Dinner: Polenta Pizza

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The other day, I was alerted to Otto, a Notting Hill restaurant selling pizza made with polenta bases. This I am very curious about. Still feeling inspired from my trip to Italy, and full of enthusiasm for my recent discovery of polenta itself, I was moved to attempt to make a polenta pizza of my own.

Here it is, topped with grilled vegetables, plum tomatoes, spinach rosemary, basil and mushroom. I mixed some rosemary into the polenta mix whilst I was making the base, but I think next time I will put in a bit more, and some Parmesan too, to give it a bit more flavour.

The nice thing about using a polenta base is it's a lot lighter than a traditional dough base, and goes all crispy round the edges. You don't need the tomato sauce either, which I could never get to taste right, and can make them a bit rich.

I'm definately going to do this again soon. Next time, I think I'll do Gorgonzola, spinach and toasted walnuts. Any suggestions for something else I could try..? Can I bring myself to move away from the polenta/girolles mushroom combination..?

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The Last Supper

With Helena off to Switzerland and me off to Italy, we decided to have a Last Supper before we we are to be reunited in Vienna (Little jet setters that we are...)
It was a fairly rustic supper of warming, almost autumnal dishes, heavy with root vegetables, mushrooms and seasonal produce- but with the English climate as it currently is, I think we got away with it.

As a starter, we had pan fried polenta with girolles mushroom. This course was of particular excitement to me. I had been working on a Foraging article at Food and Travel Magazine and had been attracted to the deep yellow and ribbed girolles.

I have also been reading a lot recently about polenta (I had acquired a lovely hard back copy of River Cafe from a charity shop and have spent a lot of time looking into the cuisine for my impending Italy trip.) Amazingly, I have never had it before. And, like scallops were my discovery of 2009, polenta is definitely my discovery of 201o. I feel this may be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Roast butternut squash wedges with mixed roast nuts and a burnt aubergine and tahini dip, on the side.

This dish made us feel a little bit like we were in a wood cabin in the forest in Europe... Roast pheasant with a fennel puree.

My favourite!! I will follow this with a recipe as it's so simple and lovely and easy to do. Coffee cup cheesecake with a home made cherry brandy compote. Delightful, I think is the best word for this.

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Orange and Polenta Cake

I think this is one of the best cake recipes I have ever found. Run, don't walk to the Ottolenghi cookbook to make this orange and polenta cake with a caramel topping and a marmalade glaze. The polenta gives it a wonderful consistency and the addition of orange blossom water (from any good Lebanese store) gives it a lovely perfumed feel. It looks absolutely beautiful too. Making the caramel was hard at first but once you've cracked it it should be easy to do again and again. I paired it with a strawberry and elderflower sorbet which brought out the flavours and colours really well.


Recipe courtesy of Aaron, my Ottolenghi loving friend.

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