Hot-and-Cold “Double Corn” Polenta

serves 4

This recipe is a good way to use leftover corn on the cob and other vegetables lurking in your fridge. The contrast of the cold, tart yogurt with the hot, sweet polenta is what makes this dish.

1 cup polenta (I like “Corn Grits” from Bob’s Red Mill)
3 ½ cups water
1 cup milk
1 clove garlic, pressed
4oz grated cheese (I used 2oz Havarti and 2oz Romano)
1 cup plain yogurt
fresh herbs (mint and chives are good choices), minced
cooked on-the-cob corn, cut from 4 ears
mixed vegetables for roasting*
oil
hot sauce
pepper
salt



Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

In a large saucepan, bring the water, milk, and garlic to a boil. Stir in the polenta. When the polenta comes back to a simmer, reduce heat to very low and cook, partially covered, stirring often.

In a roasting pan, toss the vegetables (except for the corn) in a couple tablespoons of oil and sprinkle generously with salt. In a separate roasting pan, toss the corn with a couple teaspoons of oil or a bit of butter and some salt. Put both pans into the oven. After 15 minutes, toss contents of both pans to help with even cooking.

Remove vegetables from oven when tender and slightly browned but still colorful and moist – about 30 minutes. Corn may be done before other vegetables. If so, remove!

Stir the corn into the polenta. Add freshly ground black pepper and hot sauce to taste. Be careful with the salt, as the cheese garnish is salty. Stir the herbs into the yogurt. Place some vegetables, some polenta, and a small dollop of yogurt onto each plate. Sprinkle a little cheese over the polenta and serve.

Put the remaining yogurt and the grated cheese in bowls on the table for diners, with serving spoons.



* I used 1 very large red Italian / Cubanelle style pepper, cut into rings; 6 oz mushrooms, cut into quarters (if small) or large pieces; 4 cloves garlic, peeled; ½ red onion, in 1” chunks; ½ Vidalia onion, in 1” chunks. Zucchini would have been good too, maybe added part way through cooking.

What Wine Should Do for Us

2007 Grüner Veltliner “Wachtberg,” Salomon (Kremstal)



You revisit the beloved and find more there then you expected or even hoped. It is a subtle experience that happens over time. It is not at all like being “hit over the head,” except maybe retrospectively, when you suspect that you have been changed in some felicitous way.

Generally speaking, I observe, across my most satisfying weekend evenings with a bottle of wine, that they were European wines. Of course there are many exceptions. Names provided upon request. But I stand by my statement. Tonight Steph and I opened a bottle that at first seemed very pretty and fresh and summery, but not remarkable. It would never have made it past the first round in a rash tasting. The more time we spent with it the more clear it became that there was something special happening. It never stopped being pretty and fresh, but the variations and the length and the depth just kept increasing. Initially there was a clean, light, “laundry on the line” quality to the wine, with some minerality and crispness but no austerity. As it opened up, the intensity of its stony finish built. In the nose there was honeysuckle and new hay and lemon zest and fennel. This was a joy, but as with all seriously good wines it was the balance that made it all work: Tart, but not sour; ripe, but not sugary; edgy, but not cutting. Still more qualities and more depth emerged – a thickness of texture, a succulence and a near-oriental strangeness that surprised. Cardamom and lovage and a cascade of wet stone smells, like clean littlenecks pouring out of the wire bushel basket into which they were harvested just an hour ago.

A great wine always under-plays its hand. Then, briefly, it doesn’t. The veil drops away and there is neither discretion nor subtlety. Next the veil is back, mystery enhanced rather than diminished by a momentary thrilling disclosure.