Italian Polenta with Mushrooms | Polenta con Funghi

Sep 17

11 min read

Polenta con Funghi (Italian Polenta with Mushrooms)

Polenta con funghi is the plainest version of a dish northern Italy has built a hundred variations on, and the one worth learning first. Coarse yellow cornmeal, water, salt and time. Mushrooms cooked hard in a wide pan until their water has gone and their edges have caught colour.

Both halves fail in the same way if you rush them. Polenta cooked twenty minutes instead of forty five tastes chalky however smooth it looks, and mushrooms tipped into a crowded pan boil in their own liquid and come out grey.

This is the version cooked in the Alpine foothills in October: polenta loose enough to spread slowly across a warm plate, mushrooms spooned over with their pan juices, black pepper ground on at the table. It is a primo piatto, but in the valleys it is very often the whole meal.

Yield: 4 servings. Prep: 20 minutes. Cook: 50 minutes. Total: about 1 hour 10 minutes. Difficulty: intermediate. Course: primo piatto. Season: September to December. Region: Lombardy and the Alpine foothills of northern Italy.

The Story

Maize reached the Veneto from the Americas in the second half of the sixteenth century and spread through the Po valley faster than any crop before it, giving more calories per field than the millet, buckwheat and spelt that had fed the same hills for centuries. By the eighteenth century the porridge northern Italy ate under the name polenta had changed its raw material entirely, from a grey buckwheat mush to the yellow one everybody now pictures. The word is older than the corn by a thousand years: puls was the grain porridge of the Roman army.

The cost of that change was pellagra. Maize eaten as the dominant food without the alkaline treatment the Mesoamerican cultures used leaves its niacin chemically bound and unavailable, and by the nineteenth century the disease was endemic across Lombardy, Veneto and Friuli. Doctors argued for decades over whether the cause was spoiled corn or something missing from it, and the answer arrived only in the 1920s.

Mushrooms came into it as the free half of the meal. In the woods above Bergamo, Brescia, Como and the Valtellina, porcini, chiodini and a dozen lesser species appear from late August through November, and a family that could not buy meat could still come home with a basket. The pairing is arithmetic rather than invention: a starch from the valley floor, a protein rich fungus from the slope above it, and the butter of a household that kept a cow.

Ingredients

For the polenta

Coarse stone ground yellow polenta, 1 1/2 cups (250 g)
Water, 6 1/4 cups (1.5 l)
Coarse sea salt, 2 tsp (12 g)
Unsalted butter, cold and diced, 3 tbsp (45 g)
Parmigiano Reggiano, finely grated, 1/2 cup (45 g)
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

For the mushrooms

Mixed fresh mushrooms, 1 1/4 lb (570 g), ideally porcini, chiodini, chanterelles and cremini together
Dried porcini, 1/2 oz (15 g)
Warm water for soaking, 1 cup (240 ml)
Extra virgin olive oil, 3 tbsp (45 ml)
Unsalted butter, 2 tbsp (30 g)
Garlic cloves, lightly crushed and left whole, 2
Fresh thyme sprigs, 3
Dry white wine, 1/4 cup (60 ml)
Fine sea salt, 3/4 tsp (4 g)
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

For finishing

Flat leaf parsley, finely chopped, 2 tbsp (8 g)
Parmigiano Reggiano, in one piece for the table, 1 oz (30 g)
Extra virgin olive oil, a few drops per plate

Preparation

Soak the dried porcini

Cover the dried porcini with 1 cup (240 ml) of warm water, not boiling, and leave them 20 minutes. Boiling water pulls the aroma out too fast and leaves the pieces waterlogged. Lift them out with your fingers rather than pouring the bowl, since grit settles at the bottom. Chop them roughly and strain the soaking liquid through a paper filter: it is the most concentrated mushroom flavour in the recipe and it goes into the pan at the end.

Clean and cut the fresh mushrooms

Brush the mushrooms clean with a dry pastry brush or a barely damp cloth and trim the stem ends. Do not rinse them under a tap: they are already ninety percent water, and anything extra has to be driven off before browning can start. Cut everything to the same thickness, porcini in thick slices through cap and stem, chanterelles halved, cremini quartered, chiodini left entire.

Start the polenta and salt the water

Bring the water to a boil in a heavy pot, ideally one with a rounded base, and add the coarse salt. Salt at the start: the grain absorbs it as it hydrates, while seasoning stirred in later tastes sharp. Pour the polenta in a thin steady stream with one hand while whisking constantly with the other. Adding it all at once is the commonest cause of lumps, and lumps in cornmeal never dissolve.

Cook the polenta slowly

Once it is incorporated and starting to thicken, swap the whisk for a long wooden spoon and drop the heat until the surface releases one slow thick bubble every few seconds. Cook 40 to 45 minutes, stirring every three or four minutes and always scraping the base and corners. It is ready when it pulls cleanly from the sides and tastes of sweet corn with no chalky edge.

