Italian Buckwheat and Cornmeal Polenta | Polenta Taragna
Polenta taragna is the polenta of the Alpine valleys, darker and far more savoury than the yellow version most people picture. Two flours go into the pot instead of one: coarse stone ground cornmeal and buckwheat, which the Valtellina has grown since the sixteenth century because it ripens fast enough to survive a short mountain summer. The buckwheat turns the polenta a mottled grey brown and gives it a mineral, faintly bitter depth that cornmeal alone never has.
What follows the flour makes the dish. Once the grains are cooked through, a great deal of cold butter and a great deal of grated mountain cheese are beaten in off the boil until the polenta turns glossy and slack enough to fall slowly from a spoon. Valtellina Casera and Bitto are the cheeses of the valley, and they melt into strings rather than pooling as oil.
Get the salt right, get the hydration right, keep the cheese off the heat, and there is nothing left to hide behind.
Yield: 4 generous servings. Prep: 10 minutes. Cook: 50 minutes. Rest: 3 minutes. Total: about 1 hour 5 minutes. Difficulty: intermediate. Course: primo piatto. Region: Lombardy, Valtellina and the Alpine valleys of Sondrio and Bergamo.
The Story
The dish takes its name from the tarai, the long wooden stick used to stir polenta in a copper paiolo hung over an open fire. In the dialect of the valley the verb means to work the mass with that stick so it never catches on the copper. For most of its history the name described an action rather than a recipe, and the recipe was whatever flour a household had. In the upper Valtellina, in Valchiavenna, in the Val Brembana and the Valsassina, that flour was part buckwheat.
Buckwheat is not a cereal at all but a relative of rhubarb, and it reached these valleys along the Alpine trade routes in the sixteenth century. It matures in about eighty days, tolerates thin acid soil at altitude, and could be sown after an earlier crop had come off the same terrace. Where maize struggled to ripen, buckwheat was the difference between a full winter store and a thin one. The mixed polenta was born out of that arithmetic, not out of taste.
The cheese arrived by the same logic. Valtellina Casera is made in the valley dairies from partly skimmed cow milk and aged for months. Bitto is made on the summer pastures above Albaredo and Gerola, often with a little goat milk, and can age for years. Both existed to store summer milk through winter, and both were in the cellar when the polenta came off the fire.
Ingredients
For the polenta
Water, 6 1/3 cups (1.5 liters)
Coarse stone ground cornmeal, bramata, 1 cup (150 g)
Buckwheat flour, 1 1/4 cups (150 g)
Coarse sea salt, 2 tsp (12 g)
For the mantecatura
Unsalted butter, cold, cut into cubes, 7 tbsp (100 g)
Valtellina Casera DOP, coarsely grated, 7 oz (200 g)
Bitto DOP, coarsely grated, 2 oz (60 g)
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
For finishing
Unsalted butter, 2 tbsp (30 g)
Sage leaves, 4, optional
Grated Bitto DOP, 1 tbsp per bowl
Coarse sea salt, a few grains
Preparation
Step 1
Salt the water and bring it to a true boil. Put the water and the coarse salt into a heavy copper paiolo or the thickest bottomed pot you own and bring it to a full rolling boil. Salt now rather than later: polenta takes up salt evenly only while the starch is still absorbing liquid, and salt stirred in at the end sits on the surface of the grains and reads as sharp instead of seasoned.
Step 2
Rain in the cornmeal first. Bring the water back to a strong simmer, then let the cornmeal fall through the fingers of one hand in a thin steady stream while the other whisks without stopping. Cornmeal goes first because its larger particles need the longest hydration, and because the whisk still moves freely through thin liquid. Whisk until the surface is smooth and no dry flour rides on top.
Step 3
Follow with the buckwheat. Add it the same way, slowly and against a moving whisk. It is milled far finer than the cornmeal and clumps the instant it meets hot water, so this is where lumps are made or avoided. If a few form, press them against the side of the pot with a wooden spoon. The mixture darkens at once to grey brown and thickens faster than a plain yellow polenta would.
