A Savory Polenta Recipe

By Mary Frederiksen

This is one of my favorite appetizer recipes. It is trendy, delicious and requires minimal kitchen work.
Gotta love that!

POLENTA WITH SAUSAGE AND MUSHROOMS

Ingredients:

One pound flavorful ground pork sausage
Two-thirds cup chopped pecans
Four tablespoons chopped onion
One and one-half cup diced fresh mushrooms
Three fourths cup chicken broth
Two twelve ounce packages of prepared polenta sliced into twenty four pieces
Two tablespoons melted butter
Three fourths cup crumbled goat cheese
Two tablespoons chopped fresh sage

Method:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large skillet, toast the pecans until fragrant. Remove nuts from pan and reserve them. In the same skillet, cook the sausage, onions, mushrooms and sage over medium hear until the onions are translucent.

Add broth, cover pan and cook one minute. Uncover and continue cooking until the liquid is reduced by half. Remove from heat and keep warm.

On a non-stick baking sheet, arrange the polenta slices and brush them with the melted butter. Bake in the over for 15 minutes.

Next, broil the polenta slices until the tops are golden brown.

To serve, arrange polenta on a serving platter. Top each slice with the sausage mixture. Sprinkle with goat cheese and pecans. Enjoy!

First published in the HDWE Newsletter in May, 2004.

Wine Recommendation

Wine Lines Online’s Old World correspondent Tom Madrecki suggests pairing this rich, savory but simple polenta recipe with one of several affordable Italian reds. These are expressive but quaffable thanks to their relative youth:

2011 Palamà ‘Arcangelo’ Negroamaro I.G.T., Puglia, Italy

2010 Velenosi Lacrima di Morro d’Alba Classico, Italy

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 5th, 2012 at 1:20 pm. It is filed under Blog, The Happy Cooker. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.