Brown the fresh mushrooms in batches

Twenty minutes before the polenta is done, set a wide heavy skillet over high heat with a third of the oil. Add a single layer of mushrooms, enough to cover the base without crowding, and leave them untouched for 2 minutes. The pan sounds wet and quiet while they release water, then the sound turns to a sharp sizzle: that is the signal that browning has started. Toss, give them 2 or 3 minutes more, turn them onto a tray and repeat.

Build the pan and deglaze

Return all the mushrooms to the skillet over medium heat with the butter, crushed garlic and thyme, and swirl for a minute until the butter foams and smells nutty. Add the chopped porcini, pour in the wine and let it bubble away almost completely while you scrape the base. Add the strained porcini liquid and reduce it to a glossy film clinging to the mushrooms. Season, remove the garlic and thyme, and stir in the parsley off the heat.

Finish the polenta with butter and cheese

Take the polenta off the heat, let it stand a minute, then beat in the cold diced butter a few pieces at a time and follow with the Parmigiano. Working off direct heat matters: butter added while it is still boiling splits and leaves a greasy sheen. Taste, correct the salt, and check that it falls from the spoon in a thick ribbon rather than holding its shape.

Plating

Warm the bowls properly, which here means genuinely hot rather than merely not cold. Polenta gives up heat to a cool plate in seconds and skins over before the second mouthful. A wide shallow bowl with a rim beats a flat plate: the polenta needs room to spread and the juices need somewhere to collect.

Spoon a generous ladle into the centre of each bowl and let it find its own level before you touch it. If it needs encouraging, move it outward with the back of the spoon in one slow spiral rather than pushing it flat, and press a shallow well in the middle so the mushrooms have somewhere to sit.

Pile the mushrooms into that well while they are still hot and scrape the reduced pan juices over them. Do not arrange them: this dish looks right when it looks generous. Finish with a few drops of olive oil, a heavy grinding of pepper and shavings of Parmigiano taken off the piece at the table. Serve immediately.

Professional Technique

The technical heart of this recipe is the gelatinisation of corn starch, which is why the cooking time is not negotiable. Cornmeal granules absorb water and swell in stages, and the coarse stone ground grind needs roughly forty minutes at a bare simmer to hydrate to the centre. Stop at twenty and the outside of each granule has gelatinised while the core has not, which is exactly what the chalky sensation on the palate is. Neither butter nor blending will fix it, because the defect is inside the particle.

The second is dry heat browning on a vegetable that is ninety percent water. Mushrooms cannot brown until their surface moisture has gone, and evaporation needs temperature and surface area. A crowded pan stays below the temperature at which water leaves quickly, so the mushrooms cook by boiling in their own exudate. Three batches in a wide pan keeps the surface hot enough that the water flashes off in two minutes, after which the Maillard reaction can begin.

The third is the double extraction of mushroom flavour. Dried porcini carry concentrated glutamates and guanylates that fresh mushrooms hold in far smaller quantities, and together those compounds produce a savoury effect greater than either alone. Soaking releases them, and reducing that water deposits them onto the browned surfaces of the fresh mushrooms. The dish gains depth without stock, cream or any ingredient that is not itself a mushroom.

Texture and Moisture Control

The ratio is six parts water to one part cornmeal by volume, which gives a soft spoonable polenta rather than a firm one for slicing. Treat it as a starting point, since grinds vary and evaporation depends on the width of the pot. Judge the result by how it moves: it should drop off a raised spoon in a slow thick ribbon and spread gently on a warm plate within five seconds.

Too stiff, and you beat in hot water or hot milk a ladle at a time, never cold liquid, which shocks the starch and leaves it grainy. Too loose, and you stir a few minutes longer over low heat rather than adding cornmeal, which reintroduces the raw taste you spent three quarters of an hour cooking out. The safer error is to finish slightly loose.

On the mushroom side the target is the opposite: as little free moisture as possible. The pan juices should reduce to a glaze that clings, since watery liquid runs straight through polenta and pools at the bottom of the bowl. Season after browning, because salt draws water out through osmosis and keeps the surface wet through the minutes in which colour should be forming.

Temperature holds the plate together. Polenta below about 150°F (65°C) skins over within a minute, and mushrooms left ten minutes on a tray go soft. If a wait is unavoidable, hold the polenta covered over a bain marie and stir it every few minutes, and bring the mushrooms back over a high flame for thirty seconds at the last moment.

Professional Mise en Place

The organisation is built around getting the mushrooms ready while the polenta looks after itself. Everything below is done before the water goes on to boil.

Equipment and tools

Heavy based pot of at least 4 quarts (4 litres), copper or cast iron
Long wooden spoon and a balloon whisk
Wide skillet, 12 inches (30 cm) or larger, steel or cast iron rather than nonstick
Fine mesh sieve and a paper coffee filter for the porcini liquid
Dry pastry brush and a tray for the browned batches

Prepared ahead

Dried porcini soaked and chopped, liquid strained, up to 1 day ahead
Fresh mushrooms brushed and cut, up to 4 hours ahead, uncovered on a tray in the refrigerator
Parmigiano grated and the table piece left whole, on the day
Parsley chopped at the last moment so it keeps its colour
Butter diced and chilled so it goes into the polenta cold

Service setup

Kettle of hot water on standby for loosening the polenta
Bowls warming while the mushrooms brown, not before
Browned batches held on their tray until the final pan build
Pepper mill, olive oil and the cheese with a peeler set out at the table
Polenta finished with butter and cheese only once everything else is ready

Chef Tips

Buy coarse stone ground polenta and look for a use by date rather than a best before. Whole maize meal still contains the germ, and the oil in it turns rancid within months of milling, which is why a bag that has sat on a shelf for a year tastes of cardboard.

