I have always enjoyed polenta. But a few years ago I had it in a restaurant topped with braised wild boar. The sauce was dreamy (also contained mushrooms) and I fell head over heels in LOVE with polenta at that moment. I still enjoy polenta, but when cooked with a bit of cream and cheese added and topped with a rich meaty sauce I am as close to heaven on earth as I could possibly be, LOL.

I love polenta.

A mushroom sauce is easy to make. The brown crimini mushrooms have more flavour than white mushrooms. You can also use Shiitake mushrooms, oyster, etc.. To really boost the flavour reconstitute some porchini mushrooms in chicken broth and use the flavoured broth as part of your sauce.

Just saute your mushrooms in butter. Add a finely chopped shallot and a minced garlic clove. Add a little flour and cook for a couple of minutes then add your liquid. (Chicken broth, (the broth from the mushrooms), or white wine, season with fresh thyme, sage or rosemary , depending on the flavour you are looking for, salt, pepper. You could also add a little parmesan cheese to the mix to finish it off.

You can also enrich the sauce with a little heavy cream.

I made a similar sauce to serve with chicken earlier this week. It would have been good over polenta.

Ann

You can also add a lot of flavour to your polenta.

Cook in chicken broth that has been seasoned with garlic, and herbs. I like sage. Finish off with butter and Parmesan cheese.

Ann

I love polenta, too. I like it a lot with mushrooms, as suggested above, and I had some with braised short ribs the other night, and it was dreamy. It also takes very nicely to tomato sauces.

By the way, it's a LOT cheaper if you buy it in a box marked "grits."

Polenta is not grits at all.

I bought Bob's Red Mill coarse ground corn meal at Whole Foods. A local health food store agreed to stock it for me in the future.

About the wild boar--there are a lot of them in FL and some actually are hunted in the swamp lands around Central FL. Not exactly my cup of tea.

And if you want to really boost the mushroom flavor of your sauce, add some mushroom powder...
Put some dry porcini in your blender and grind to a powder and add some of the powder to your sauce....along with real fresh mushrooms of course..

Beachlady:
Polenta can be made many ways.

Have not done it for a while but we would cut off pieces, after it was cooked and fry it in butter.
Then pour on some Pancake Syrup.

I have cooked it like others, using Chicken Soup Flavor in the water.

Then bake it like Lasagna.
A layer of Pasta Sauce , Polenta, Provolone and a sprinkle of Parmesan.
Repeat this with another layer of the same, topped with some sauce.
Bake for about 25 minutes.

For the Mushroom Sauce over Polenta,
I use a can or two, of Condensed Cream of Mushroom Soup.

Add some simmered, Chopped Italian Sausage and a small can of Mushrooms.
Thickened with Instant Potatoes if neccessary.
For me this is easier and faster

There are a number of ways ( Chicken , Fish, etc. )that
Polenta can be prepared.
Use your imagination, enjoy.

LOU

PS: Bumblebeez, do not get your Grits up but I think
they are about the same.
Except mabye for a Cutural thing. ???

Here's the transcript from Alton Brown's show on grits.
There are differences, be sure to read the last part, Alton's emails, after the transcript.

Here is a link that might be useful: True Grits

That was a hoot! Thanks sushi, I needed the laugh!

Ann, thanks for the recipes. This will be on the menu in the near future.

I order whole-grain cornmeal from Hodson Mill. Put it in the freezer to keep it fresh. Good stuff, but not polenta stuff.

Thanks all!

Right, I didn't mean that if you order polenta in a restaurant, it will be the same as if you order grits. The dishes are different. But the stuff in the box you make them with is the same -- although the price often won't be!

The box I have in my pantry says

CORN GRITS
otherwise known as
POLENTA

And it has recipes on the back for both basic grits and for "Parmesan Polenta."

I usually think of grits as runnier, more like hot cereal, and polenta thicker, richer, cheesier if I'm lucky, and side-dishy, often solid.

Never saw grits that weren't hominy grits....but then I'm not a southerner. The other kind are just corn meal mush....polenta without the panache.

This article is interesting, read the comments and discussion below.

