Italian Polenta with Wild Mushrooms and Castelmagno | Polenta con Funghi e Castelmagno
This is the Piedmontese reading of polenta, a different animal from the soft bowls of the Lombard valleys. The cornmeal is finer, the polenta is cooked firmer, and the point of the plate is a warm fonduta of Castelmagno DOP poured over it, with wild mushrooms sauteed separately and set on top at the last second.
Castelmagno is the whole argument. It is a blue veined cow milk cheese from three communes in the Valle Grana above Cuneo, and it tastes of hay, bitter herb and a sharp mineral finish no other Italian cheese quite reproduces. Melted carelessly it turns into a stringy, oily mess. Melted properly, with milk and a very low heat, it becomes a pale ivory sauce with a savoury edge that cuts through the sweetness of the corn.
The mushrooms give the plate a woodland register and a firmer bite against two soft components. They are never cooked into the fonduta and never mixed into the polenta. Three elements, three pans, assembled in the last thirty seconds.
Yield: 4 servings. Prep: 25 minutes. Cook: 55 minutes. Total: about 1 hour 20 minutes. Difficulty: intermediate. Course: primo piatto. Season: September to January. Region: Piedmont, Valle Grana and the province of Cuneo.
The Story
Castelmagno is one of the oldest documented cheeses in Italy. An arbitration ruling of 1277 settled a dispute over grazing rights between the commune of Castelmagno and the Marquis of Saluzzo, fixing the annual rent to be paid not in coin but in wheels of the cheese already made on those pastures. The name has been in continuous written use for nearly seven hundred and fifty years.
It is made from the milk of cows grazing between roughly 3,000 and 6,500 feet, in only three communes: Castelmagno, Pradleves and Monterosso Grana. The curd is pressed, hung to drain, broken up, salted and matured in cool damp cellars or natural caves for two to five months and often longer. Blue veining develops naturally with age rather than by inoculation, which is why one wheel can be white and crumbly and the next marbled and pungent.
It very nearly disappeared. By the early 1980s fewer than a dozen producers remained and output had collapsed to a few hundred wheels a year, as the mountain dairies emptied and the young left for Turin. DOP status in 1996 and the interest of Piedmontese restaurants brought it back, and the cheese owes part of its survival to exactly this kind of dish.
The polenta underneath is the other Piedmontese half. In the Cuneese the preferred maize is a fine yellow meal, often the old Ottofile variety with its eight rows of large flat kernels, giving a sweeter and less granular polenta. Cooked firmer and served flatter, it is a base rather than a bowl of porridge, which is precisely what a fonduta needs.
Ingredients
For the polenta
Fine yellow polenta, ideally Ottofile, 1 1/4 cups (200 g)
Water, 4 1/4 cups (1 l)
Whole milk, 1/2 cup (120 ml)
Coarse sea salt, 1 1/2 tsp (9 g)
Unsalted butter, 2 tbsp (30 g)
For the Castelmagno fonduta
Castelmagno DOP, rind removed, diced, 7 oz (200 g)
Whole milk, 3/4 cup (180 ml)
Heavy cream, 2 tbsp (30 ml)
Egg yolk, 1
Freshly ground white pepper, to taste
For the wild mushrooms
Fresh wild mushrooms, 12 oz (340 g), porcini, chanterelles and black trumpets if you can get them
Unsalted butter, 2 tbsp (30 g)
Extra virgin olive oil, 1 tbsp (15 ml)
Garlic clove, crushed and left whole, 1
Fresh thyme sprigs, 2
Fine sea salt, 1/2 tsp (3 g)
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
For finishing
Toasted hazelnuts from the Langhe, roughly chopped, 2 tbsp (20 g)
Chives, finely snipped, 1 tbsp (3 g)
Castelmagno DOP for shaving at the table, 1 oz (30 g)
Preparation
Dice the cheese and start it soaking
Cut the rind off the Castelmagno and dice the paste small, about 1/2 inch (1 cm). Put it in a bowl with the milk and leave it at room temperature for at least 30 minutes. This soak is not optional: cold cheese dropped into hot liquid seizes and separates, while cheese that has sat in milk melts evenly at a much lower temperature.