Step 4
Settle into the long cook. Drop the heat to low, swap the whisk for a long wooden spoon, and cook uncovered for 40 to 45 minutes. Stir every two or three minutes, working right around the base and up the walls where the polenta scorches first. The surface should spit thick lazy bubbles throughout. That slow heavy plop is the sound of correct heat; a fast splutter means the flame is too high.
Step 5
Judge doneness by the pot, not the clock. The polenta is ready when it pulls cleanly away from the sides as the spoon passes and holds the furrow for a second before closing. Taste it: the cornmeal should be completely tender with no chalk left on the tongue, the buckwheat nutty rather than grassy. If it stiffens before the grains are tender, beat in half a cup of boiling water and carry on.
Step 6
Beat in the butter off the boil. Pull the pot off the direct heat, then add the cold cubed butter a few pieces at a time, beating hard after each addition until it disappears. Cold butter is deliberate: it melts slowly into the hot starch and emulsifies rather than separating into a slick. Do this before the cheese, because the film of fat it leaves on the starch is what stops the cheese seizing.
Step 7
Add the cheese in three additions. With the pot off the heat, beat in the grated Casera in three batches, waiting until each melts into strings and vanishes before the next, then finish with the Bitto. The polenta must never bubble again from here. Above roughly 180°F (82°C) the cheese proteins tighten and squeeze out their fat, leaving grainy curds in an oily polenta. Grind in black pepper, taste for salt, stop.
Step 8
Rest it, then check the fall. Let the polenta stand covered for 3 minutes so the cheese finishes melting and the mass relaxes. Then lift a spoonful and watch it: it should fall back slowly and in one piece, holding its shape for a moment on the surface. If it drops instantly it needs 2 minutes more over low heat. If it refuses to fall, beat in boiling water a tablespoon at a time.
Plating
Warm the bowls, and warm them more than you think you need to. Polenta taragna carries a great deal of melted cheese and butter, and both set the moment they meet a cold surface, turning the underside of the portion stiff before the diner reaches it. A shallow wide bowl held at around 140°F (60°C) keeps the polenta loose to the last spoonful.
Serve it with a large spoon and do not spread it out. Drop a generous mound into the centre of each bowl and let it settle into a low irregular dome, since polenta smoothed with the back of a spoon looks like a puree and loses the rough look that belongs to it. Press a shallow well into the top in one movement.
Melt the finishing butter until it foams and smells faintly of hazelnut, with the sage in it if you are using it, and pour it into the well so it gathers there and runs down the sides. Add a last spoonful of grated Bitto, a grind of pepper, and a few grains of coarse salt on top, where they are tasted as salt rather than absorbed. Nothing green, nothing decorative.
Professional Technique
The technical problem specific to taragna is that the two flours behave nothing alike. Cornmeal is almost pure starch in large hard particles that gelatinise slowly and build the structure of the polenta. Buckwheat is finely milled, high in protein, low in starch, and thickens the liquid fast without contributing structure. Together the buckwheat makes the pot feel done long before the cornmeal is, which is why a taragna cooked by appearance rather than by taste so often finishes gritty.
The second technique is the mantecatura, the same principle used to finish a risotto applied to a much thicker mass. Cold butter beaten into hot starch emulsifies, because the water in the butter and the free starch in the polenta hold the fat in suspension. Melted butter stirred into the same pot would simply float. Order matters as much as temperature: once the starch is coated in butterfat, the cheese meets a lubricated surface and melts into it instead of clumping against bare grains.
The third is heat management on the way down. Casera and Bitto are semi cooked pressed cheeses whose casein network tightens sharply above roughly 180°F (82°C), forcing out fat and leaving a rubbery curd. Polenta at a simmer is well past that point, so the pot has to come off the heat and lose a little temperature before any cheese goes in. The residual warmth in a thick mass of cooked starch is more than enough to melt it, gently and from below.