I have always made polenta from cornmeal, as wiki says in a google on polenta, but grits are made from "grits".

While chi chi restaurants serve "stone ground, yellow grits"
with shrimp and accoutrements,
every meat and three and waffle house has white grits and they are the same everywhere and not the same as what is served in more upscale restaurants.

Here is a link that might be useful: Hominy

For anyone that is confused hominy is corn. Yellow grits include the whole kernel, while white grits use hulled kernels.

But hominy is corn treated with alkaline. Not plain corn.

Well, it's all mush to me, ground corn cooked with whatever to a gloppy consistency.

Grandma used to chill cornmeal mush in a loaf pan, slice it after it was cold and fry it in butter, served with maple syrup. I could eat it that way, but no other way. Imagine my surprise when I found a "roll" of polenta in the grocery store and realized that it was just cold mush, meant to be sliced and fried or grilled, with instructions right on the package.

Because I was certain that polenta must be different than the detested childhood mush, I made some. Yup, it was mush. So I bought different cornmeal and made some more. Still mush. I bought extra-special-ground-just-for-polenta cornmeal. Um, yeah. It was mush. LOL

So, make it however you want and put whatever in it or on it. Fry it or grill it or eat it in a bowl, but underneath all the fancy additives, it's still mush.

As for grits, well, you can probably guess that they just remind me of mush, no matter the color. I'd eat the mushroom sauce, though, if that helps. (grin)

Annie

I have corn meal in the pantry, too. It is ground finer than the grits.

The grits/cornmeal -- it's all in how you cook it. I mean, an omelette and a frittata are different dishes, but the eggs they are made with are the same thing.

oops, I meant, "grits/polenta."

Yes, Gellchom. It's all in how you cook it. White cornmeal, yellow cornmeal, any color polenta. The only difference is hominy grits. Because of the alkali treatment they never become as creamy as other grits made from cornmeal. And as far as grit goes, the grit is really how coarse or fine they're ground. To each their own on that score. I like it all, although hominy grits are a favorite. I've said this before but that big old porcelainized kitchen table I have was my grandparents and they served polenta on the middle of the table in a big square, poured a pot of meats in sauce on it and everyone got a spoon to dig in. Now that was family style.

I saw an old episode (well, they're all old, now) of Michael Chiarello's (sp?) show where he did that. He made a big batch of polenta, and served it by pouring it out on the middle of the table. Each guest was given toppings, or whatever, to mix with the polenta. It's been so long since I've seen the episode, I don't remember exactly what he did for toppings or to accompany the polenta, but I do remember being surprised by that serving style. That's all that stuck with me from that episode, I guess. I can't imagine doing it at my house.

Sally

I'm with Annie. It's all mush. The only way I eat cornmeal mush is Annie's Grandmother's way. My mother's way also. Fried with butter & pure maple syrup. The thought of mush with garlic, cheese, and/or shrimp...well, just looking at it makes me feel ill. So, since I won't touch the stuff there's more for everybody else. I do still enjoy the fried with syrup stuff though about once every 5 years.

Pouring polenta on a big table reminds me of eating soft shell crabs! Just dump the pot on the table & dig in! Yum. (That would be "Yum" to the crabs not the polenta!)

/tricia

Coconut NJ

I am glad you put that in here ( on the Porcelain Table ).

Way back when, it was a way to serve it.
LOU

Tricia, I feel the same way about bloody steak.

Oh, I forgot to mention that my Father made a really stiff cornmeal mush, cooled it and made it into fish bait. Yup. Lots of fish like corn, hence, cornmeal. When I worked on the river in New Orleans the guys caught a 55# catfish off the corn barges. Then, they ran back to their boat, cleaned it, and cooked a bunch. Delish.

I happened to watch Ann Burrell make it on TV a couple of days ago. She used 1 1/2 cups milk and 1 1/2 cups water to one cup of corn meal or three parts liquid to one part corn meal. She added sufficient salt right from the start and said you can't wait until the end and add the salt. When the polenta was the right consistency she added some freshly grated parmesan (looked like about a half cup) and a largish spoonful of mascarpone, and incorporated them. I think that was all she did.