The other day I was making homemade polenta and wanted to add in some Parmesan cheese. The stuff I had on hand had gone a little too far over to the fuzzy side, though, so I substituted some Cinco Esquinas cheese from local cheese company La Mariposa. This was my first time trying anything from La Mariposa, and it was really good! Cinco Esquinas is a semi-hard cheese made with cultured raw milk.
I found it at Ray’s Food Place in Albany. They have a nice little cheese section going on at Ray’s, by the way.
Want to make polenta from all local (Oregon) ingredients? Here’s the basis I used for a baked version, from All Recipes:
Ingredients
2 cups milk (Noris Dairy)
2 cups chicken, turkey, or vegetable stock (use homemade)
1 cup yellow cornmeal (Bob’s Red Mill)
1 cup shredded semi-hard cheese such as Cinco Esquinas (La Mariposa)
Directions
In a large pot, combine the milk and stock. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat. When it is at a rolling boil, gradually whisk in the cornmeal, making sure there are no lumps. Reduce heat to low and simmer, stirring constantly until thick, about 5 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in the cheese.
From here I wanted to bake it with some sauce on top, so put it in an 8-inch square baking dish and baked at 350º for about 15 minutes. Mine had lumps, though. Fail! Oh well, still tasted good.
I’ve found that if I use my big whisk to stir polenta, and start stirring while pouring the cornmeal into the liquid in a *veeeery* slow stream, I get non-lumpy results.
Speaking of local cheeses, I picked up a hunk of Willamette Valley Cheese’s Brindisi, a semi-hard aged grating cheese, at the Albany Farmers’ Market this morning. It’s slightly salty, which I think would make it work really well in polenta. Hmmm … I think I may know what’s for dinner tonight!