Recipe: Polenta With Lemony Chickpeas
Creamy polenta is topped with jammy onions and a vegetable ragout.
There are a number of tricks to making good polenta, and all the successful ones rely on a long cooking time as that is what eliminates any bitterness in the corn. To get around the stirring and stirring while hot spatters threaten your eyeballs, you can use your oven, your slow cooker, or this snazzy little method of a double boiler set-up, which to me produces the creamiest result.
Another tricky trick is to replace some of the water for cooking the polenta with buttermilk, which brightens the flavor without heaping on the sodium or heavying the proceedings with a lot of cheese.
For the sauce on top, onions get softened in olive oil and lend an almost jammy consistency to a richly seasoned and vegetarian ragout. You can absolutely use a standard can of chickpeas for this but if you have never cooked them straight from dried, I highly recommend setting aside a little time on a Sunday to give it a try, either on the stove top or in a pressure cooker. They are way more delicious and having a big stash in the fridge allows you to drop their nourishment into salads all week long. Last hot tip of the round: a freshly-cooked, still-warm chickpea makes the smoothest and most delicious hummus.
Polenta with Lemony Chickpeas
Serves 4
Chickpeas
1 pound yellow onions
¼ cup olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
½ teaspoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon preserved lemon purée
1½ cups cooked chickpeas, drained
1 14.5 ounce can diced tomatoes
½ cup very finely minced parsley
To serve: about 3 ounces plain fresh goat cheese, or 1/3 cup of finely grated Parmigiano
Peel and halve the onion and cut into not-quite-½” slices. Heat the olive oil in a medium skillet over medium heat, and sauté the onion with the salt for five minutes or so, stirring frequently, until the onion starts to soften. Turn the heat down to low and continue cooking for another 20 minutes, stirring more often as the onions cook down (they will begin to brown faster as the sugars concentrate, and you don’t want them to burn). When the onions are golden and soft, add the cumin, paprika and preserved lemon and stir well. Add the chickpeas and toss to coat. Increase the heat to medium and sauté 2-3 minutes. Add the tomatoes and reduce the heat again, letting the mixture simmer for a few minutes, to meld the flavors. This mixture can rest until you need it.
Polenta
3 cups water
1 cup buttermilk
1 cup coarse cornmeal
½ teaspoon salt
Prepare a double boiler (or a 6 quart metal bowl to which you can fit a pot lid and a pot it can rest on). Fill the pot 2/3 with water and bring to a boil.
Bring the 3 cups water to a boil in the top of the double boiler. Pouring slowly and whisking steadily, add the cornmeal to the water. Whisk in the buttermilk and salt.
Set the vessel containing the cornmeal mixture over the boiling water and put the lid on. (If the lid is not tight, put a sheet of foil under it.)
Cook 20 minutes, stirring every five minutes and replacing the lid each time. Continue cooking another hour, stirring every 20 to 30 minutes, monitoring the level of the simmering water below and topping up as necessary. The polenta should be creamy and tender, with no trace of bitterness. If not, continue cooking another 10 minutes. Once cooked, it can be held over hot water for up to 3 hours.
To serve, re-warm the chickpea mixture and stir in the parsley. Portion the polenta into bowls and mound a scoop of the sauce on top, then sprinkle on the cheese.
