Creamy orange corn polenta with gorgonzola cheese, roasted mushrooms, shallots, and a sprinkling of sun-dried tomatoes is the perfect winter dish. We love Professor Torbert’s Orange Corn products and the Polenta Grind Grits are perfect in this dish!
This dish comes together very quickly once you start cooking the polenta. If you want a creamy polenta, the trick is to add the corn meal slowly, stirring often, until you arrive at the texture and consistency you want. You can always add a little more liquid if it seems to be getting too thick. We like the consistency to be somewhat like cream of wheat.
If you like, however, you can make the polenta a bit more dense and then pour it into a loaf pan to let it set up. Once it is more or less solid, you can slice it just like a loaf of banana bread, and then grill each polenta slice on both sides in a hot skillet, until both sides are nicely browned. This is also really yummy, because you get the nice crispy edges, with the soft polenta inside.
For roasting the mushrooms and shallots, simply toss them in a bit of olive oil and season with salt, pepper and lemon pepper, and then roast them in a 425 F oven for about 15 minutes, or until they are nice and browned on the edges.
Polenta with Roasted Mushrooms and Shallots Sauce, Gorgonzola and Sun-dried Tomatoes
Equipment
- 1 Large baking sheet
- 1 medium pot
Ingredients
Creamy Polenta
- 1 cup polenta grits (We love Professor Torbert’s Orange Corn Polenta Grits, but any polenta grind of corn meal will work!) grits, coarse corn meal.
- 3 cups water
- 1 cup milk or half and half
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 1/2 tsp. white pepper can also use black pepper
- 1 Recipe Roasted Mushrooms and Shallots recipe below
Garnishes
- 1/4 cup sun-dried tomatoes, cut into julienne strips you can buy them like this in an oil-packed jar
- 1/2 cup crumbled Gorgonzola cheese
- 4 sprigs parsley
Roasted Mushrooms and Shallots
- 1 lb. cremini mushrooms, sliced can also include some wild mushrooms like porcini and/or morels in addition to the cremini.
- 8 medium shallots, peeled and cut into quarters or eighths lengthwise
- 2-3 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
- 1/2 tsp. lemon pepper
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 1/2 tsp. black pepper
- 1/2 cup dry white wine and whatever liquid you can collect from the roasting pan.
Instructions
Roasted Mushrooms and Shallots (Can be prepared in advance)
- Preheat oven to 425° F. Spray the baking sheet with cooking spray or rub with oil.
- Toss the mushroom and shallot slices with olive oil. Season with salt, pepper and lemon pepper and spread out evenly on the prepared baking sheet.
- Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, flipping part-way through to brown both sides. Remove from oven and into a large frying pan. Deglaze baking sheet with white wine, scraping up all of the brown bits. Add this broth to the veggies in the frying pan. Set aside or refrigerate until ready to use.
Creamy Polenta
- Heat water and milk (or cream) in a large saucepan along with salt and pepper. Bring just to a boil. Reduce heat to low and very slowly whisk in the polenta grits until they are stirred in and continue to cook until the polenta is creamy, stirring occasionally. This may take anywhere from 10-20 minutes or so.
- While the polenta is cooking, reheat the mushroom-shallot mixture in the frying pan. Add extra wine or deglazing liquid if it starts to dry out.
- When polenta is ready to go, spoon it onto the plates and divide the mushroom-shallot mixture evenly over the top. Garnish with crumbled Gorgonzola, sun-dried tomatoes and a sprig of parsley. Serve hot!