Cook the polenta
Bring the water and coarse salt to a boil in a heavy pot and rain in the fine polenta in a thin stream, whisking without stopping. Fine meal thickens faster than coarse and lumps just as readily. Lower the heat to a bare simmer and cook 35 to 40 minutes, scraping the base often. Beat in the milk and butter in the last 5 minutes.
Clean and cut the mushrooms
Brush the wild mushrooms clean and trim the bases. Never rinse them. Slice porcini thickly through cap and stem, tear chanterelles lengthwise by hand, and leave black trumpets whole. Check inside the hollow ones, which hold grit, and split any large specimen to look for tunnelling.
Melt the fonduta over a bain marie
Set the bowl of cheese and milk over a pan of barely steaming water, never over direct heat, and stir slowly with a spatula. The cheese looks grainy and hopeless for several minutes and then suddenly comes together. Add the cream, take the bowl off the water and let it lose a few degrees before whisking in the egg yolk, which thickens the fonduta and gives it gloss. Season with white pepper only.
Sear the mushrooms
Heat a wide skillet over high heat with the olive oil and add the mushrooms in a single uncrowded layer, in two batches if necessary. Leave them untouched for 2 minutes, then toss and cook 2 minutes more until the edges catch colour. Add the butter, crushed garlic and thyme, swirl for a minute until the butter foams and smells nutty, then season, remove the garlic and thyme and take the pan off the heat.
Check the polenta consistency
The polenta should be firmer than a soft bowl and looser than something you could slice: it must spread into a low even disc and hold that shape without running to the rim. Correct it with hot water a spoonful at a time if it tightened while you worked on the cheese, and taste once more for salt.
Bring the three components together
Work fast. Spread the polenta, pour the fonduta, spoon the mushrooms. The fonduta should be between 130°F and 140°F (55°C and 60°C) when it goes onto the plate, warm enough to flow and far too cool to split. If it has been waiting, return it to the bain marie for a minute and whisk it once.
Plating
Use a wide flat plate rather than a bowl. The dish is built in layers that should stay visible, and a deep bowl collapses them into one another. Warm the plates only moderately: too hot and the fonduta goes on flowing until it reaches the rim.
Spoon the polenta into the centre and spread it into a low disc about five inches across, leaving a clean margin of plate all round. Pour the fonduta over the middle in a slow circle and let it find its own edge. It should cover most of the polenta and stop short of the border, with a little yellow showing at the perimeter.
Pile the mushrooms off centre on top, loose and irregular so the shapes read individually. Scatter the chopped hazelnuts and the chives, shave a little Castelmagno over the top and finish with white pepper. Nothing green and leafy belongs here: the plate is a study in yellow, ivory and brown.
Professional Technique
The controlling technique is the fonduta, a protein and fat emulsion that behaves like any other. Cheese is a matrix of casein holding fat globules, and heat makes that matrix contract. Past about 150°F (65°C) the proteins tighten enough to squeeze the fat out, which is the oily pool and the rubbery lump every failed cheese sauce produces. The bain marie keeps the sauce under that threshold, and the milk soak hydrates the casein so it melts lower still.
The egg yolk is the second half of the mechanism. Its lecithin holds fat and water together in a way milk proteins alone cannot manage with an aged cheese, and it is why a Piedmontese fonduta keeps its gloss on the plate rather than breaking as it cools. It must go in off the heat, into a sauce that has dropped a few degrees, because yolk sets at around 150°F (65°C) and a fonduta with scrambled specks cannot be rescued.