Do not wash fresh mushrooms, and do not believe anyone who says a quick rinse makes no difference. A brush and a barely damp cloth remove everything that matters. If a batch is filthy, wipe each piece by hand and accept the five minutes it costs.

Keep the dried porcini even when the fresh mushrooms are excellent. Drying concentrates the savoury compounds that give mushrooms their depth, and half an ounce with its soaking liquid does more for a pan of ordinary cremini than doubling their quantity would.

For a richer polenta without weight, replace a quarter of the water with whole milk at the start, which is how many households in the valleys make it on a Sunday. Do not go beyond a quarter, because milk scorches on the base of the pot far more readily than water over forty five minutes.

Common Mistakes

Cooking the polenta too briefly. Under about 40 minutes at a bare simmer the centre of each granule stays unhydrated and the result tastes chalky however smooth it looks. Instant polenta will not give this texture.

Adding the cornmeal all at once. Dropping it in as one load traps dry meal inside a skin of gelatinised starch and makes lumps that never break down. Pour it in a thin stream while whisking without stopping.

Crowding the mushroom pan. Piled in together they release more water than the pan can evaporate, the temperature drops and they stew into something grey. Three batches costs eight extra minutes and decides whether the dish works.

Salting the mushrooms at the start. Salt pulls water out through the cut surfaces exactly when you need them dry, and keeps the pan wet through the window in which browning could happen. Season after the colour is there.

Throwing away the porcini soaking liquid. That water holds the concentrated aroma of the dried mushrooms. Strain it through a paper filter to leave the grit behind and reduce it into the mushrooms at the end.

Wine Pairing

Valpolicella Classico DOC: The lightest sensible red for this plate. Corvina gives sour cherry fruit and a bitter almond twist, with tannin light enough that it never scrapes against the polenta. The acidity is the working part, cutting the butter and the Parmigiano and resetting the palate between spoonfuls of a dish that is otherwise soft throughout.

Bonarda dell'Oltrepo Pavese DOC: The Lombard house red for exactly this food, often lightly frizzante and meant for the table rather than the cellar. Croatina gives dark plum fruit and a faintly bitter edge that stands up to browned mushrooms, and the gentle prickle of carbon dioxide scrubs fat off the tongue as a still wine cannot. Serve it at 57°F (14°C).

Dolcetto d'Alba DOC: Piedmont's weekday red and a good match for mushrooms in butter. Deeply coloured but low in acidity and soft in tannin, it lets the earthy fungal notes come forward instead of competing. The bitter finish that gives the grape its reputation works with the char on the mushroom edges.

Franciacorta DOCG: The Lombard traditional method sparkling wine, an unexpected choice that works on texture. Long ageing on the lees gives bread and toasted hazelnut aromas that sit beside browned mushrooms, while the fine bead and high acidity slice through butter and aged cheese. Choose a Brut rather than a Saten.

Refosco dal Peduncolo Rosso Friuli DOC: The choice when the mix leans heavily on porcini and the dish gains weight. Refosco brings firm acidity, dark berry fruit and a herbal almost wild note that echoes the woodland side of the plate. Its tannin is more assertive than Dolcetto, so it needs the cheese and butter to soften against.

Storage & Reheating

Store the two components separately, because polenta absorbs the mushroom juices overnight. Cooked polenta keeps in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. It sets completely solid, which is normal: gelatinised corn starch retrogrades as it cools, and that block is the traditional starting point for grilled polenta. Cooked mushrooms keep 2 days sealed.

To bring polenta back to a soft spoonable state, break the cold block into a saucepan, add about 1/4 cup (60 ml) of hot water or hot milk per serving and work it over low heat, adding more liquid until it flows again. It takes around 8 minutes and needs constant attention at the base of the pan. Reheat the mushrooms separately in a hot dry skillet for 2 minutes.

Polenta freezes better than most people expect. Spread it in a shallow tray, let it set, cut it into portions and freeze them wrapped individually for up to 2 months. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator, then loosen the pieces with hot liquid or grill them and serve the mushrooms on top.

Nutrition

Per serving, based on 4 servings:

Calories: 470 kcal
Total Fat: 25 g
Saturated Fat: 12 g
Trans Fat: 0.5 g
Unsaturated Fat: 11 g
Cholesterol: 48 mg
Sodium: 720 mg
Total Carbohydrates: 51 g
Fiber: 5 g
Total Sugars: 3 g
Added Sugars: 0 g
Protein: 13 g
Lactose: 0.6 g
Principal micronutrients: selenium, copper, potassium, phosphorus, niacin, riboflavin, pantothenic acid, vitamin D