Polenta

This is really a follow-up or expansion on Friday's posting on homemade scrapple.  I took the time to look up polenta on Wikipedia and got a brain full.  Basically, polenta is any mush, hot and fluid, or cold, solidified, sliced and refried, made from any grain grit or flour.  Often, the grain is maize, especially in Mexico and points south.  So strictly speaking, scrapple is a pork/corn meal polenta.  The spectrum of polentas pretty much spans the specialty "puddings" of the western world: scrapple, liver pudding, hasty pudding, haggis, corn meal mush, Indian pudding, etc, etc, etc.  Tripping around in Wikipedia to all of the variations is an interesting diversion.

So my comments from yesterday about the boundless possibilities stands, or even expands.  Saturday I tried lamb with barley grits (actually 2/3 barley grits to1/3 white corn meal).  I basically used Friday's recipe with substitutions of the broth, meat, grain, and seasoning.

1 c. lamb broth taken to 2 1/4 with water and brought to a boil with
~1/2 c. finely chopped lamb meat
1/2 t. salt
1 t. dried rosemary (chopped fine, might have preferred powdered but didn't have it)
1/4 t. dried mustard
1 small clove garlic

Blend 1/4 c. white corn meal with 1/4 c. cold water
At the boil, stir in 1/2 c. barley grits and the white corn meal slurry

With constant stirring and a flame disperser, return to the boil and cook for 20 min.
Turn out into a small loaf pan.

This too turned out to be really good when sliced and fried up in a little butter.

I am pretty excited about the possibilities of this whole polenta thing.

Homemade Scrapple

The other day, I bought a boneless pork loin roast and cut it up into cubes for pork stew (which turned out really well, complete with dumplings; I used marjoram, caraway seed, and dill seed for seasonings) and had the trimmings and a left over end which I put in a pan and cooked down for broth.  A month or two ago, we were at Echo Hill and I picked up some roasted corn meal, thinking it had been a long time since we have had corn meal mush.  These two things kind of came together yesterday in an experiment.

I skimmed the fat from the broth, and picked the meat scraps pretty thoroughly.  The net result was about a cup of not terribly strong broth and maybe 1/2 cup of meat scraps, which I cut up to be as fine as I could make them.

The directions for the corn meal said to combine 2 c. corn meal, 2 c. cold water, and 2 t. salt, bring 6 c. of water to a boil then add the corn meal slurry to the boiling water with constant stirring, return to boil and simmer 15 minutes.  Based on how much broth I had, I made what turned out to be about 3/8  the recipe.  So:

1 c. of pork broth brought up to 2 1/4 c. with water
1/2 t salt
1 t. dried Sage
1/4 t. powdered mustard
~1/2 c.  finely chopped cooked pork
all brought to a boil

3/4 c. roasted corn meal mixed with
3/4 c. cold water

Corn meal slurry stirred into boiling broth, brought back to a boil, simmered 15 minutes with lots of stirring and a flame disperser under the pan to prevent it from charring.  Oh, yeah, I ground some black pepper into it, also - just some, you know how it goes.

The final mixture was poured into a loaf pan and allowed to cool then refrigerated.  By golly, turned out of the loaf pan the next morning, it looked like a block of scrapple!

Jo and I had it fried for breakfast this morning.  I really liked it.

So, whether it is variations on scrapple, fried mush, or polenta, depending on your orientation and preferences, this opens up a whole universe of exploration possibilities.

First, the corn meal:  I really like roasted, brown corn meal.  The stuff from the store is OK, but you remember we used to oven roast field corn and grind it ourselves when we lived on the farm and I would really like to give that a try.  Most recipes seem to call for yellow or white or a mix.  Some scrapple recipes use a mixture of corn and buckwheat meals (particularly from Northampton County where I grew up).  I presume one could experiment with all manner of grains.  Do they make quinoa meal?  Must do.  That might be interesting.  I reckon oat meal would work too, which starts to migrate towards haggis, I think.  I bet barley would work also.

Next, the broth and meat:  Well, pork is good, but around scrapple country, every butcher has his own recipe.  One key variable is whether they add liver and how much.  When we had Peter Bros. butcher pigs, they always charged us for a couple of pounds of beef which they added to their scrapple, so there is the option of mixing different meats.  And of course, you don't have to use scraps to avoid the yuck! factor that seems to be associated with the name (alternately, just call it polenta; that's trendy these days).  Haggis is made with mutton, I believe.  I bet lamb would be good.

And how about a good vegetable stock for a vegetarian version?  I did not add any veggies to this mixture, but I always include veggies in my soups, at least some onion and garlic, and vegetarian or not, it opens up a whole 'nother dimension to explore.

Finally, seasoning:  Sage is the classic for scrapple, and it is really good.  But any herb is possible, so there is a huge range available to explore.  I saw one recipe that was getting into small amounts of some spices, like nutmeg, too.  What happens if we head off in a mid-eastern direction, seasoning-wise.  Well, if you use ground lamb and buckwheat, you wind up at kibbi, I think.  Any way, the sky's the limit.

So, try making boiled grain meal in broth for solidification and frying.  Call by whatever name you like.  Have fun.

Bulgar Veggie "Burgers"

Has anyone posted this recipe yet?  There's a chance that someone has, but I don't feel like going back through the archives to check.  If not, then you're in for a treat.  Last night I whipped these up because our friend Coley is in town and staying with us.  We made them with homemade sweet potato fries - it was a delicious and nutritious dinner. 

That being said, you know I don't like calling something a burger if it's not really a burger.  So, I'd be more inclined to call these veggie patties or something.  Either way, a rose by any other name still tastes like a veggie mash.

1/2 cup chopped onion, divided

1 tablespoon olive oil plus additional for brushing

1/2 cup bulgur

1 cup water

1 cup canned pinto beans, rinsed and drained

1 1/2 tablespoon soy sauce

3/4 cup walnuts (2 1/2 ounces)

2 garlic cloves, coarsely chopped

1/2 cup packed cilantro sprigs

3/4 teaspoon ground cumin

1/4 teaspoon cayenne

1/4 cup mayonnaise

1/4 teaspoon grated lime zest

1/2 teaspoon fresh lime juice

4 slices multi-grain bread,toasted

Cook half of onion with 1/4 teaspoon salt in oil in a small heavy saucepan over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until golden, 5 to 7 minutes. Add bulgur and water and cook, covered, over low heat until water is absorbed, 15 to 18 minutes. Transfer to a bowl and stir in beans and soy sauce.

Pulse bulgur mixture, walnuts, garlic, cilantro, cumin, cayenne, a rounded 1/4 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon pepper, and remaining onion in a food processor until finely chopped.

Form rounded 1/2 cups of mixture into 4 (31/2-inch-diameter) patties. Chill at least 10 minutes.

While patties chill, stir together mayonnaise, zest, and juice.

Prepare grill for direct-heat cooking over medium-hot charcoal (medium heat for gas). Put perforated grill sheet on grill and preheat 10 minutes.  Brush patties all over with oil.  Oil grill sheet, then grill burgers on grill sheet, covered only if using a gas grill, carefully turning once, until golden brown, about 8 minutes total.  Serve burgers open-faced on toast with lime mayonnaise.

I did not grill them, just fried them in a pan on the stove.  I also used pecans instead of walnuts because we have a ton of Texas pecans on hand right now.  Instead of bread, I used English muffins.  We had arugula and avocado to put on top as well.

Anywho, worth a shot!  They're good.

Molly