The third is knowing what Castelmagno does that a generic melting cheese does not. Its veining and long maturation leave it high in free amino acids and short chain fatty acids, which give a savoury intensity out of proportion to its quantity and make it more prone to splitting than a young toma. Seven ounces is enough for four people. Doubling it makes the dish sharper and less stable, not richer.
Texture and Moisture Control
Three textures have to arrive intact and each fails in its own direction. The polenta must be firm enough to hold a disc but soft enough to yield under a spoon, which with fine meal means about five parts liquid to one part polenta rather than the six a coarse grind needs. Test it on a cold plate: it should stop moving within two or three seconds and show no free water at the edge.
The fonduta must be pourable and stay pourable. Too thin and it runs off into a ring around the polenta, too thick and it sits on top like a pale lid. If it is loose, hold it longer over the bain marie while stirring. If it is heavy, whisk in warm milk a teaspoon at a time, never cold and never cream, which only adds fat to a sauce already carrying plenty.
The mushrooms must keep a bite. Released into a crowded pan their water poaches them, and they turn flabby against two soft components that offer nothing to chew. Sear in two batches if the pan is not genuinely wide, and season only once the edges have taken colour.
Temperature discipline is the difference between this dish and a plate of warm mush. Polenta wants to be hot, around 175°F (80°C). Fonduta wants 130°F to 140°F (55°C to 60°C) and nothing above. Mushrooms want to be straight from the pan. That spread is why the components are held separately and joined in the final seconds.
Professional Mise en Place
Three components on three heat sources with one narrow assembly window. Start the cheese soak first, because it sets the timing for everything else.
Equipment and tools
Heavy based pot of at least 3 quarts (3 litres) for the polenta
Stainless bowl and a saucepan that it sits in without touching the water
Wide skillet, 12 inches (30 cm) or larger, for searing the mushrooms
Balloon whisk, silicone spatula and a long wooden spoon
Instant read thermometer, which is the only reliable way to keep the fonduta in range
Prepared ahead
Castelmagno derinded, diced and soaking in the milk, at least 30 minutes ahead
Wild mushrooms brushed and cut, up to 3 hours ahead, uncovered on a tray in the refrigerator
Hazelnuts toasted and chopped, up to 2 days ahead in a sealed jar
Chives snipped at the last minute so they keep colour and aroma
Plates set out and warmed only moderately, never hot
Service setup
Polenta held covered over the lowest heat, stirred every few minutes
Fonduta held over the bain marie with the water off the boil, whisked once before serving
Mushroom pan hot and ready, seared in the final two minutes
Kettle of hot water and a jug of warm milk within reach for corrections
Peeler, pepper mill and the table piece of Castelmagno beside the plates
Chef Tips
Ask to taste the Castelmagno before you buy it. Maturation varies enormously between wheels, and a young one at two months is mild and crumbly while a five month wheel with real blue running through it dominates everything else on the plate. For a fonduta, aim for the middle: firm, faintly veined, sharp but not aggressive.
Keep the rind. Dropped into the polenta water for the first twenty minutes and fished out, it gives the base a faint savoury undertone that links it to the sauce. Wash it first and remove it well before the polenta finishes, or it softens and sheds pieces into the pot.
Use an instant read thermometer for the fonduta the first few times. Cheese sauces fail in a window of perhaps fifteen degrees, and once you have felt what 140°F (60°C) looks like under a spatula you will not need the probe again.
If wild mushrooms are out of season, use good cremini with half an ounce of dried porcini soaked in warm water, reducing the strained liquid into the pan. Do not substitute the Castelmagno. Gorgonzola is sweeter and far wetter, Fontina melts differently, and a generic blue buries the corn entirely.
Common Mistakes
Melting the cheese over direct heat. Above about 150°F (65°C) the casein tightens and pushes the fat out, and the sauce separates into oil and rubber. A bain marie with the water off the boil is not a precaution here, it is the method.
