The unforgettable Polenta with Salami is one of the simplest recipes and still has a story to tell. Whenever we smell the fragrance the polenta makes while cooking in the copper cauldron, it feels like home, winter short days, and fireplace.
The recipe of polenta with salami
The preparation is really easy: just boil salty water and add the corn flour. Many are the combinations throughout Italy.
In Veneto you find the white corn flour for the fish dishes, in Valle d’Aosta a coarse corn flour combined with melted cheese, in Lombardia a mix of corn and buckwheat flours to add more taste.
The farmers that live close to our parents made the salami that you see in the pictures.
There is no artificial flavor whatsoever. Just pork meat, salt, garlic, red wine, and spices. The combination between the hot polenta and the freshly made salami is unforgettable!
Moreover, the corn flour is a good source of:
- vitamins A, E, PP,
- antioxidants
- fibers
- mineral salts (potassium, magnesium, zinc, iron, copper)
- Although the corn flour has poor quantity of vitamin B and that is the reason why, back in times when people did not have much to eat beside polenta, they developed pellagra, a skin disease.
Ingredients
- 21/2 cups (300 gr) corn flour
- water and salt
Instructions
- Boil 1 liter fo water with salt (a little less of what you use for the pasta)
- Add the corn flour while mixing with a whisker
- Depending on the corn flour, you can have a thick polenta or a more liquid polenta
- Keep in mind that the polenta becomes thicker while cooking
- Cook to low heat for 40/50 minutes
- Pour the polenta on a wood board
- Serve it warm (also with salami!)
The Polenta with Salami is a seasonal dish: the salami are freshly made between December and January.
You can start eating them between February and March for a more fresh taste, or they preserve well until the following year with a more intense flavor and dryness.
The corn flour polenta can be a savory dish but also a sweet. It is good with sugar and cinnamon as well at the end of the meal. Moreover, the polenta is gluten free!
A little bit of history of polenta
The name polenta comes from latin Puls, that means mush. The polenta during the Romans and Greeks period was made out of different flours (spelt, barley, rye, buckwheat, millet, wheat) and water.
After corn was discovered in USA, the polenta became the one we know. Even though nowadays in South Italy there are still recipes with different kind of flours. For example, faca beans flour polenta in Apulia is combined with dandelions and deep fried bread.
The USA produce 40% of the worldwide corn supply and it can be used in alimentary industry both for humans and animals.
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Ciao!
Martina and Elisa
