Friday night’s Polenta FAIL was an attempt to make Polenta Pizza. The recipe I was using called for instant polenta, mixed with water.
But I didn’t use instant, I used this:
Melissa’s Organic Polenta, found in the produce section at Wegmans. What do you mean this isn’t “instant”. Looks instant to me! Open the package and BAM! Polenta! How can you get more instant than that?
Well, I guess there is in fact an instant variety of polenta because when I added water to this as directed in a magazine recipe clipping, I had very watery polenta that didn’t behave at all like I expected it to. I didn’t make anything resembling pizza on Friday. I made polenta pizza soup.
FAIL.
So tonight was Polenta Pizza: Take Two.
Cooking Techniques? Fried, grilled or as mush. OK, I choose mush!
Today I added NO water and popped the whole thing into the food processor to mash it up quickly.
With my fingers I flattened the polenta mush into a crust on a lightly greased cookie sheet.
I made a fast sauce in the food processor with plain tomato sauce, a little agave nectar, dried oregano and a dash of salt.
2 oz of grated mozzarella cheese – measured on my digital food scale because I’m not good at eyeballing 1 oz portions of cheese. It’s easy to go overestimate with cheese and while I’m in calorie counting mode I want to know exactly how many calories are going into this pizza.
Topped with some of our favorite pizza toppings – mushrooms, onions and banana peppers.
I ended up adding another 1 oz of mozzarella, plus 1 Tbsp off Parmesan cheese.
Into a pre-heated 375 degree oven for about 20 minutes.
Served with a small spinach salad.
Unfortunately Polenta Pizza: Take Two was still not a complete success. I definitely got closer tonight though. The crust on the outside was cooked but the center was still mush. I couldn’t let it cook any longer or the cheese was going to burn.
It tasted great but this was pizza that had to be eaten with a fork.
If there is ever a Polenta Pizza: Take Three, I will bake the crust first and then add toppings and cheese once I’m sure the crust is crispy. The outside of the crust that wasn’t covered with toppings cooked up perfectly and was nice and crispy. The texture was great and I know this has real potential.
I’d like to have a little chat with the person who wrote this original recipe I found though! The original directions has you cook the whole pizza with the toppings on it right from the start. Maybe instant polenta behaves differently?
I like that this is a gluten free version of pizza. I especially like that this is much lower in calories than regular pizza dough. The entire pizza was just over 700 calories. Cut into 8 slices, that’s less than 88 calories per slice! It was a lot easier to make than pizza dough and tasted great! Just a little mushy in the middle.
Mushy? Well, that’s what the package said, right? Serve as mush. So that’s what I did! Just not intentionally.
Corn sucks up water from other veggies. Polenta, being made from dried corn, will do that big time – the drying process has made the corn more pourous – hense making mush out of corn meal, or polenta. I think getting the crust really thin, and cooking it for a little bit first will work. You can also “sunblock” the corn from sucking up the veggie juices by brushing the precooked crust with a fine fine layer of olive oil.
Here is a real quick tomato sauce that is totally awesome:
2T Olive oil in bottom of pan.
Salt, pepper
1 Clove garlic, smashed and diced tiny
1 can diced tomato
4 – 5 leaves fresh basil
warm the oil, salt, pepper, not to flash point.
Add the garlic and heat till garlic is going clear – DO NOT BROWN the garlic or you have to start over.
Add the tomatos
Simmer for about 20 minutes
Hand-tear the basil, and add just before serving or turning off heat. Don’t over cook fresh basil or it tastes sour. Dried basil is more forgiving.
Works for everything. And you can play with it!
Love!
Pat
Thanks for all these great tips Pat!
…try taking that “tube” of polenta and making slices and baking THAT first and then topping it!
oh…that sounds like cute appetizers too!
xo
I am glad you gave Polenta pizza a second go…I was way curious! It looks awesome! Other than the polenta lasagna, I normally just slice and brown for JJ.
but I always end up having a slice too.
maybe “mini pizzas” might work too…MMMM
haven’t had polenta in a while.
Mini Pizzas! That’s a GREAT idea Cindy!
2nd attempt = closer to success! This pizza looks awesome. i’ve never tried polenta before. what does it taste like??
interesting…i had a gluten free pizza last night – but it was a lot easier (out of a package)
I love this recipe for pizza. I think you should just pick up dry instant polenta, it should be next to the oatmeal and such at the grocery store. I never buy the polenta already made because it just seems weird? I like to make fresh polenta because it has a different consistency, plus you know what you are adding to your polenta. I would also bake the entire crust first to be guaranteed crisp pizza! I can’t wait to try this now.
I’ve yet to try polenta, although there is a really good recipe for it in one of my books too. I shall find it for you!
I love polenta but I have never thought to use it as a pizza crust. I must try that especially since it is lower in calories. You could also try making mini pizzas since the smaller ones would probably cook through easier.
I love the idea of a polenta crust, so I’m here to encourage you to try, try again because I’m too much of a wimp to try it myself! haha…I do like your thoughts on baking the crust first though. It seems like that might harden it up a bit before the toppings start to cook. 😀
Maybe cooking it on a pizza stone might help the crisping effect? It looks yummy!
the pizza looks awesome! great idea with the polenta crust!
I’ve never had polenta but recently saw another recipe for it but it was used as more of a side dish that looked like a cross between mashed potatoes and cream of wheat… I like both so it sounded tempting. I plead Polenta ignorance though, I have no idea what the different types are or how they work… hmmm.
I give you a 10 for creativity though, I never would have thought to make it into a pizza!!
88 calories a slice! I had pizza last night and figured out to be around 340 a slice. There goes my entire day of calories!
Polenta pizza crust! GENIUS!!! I have polenta that’s not the instant kind. Judging from my experience with how its made I could see it working well for crust. Maybe you should skip the instant and try regular? It’s pretty quick — as soon as it’s done cooking in the pan, you can shape it into the crust shapes because it’s really pliable at that point.
Great inspiration — thank you! You know I’m addicted to pita pizzas, so this will DEFINITELY be on my “soon-to-try” list!
Have a great day!
Pingback: The Middle of the Whittle « a sparkle a day