Recipe: Grilled Jalapeno Cheddar Polenta (Guest Post from Fearless Grill)

Recipe Source: http://www.cdkitchen.com/recipes/recs/482/Grilled-Jalapeno-Polenta-With-112967.shtml

A couple of weeks earlier, I ate dinner at Legal Seafood, and I got a jalapeno cheddar polenta as a side dish. It was really good, and I decided to try and make something similar to it at home. Given that our garden is still abundantly producing hot peppers, this was a good chance to use some up. Since I had never worked with polenta before, I wasn't really sure where to start, so I did some research online. I thought this recipe looked good and involved grilling the polenta. Since grilling makes everything better, I decided to go with this one. As an added bonus, it included a salsa verde to be served with the polenta, which allowed me to use up some additional peppers, and some of our tomatillos too.

Since I wasn't used to working with this ingredient, I decided to use the recipe as written. Overall, I was happy with how this turned out. It was easy to make, the consistency came out exactly like what I was looking for, and it was good in combination with the salsa. The salsa was excellent, and I decided to post it as a separate recipe, as it isn't dependent on the polenta. If you like spicy food, you might want to add another jalapeno though, as this came out milder than I was expecting. One note – you want to make sure to oil the polenta wedges before putting them on the grill, and leave enough space between them to get a spatula under them to turn them. I had mine kind of close together, and I ended up damaging some of them with the spatula as I tried to get it under nearby wedges.

Grilled Jalapeno Cheddar Polenta (Serves 6. Approx. Cost Per Serving Not Available)

Equipment Required

_ Big Green Egg or other grill

 10 inch cake or pie pan

 Grill spatula

 

3/4 cup coarse yellow cornmeal

1 1/2 cups milk

1 1/2 cups water

1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese

2 jalapeno chiles, with stems and seeds removed, chopped

2 tablespoons grated onion

1 clove garlic, minced

3 tablespoons olive oil

Salt to taste

1. Bring the milk and water to a boil in a large saucepan
2. Slowly stir the cornmeal into the liquid
3. Reduce heat and continue stirring until the mixture is thick and starts to pull away from the pan
4. Quickly add the cheese, chilies, onion, garlic, and salt. Stir well and remove from heat
5. Pour the mixture into a lightly oiled 10" cake or pie pan and allow to cool. Refrigerate for 3 hours to firm
6. Clean the grate of your grill and brush it with oil. Cut the polenta into wedges (I used a pizza cutter, which worked well), and oil both sides lightly.
7. Grill the polenta wedges over a medium fire for about 5 minutes per side, or until they begin to brown. On my Big Green Egg, I set up for direct cooing, stabilized the temperature at 450 degrees Fahrenheit before cooking.
8. Remove from the grill, place on a platter, and serve with the salsa on top or on the side.

 

Comments

[Susan]

Sounds gorgeous. Polenta's firm texture must be perfect for grilling.

[Chris]

Polenta.....them's grits, right, ya'll?

(ha ha)

Nice recipe, I'd give this a spin on the egg but since I'm in TN, I'd have to tell my guests that they're grits.

[Sophie]

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM,..the polenta looks great!!! MMMMMM,...

[Bizu Philippines]

Thank you for the recipe i will try doing this polenta look so delicious,yummy!

vee

[Fearless Kitchen]

Bizu - Great!

Sophie - Thank you!

Chris - you say tomato, I say tomato....

Susan - We were pretty pleased with how it turned out.