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Polenta and Cheese
Stir into some boiling water enough polenta, adding a little salt; then move the saucepan to the side of the fire and boil until done, say from fifteen to twenty minutes. Pour into a basin and let it cool; then turn out of the basin, cut it into slices, trimming them to one size; butter a pie-dish and place the polenta in, in layers with grated cheese, salt and a little cayenne strewn over each layer. Sprinkle the cheese, liberally over the top, and put the dish in a quick oven until nicely browned on top and serve while hot in the dish it is cooked in.
Polenta Timbale, Milanese Place three pints of salted water in a saucepan on the fire and when boiling remove to the side, scatter in one pound of polenta, simmer it gently until it becomes quite thick, then add a little butter and stir thoroughly. Pour it into a well-buttered timbale mould and let it cool for four or five hours; next turn the loaf of polenta out of the mould, wipe the mould inside and again butter it, sprinkle in a few sifted breadcrumbs and replace the loaf in the mould; cut out a round from the flat portion and scoop out some of the inside, leaving about half an inch in thickness all over; cut into slices a couple of blanched sweetbreads, sprinkle over them a little salt and pepper and place them in a saucepan with a little warm butter and fry until the meat is set; next pour over a cupful of white wine and add to this twelve mushrooms cut into quarters and eight ounces of lean ham or bacon cut into small pieces; place the lid on the pan and reduce the liquor quickly to a glaze; pour in a little Spanish sauce and a few tablespoonfuls of tomato sauce mixed in with it and add two dozen small veal quenelles which have been rolled in flour and poached. Pass this preparation through into the hollow of the loaf of polenta and cover over the top with the piece which was cut off, fastening it on with a little forcemeat or a little of the liquid polenta; spread some butter over the top, place the mould in the oven and let it remain there for nearly one hour, then turn it out onto a dish; loosen it by pushing a knife between the loaf and the mould, and it is then ready to be served with a garnish of potato croquettes.
Two recipes run together here: a simple layered polenta gratin, and the elaborate Milanese timbale that Oscar's kitchen would have sent out as a formal entrée. Both depend on getting the polenta stiff enough to slice, which is the part the original treats most casually.
- The hinge: a stiff, fully cooked polentaEverything else fails if the polenta is loose or grainy. The Milanese recipe's own proportion, three pints of water to a pound of meal, works out at about 2 parts water to 1 part coarse cornmeal by volume; anything looser than about 3 to 1 will not set firm enough to unmould and slice. Add the meal in a thin stream while whisking so it does not lump.
- "Fifteen to twenty minutes" is shortThat timing suits a fine meal or a par-cooked product. Coarse stone-ground polenta needs 40 to 45 minutes at a bare simmer, stirred often, before the starch is fully hydrated and the raw-corn taste has gone. Instant polenta will be done in about 5 minutes.
- "Move to the side of the fire"On a coal range this meant off the hottest plate, to a gentle heat. On a modern hob it is the lowest setting, or a heat diffuser; polenta at a rolling boil spits and scorches on the bottom.
- Oven temperaturesA quick oven for the browned gratin is about 400 to 425F (200 to 220C). The filled timbale, which needs nearly an hour to heat through without drying, is better in a moderate oven of 350F (175C).
- Quantities and yieldOne pound of cornmeal to three pints of water gives a substantial loaf: the timbale serves eight to ten as a course. The first recipe gives no quantity at all; 1 1/2 cups cornmeal to about 4 1/2 cups water fills a 9-inch pie dish and serves four to six.
- The cheeseUnspecified. Parmesan is the likeliest reading of a grated cheese strewn in layers. Fontina or a young Asiago melts more readily if you want the layers to bind rather than simply season.
- Spanish sauceSauce espagnole, the brown mother sauce built on a dark roux and veal stock, a standing preparation in grand hotel kitchens of the period. A well-reduced brown veal stock or a good demi-glace stands in for it.
- Sweetbreads and quenellesBlanched sweetbreads means soaked in several changes of cold water, then simmered briefly, cooled under a weight, and the membrane peeled. Order them ahead. The veal quenelles are small dumplings of pounded veal forcemeat, poached before they go into the filling; a fine veal or chicken mousseline piped into quenelles does the same work.
- Setting and unmouldingFour or five hours in a cool place is not excessive: the loaf must be cold and solid to survive being hollowed out. A plain charlotte mould or a straight-sided souffle dish serves as the timbale mould. Butter and breadcrumbs on the second buttering are what let it release.
Polenta is the northern Italian descendant of Roman puls, the boiled grain porridge that fed the peninsula long before maize arrived from the Americas in the sixteenth century and gradually took the place of millet, spelt and chestnut flour. By the time this book was compiled at the Waldorf around 1896, polenta had two lives in a grand hotel kitchen: as the cheap, filling staple of the Po valley, and as the base for the sort of dressed-up timballo served here, in which a cold loaf is hollowed out and filled with sweetbreads, mushrooms, ham and quenelles bound in espagnole. That construction is squarely in the tradition of Milanese timballi, and the pairing of a peasant grain with sweetbreads and veal forcemeat shows how the classical French kitchen of the period absorbed regional Italian dishes: the name and the grain stayed, the filling and the sauces came from Careme's line of descent.