So recently bearing posted about cooking polenta in a slow cooker. I and other commenters expressed skepticism, "What about the endless whisking?". She assured us that it does indeed work and shared this ratio: 1.5 cups polenta (coarse grind cornmeal), 1.5 teaspoons salt, and 7.5 cups of water in the slow cooker on low for 9 hours.
Yesterday I tried it with some modification for the contents of my pantry...
Slow Cooker Polenta with Artichokes, Spiced Tomatoes, and Goat Cheese
1 cup cornmeal (yes, I used the same kind as you would to make corn bread)
1.5 teaspoons salt
5 cups of chicken stock (from the last time I roasted a chicken)
These went into the cooker, and I set it for 10 hours on low and instructed J to stir it a couple of times during the day and dump in about 3/4 cup of dried spiced tomatoes (that we made in the summer with the small tomatoes from our garden) at about 4:00.
I arrived home at 5:45, slightly late, to find the cooker keeping the well-cooked polenta warm. I chopped up a can of artichokes and about 1/4 pound of goat cheese and stirred them into the polenta. We ate it with green salad.
There were some crusty bits that required an overnight soak to clean the crock, but it may have been the result of uneven occasional stirring during the day rather than an inherent feature of this method.
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2 comments:
That sounds good! I usually only end up whisking polenta for about 5 minutes anyway, though -- and not instant, just regular polenta or cornmeal with milk or vegetable stock on the stovetop. I've seen recipes that require long whisking periods, but I don't really get how they come out any different than mine.
I think the overnight soak to clean the crock is an inherent feature of the crock-pot.
I sort of take it for granted that the crock often needs to be soaked, especially for grainy things (steel cut oats, rice pudding, wheat berries, spoon bread). FWIW, my rice cooker insert also needs to be soaked when I use it for most things that are not actually rice (steel cut oats, quinoa, millet).
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