Sometime back Madame Donna C shared Parmesan Encrusted Chicken with Tomato Relish with us. I loved the tomato relish idea and made it for us one night; we both liked it very much.
This time I made it a little bit differently.
Two days ago I had made some chicken I served over polenta (think yellow grits, Italian style), when I cook either polenta or grits, I always make much more than we need for one meal for the two of us and I then pour the extra portions into a mold of some kind - sometimes individual rounds and sometimes, like this last one, into a wide bread loaf mold I like, for a future meal a day or two later. I store the solid molded polenta or grits in a plastic bag in the fridge.
This batch of polenta was cooked in homemade chicken broth instead of water, no butter was added as I used the chicken fat rendered when making the broth instead.
Brown the unmolded polenta on both sides in a bit in garlic infused olive oil. You can find out how to make your own garlic infused olive oil at the bottom of this article It's Tomato Time!
Meantime I caramelized a thinly sliced large onion in some of the garlic infused olive oil and added two handfuls of grape tomatoes and sliced fresh button mushrooms, seasonings and Balsamic vinegar to taste.
I plated the large piece of fried polenta and poured the relish over it. We ended up eating the whole thing between the two of us.
In the photo the plate you see is a 14 inch platter, not a regular sized dinner plate. We cut the polenta in 4 pieces meaning to eat only 1/4 each and we ended up eating the whole thing with a side of salad.
Thank you again for sharing your recipe for the relish, Donna...its a keeper.
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Comments: 54
This time I used the last bit of a pear Balsamic someone had given me as a gift and we love it so well, I need to do a search to find some more! ;-)
;-)
Polenta (and/or grits) is so versatile and filling!
Thanks!
I sometimes pour polenta or grits in round flat bottom 4-1/2" bowls so I can get 'disks' about 1/2 inch thick. These I then fry and have served in different ways as my own interpretation of Shrimp & Grits (or Lobster & Grits) with asparagus spears, poached eggs and Hollandaise sauce as a 'fancy' Benedict style dish. Somewhere in Gather I shared a couple of meals where I did this.
"Hominy" is the dried corn kernels which have been treated with an alkali of some kind (usually ash water) until the 'corn shell' pops and puffs up and turns white, sort of like a soft but still firm piece of popcorn.
"Grits" or hominy grits as some call them, is the dried and coarsely ground form of the processed corn kernels and includes the hull and the germ.
I love grits but can't stand hominy ;-)
I love both polenta and grits!
.......and speaking of your heritage...did you see my recipe for chicken liver paté?
;-)
Polenta can be found as ground grain in bags, boxes or even already cooked and shaped into a roll - much as you would buy a piece of salami. The bag or boxes would be on the shelves where you can find cornmeal and grits. The cooked roll can be found in a refrigerated case. In one of our stores it is in the special cheeses display.