Mushroom & Sausage Polenta
Polenta is one of the classic Italian mountain meals. It’s the kind of meal that warms your soul and makes you sleepy. Polenta has been around for a very long time and there are several different variants. Nowadays, the most common one is made of yellow maize.
The name polenta comes from the latin word puls which was a thick soup made of spelt and was very common in the ancient Roman diet. In Greece they had something similar made of barley. Buckwheat, rye and millet were also common alternatives. The actual yellow polenta as we know it was only introduced after America was discovered and maize was introduced in Europe.
Traditionally polenta has a very long cooking time. You bring salted water to boil in a big copper pot and you add in the polenta and cook it for an hour stirring continuously with a hazel wooden stick.
No need to buy a copper pot or a hazel stick for this recipe, just make sure you buy instant polenta which will be ready in just over 10 minutes.
Ingredients
For the sauce
600g Italian Sausages
1 onion
1 carrot
1 stalk of celery
Olive oil (enough to cover the bottom of your pan)
1 small glass of red wine
600g tomato passata
20g dry porcini
Reserve 100ml of the porcini liquid
1 tbsp tomato paste
Salt & pepper
For the Polenta
250g polenta
1l of water (check the instruction of how to cook your polenta on the back of the pack)
Step by Step
Soak your porcini in boiling water for 20min. Remember to keep 100ml of the soaking liquid once you are done
Prepare your soffritto base by chopping the onion, celery and carrot in tiny pieces
Add oil in a deep pan and when it’s warm sauté your soffritto until the veggies become transparent (around 8min)
In the meantime, cut in half your sausages and get rid of the casings
Add the meat in the pan with the soffritto and let it brown for a few minutes
Add your glass of wine in the pan and put the heat up until the alcohol evaporates
Add in your tomato paste and passata. Through in your porcini in the pan too along with 100ml of the soaking liquid. Mix everything, season and bring it to boil
Once it starts boiling, turn the heat down, cover with a lid and let it slow cook for a couple of hours. Don’t forget to stir it frequently. Remember to check the seasoning again towards the end
Read you polenta instructions and bring the right amount of water to boil (my pack said 250g of polenta for 1 litre of water)
Your fast polenta should be ready very quickly. Scoop it on a plate and cover with the porcini and sausage sauce
Enjoy!
Tips & cheats
If you don’t want to cook your sauce for two hours you can avoid adding the 100ml of soaking liquid. In this way your sauce will be ready more quickly.
This sauce is incredible with pasta too. If I were you, I’d make a double batch so I could have it next day with tagliatelle or any thick fresh pasta.