Adding the egg yolk too early. Whisked into a fonduta that is still hot, the yolk sets into specks that no amount of beating will smooth out. Take the bowl off the water, wait a minute and then add it.
Using cold cheese straight from the refrigerator. It melts unevenly, with the outside seizing while the middle is still solid, and that unevenness is what causes splitting. Dice it, cover it with the milk and leave it at room temperature for half an hour.
Cooking the mushrooms into the fonduta. They release water into an emulsion that has no capacity to absorb it, and the sauce thins and breaks. They are a separate pan and a separate texture, and they go on at the end.
Salting the fonduta. Castelmagno carries a good deal of salt already and concentrates further as it melts. Season with white pepper, taste at the end, and only then correct if it genuinely needs it.
Wine Pairing
Barolo DOCG: The regional answer and a better match than its reputation for weight suggests. Nebbiolo carries very high acidity alongside its tannin, and that acidity is what handles a sauce built on milk, cream and yolk. Tar, rose and dried cherry meet the wild mushrooms directly. Choose a bottle with some years on it, since a young one has tannin enough to roughen the fonduta.
Barbaresco DOCG: The same grape in a finer frame, from warmer soils that give a softer and earlier drinking wine. It has the acidity the fonduta needs without the tannic grip of a young Barolo, which makes it the safer choice when the Castelmagno is well matured. The dried herb note it develops at ten years sits beautifully against the corn.
Roero Arneis DOCG: The white to reach for if a red seems too much for a first course. Arneis is aromatic without sweetness, with white peach and almond and a distinctly low acidity for an Italian white, which is why it works with the cheese rather than fighting it. Its slightly oily texture mirrors the fonduta instead of cutting against it.
Gavi DOCG: From Cortese grown in the south east of the region, and the sharper white option. Where Arneis matches the sauce, Gavi cuts it: taut green apple and lime acidity with a chalky mineral finish that scrubs the fat between mouthfuls. It suits a version leaning heavily on mushrooms, where the plate needs lifting rather than echoing.
Alta Langa DOCG: Piedmont's traditional method sparkling wine, always vintage and aged at least thirty months on the lees. The bread and hazelnut notes ageing gives are the same notes the toasted Langhe hazelnuts bring to the plate, and pressure and acidity together handle a rich cheese sauce better than anything still. Serve it as the aperitivo and keep pouring.
Storage & Reheating
Assembled plates do not keep, so store the three components separately. Polenta keeps 3 days in an airtight container and sets solid, which is normal. Cooked mushrooms keep 2 days sealed. The fonduta is the fragile one: it holds 2 days refrigerated but contains a barely cooked yolk, so keep it covered and cold and do not push it further.
Rewarm the fonduta only over a bain marie, stirring constantly, and stop as soon as it flows. It looks broken out of the refrigerator and usually comes back with patience and a teaspoon of warm milk. If it refuses, whisk in a fresh yolk off the heat. Never use a microwave or direct heat.
For the polenta, break the cold block into a pan with about 1/4 cup (60 ml) of hot water or milk per serving and work it over low heat until it flows again, roughly 8 minutes. Refresh the mushrooms in a hot dry skillet for 2 minutes. Polenta freezes in portions for up to 2 months. Do not freeze the fonduta: the emulsion separates on thawing.
Nutrition
Per serving, based on 4 servings:
Calories: 610 kcal
Total Fat: 34 g
Saturated Fat: 19 g
Trans Fat: 0.8 g
Unsaturated Fat: 13 g
Cholesterol: 135 mg
Sodium: 980 mg
Total Carbohydrates: 50 g
Fiber: 4 g
Total Sugars: 5 g
Added Sugars: 0 g
Protein: 24 g
Lactose: 2.6 g
Principal micronutrients: calcium, phosphorus, vitamin A, vitamin B12, zinc, selenium, copper
These figures are estimates. Sodium and saturated fat depend heavily on the maturation of the Castelmagno, which gains salt and concentration with every month in the cellar.
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