Polenta with sautéed vegetables

I bring you the recipe for making polenta at home with a side that goes beautifully with it and is as tempting as can be: vegetables and Parmesan. A well-rounded dish that you can make quickly any day of the week.

With the awful cold we’ve been having this February... And I’m only thinking about spring! All I want now is to make little things that bring me the longed-for most beautiful, bright, and colorful season of the year! That’s why I thought of this recipe, which is anything but complicated but definitely full of flavor!

A delicious polenta served with a ragout of the vegetables that are most springlike and that we can find in our markets... Some peas, some fresh broad beans, and some sautéed green asparagus. Mmmm, irresistible!

Polenta is a traditional Italian cornmeal with which we can prepare lots of dishes, accompanied of course by seeds and aromatic herbs. In addition, its gluten-free nature makes it a very interesting dish for people with celiac disease and gluten intolerance.

We can find polenta on the market as instant or precooked flour, but also as regular-cook polenta. The latter takes 25 minutes to cook and is harder to find in our country. Today I used the first kind, since that’s what I had on hand and it also saves time without losing any properties.... Although I have to admit that regular-cook polenta is delicious!

Since for this recipe we want a purée-style polenta, we’ll use three parts liquid (water or stock) to one part flour; I especially recommend following the manufacturer’s instructions! But you can make this same recipe with just two parts liquid and get a perfect polenta base, which, if pan-fried on both sides, would be crispy on the outside and tender on the inside, and you could serve it as a pizza base and spoon the vegetables on top! Let your imagination run wild! *Recipe adapted from Valentina Hortus.

Porcelain bowl Fleur de Ligne Tokyo Design Studio and Le Creuset ceramic mini cocottes.

Ingredients

For the polenta:

• One small glass of instant polenta
• Three small glasses of water or stock
• Seed mix (chia, sesame, sunflower seeds..)
• Salt to taste
• 1 teaspoon of extra virgin olive oil
• 3 tablespoons of grated Parmesan (good quality)

For the vegetable ragout:

• extra virgin olive oil
• ½ very finely chopped onion
• One chopped garlic clove
• 200gr fresh peas (if you don’t have them, frozen ones, but the mini ones)
• 200gr seasonal broad beans (if not, frozen ones, but baby ones)
• A bunch of thin green asparagus
• 150ml stock (vegetable or chicken)
• Salt and pepper to taste

Method

1. Let’s start by preparing the vegetables. In a frying pan or shallow saucepan, add the olive oil, and over medium heat sauté the onion and garlic for a few minutes until translucent.
2. Add the peas, broad beans, and asparagus, cook for a couple of minutes, and pour in the stock.
3. It will be ready in about 10 minutes, or when we see that the vegetables are tender and everything is juicy but not soupy.
4. Add the salt and pepper and set aside.
5. Now let’s make the polenta. We want a creamy texture, because it quickly absorbs the liquid and becomes dense, so it needs to be served as soon as it’s made. In a pot casserole pour in the water or stock, depending on what we want to use, and once it’s just about to boil, with bubbles forming on the bottom but not actually boiling, add the right amount of polenta. Stir well to prevent lumps from forming and add the seeds, olive oil, salt, stir, and add the grated Parmesan or in shavings. We want it to be creamy, so in 3-5 minutes (depending on the brand) it will be ready.
6. Serve immediately and top with our vegetables right away (in my case I serve them in the Le Creuset mini cocottes, but you can also use deep plates, soup bowls or bowls).
7. Top with a good drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, and to the table with a little more Parmesan on top!

Porcelain bowl Fleur de Ligne Tokyo Design Studio, Le Creuset ceramic mini cocottes and skillet skillet Le Creuset.