration of the Roman soldier. Although pulmentum was made of millet or spelt (cornmeal was unknown to the ancient Romans), it boasted the same versatility that we love in polenta today — you can cook it up and serve it immediately while it’s still creamy, or let it set up like a cake that can be sliced and sautéed.

Cooking polenta on the stove requires a lot of hands-on time — and not a little care. Here, it is cooked in the oven, which drastically decreases the hands-on time. The result is a delicious polenta without the burns - a win/win situation in my books.

Creamy Baked Polenta

1 cup yellow cornmeal or regular (not instant) coarse polenta
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, thinly sliced
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly milled black pepper
2 ounces provolone cheese, grated (about 1/2 cup)
2 ounces Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, finely grated (about 2/3 cup)

Preheat the oven to 350° F. Combine 4 cups water, the cornmeal, butter, salt, and pepper in a 1 1/2 quart baking dish. Bake, uncovered, on the top shelf of the oven for 40 minutes.

Remove the polenta from the oven, give it a stir, and bake for another 10 minutes. Remove it from the oven; stir in the provolone and salt and pepper to taste; let stand for 5 minutes before serving. Serve topped with Parmigiano-Reggiano.