Texture and Moisture Control
The hydration ratio is the first decision and it sets everything else. Five parts water to one part combined flour by weight, as here, gives a polenta that stays soft and spoonable once the fats go in. Four to one gives a firm polenta that sets solid enough to slice and grill, which is a legitimate dish but not this one. Buckwheat absorbs slightly less water than cornmeal, so taragna always finishes a little looser than a plain polenta at the same ratio.
Starch keeps working after the pot leaves the stove. Amylose released during cooking begins to re associate as the temperature falls, and a polenta that looked perfect in the pot will be noticeably firmer four minutes later in the bowl. Finish it fractionally looser than you want to serve it, about one spoonful of boiling water past your target. Correcting the other way is harder, since you cannot boil moisture out of a polenta that already holds cheese without splitting it.
Holding it for service is possible. Cover the pot, set it over a bain marie at around 175°F (80°C), and stir every ten minutes, loosening with a splash of boiling water whenever the surface begins to skin. It holds in good condition for about half an hour. Beyond that the emulsion tires, fat beads on the surface and the texture turns heavy. Never hold it over a direct flame, where the base scorches within minutes.
Professional Mise en Place
There is nothing to prepare at the last moment here and everything to prepare before the water boils, because from the moment the flour goes in the pot needs a hand on it for three quarters of an hour.
Equipment and tools
Copper paiolo or a heavy thick bottomed pot of at least 4 quarts (4 liters)
Balloon whisk for the flours, long wooden spoon for the cook
Box grater on the coarse holes, one bowl for each cheese
Kettle of boiling water kept ready for adjusting consistency
Instant read thermometer, small pan for the finishing butter
Prepared ahead
Cheeses grated up to 4 hours ahead, covered, at cool room temperature
Butter cubed and returned to the refrigerator so it goes in genuinely cold
Both flours weighed into separate bowls, never mixed together
Salt measured into the water before it boils
Bowls stacked in a low oven to warm through
Service setup
Kettle hot, wooden spoon in the pot, cheese bowls within reach
Flame at its lowest setting once the long cook begins
Finishing butter browned only while the polenta rests
Warm bowls out of the oven at the last moment
Pepper mill and coarse salt on the pass
Chef Tips
Buy buckwheat flour with a date on it and use it quickly. It is high in fat for a flour and turns rancid faster than anything else in the cupboard, taking on a stale cardboard smell that transfers straight into the polenta. Keep what you do not use in the freezer.
Use coarse bramata, never instant cornmeal. Instant polenta has been precooked and dried, and while it thickens in five minutes it gives a flat pasty texture with none of the grain definition that makes taragna worth eating. The long cook exists precisely to deal with a coarse meal.
Grate the cheese on the coarse holes of the box grater. Finely grated cheese has more surface area, melts faster than the polenta can absorb it and gathers into one mass on one side of the pot. Coarse shreds disperse as you beat and give you time to see what is happening.
If Casera and Bitto are out of reach, Fontina Valle d Aosta with a young Asiago is the closest honest substitute in the same proportions. Avoid anything aged hard, which will not melt into strings, and avoid fresh cheeses such as mozzarella, which release water and thin the polenta.
Common Mistakes
Tipping the flour in all at once. The outside of the mass hydrates instantly and seals dry flour inside, giving lumps no later whisking will break down. Let both flours fall in a thin stream against a moving whisk, cornmeal first and buckwheat second.
Salting at the end instead of the start. Salt added once the starch has set stays on the surface and reads as sharp, while the polenta underneath still tastes flat. Salt the water before it boils and taste for seasoning before any cheese goes in.
Cooking it too fast. A high flame drives water off the surface long before the cornmeal is hydrated, so the pot thickens early and the polenta tastes chalky however long it then sits. Keep a slow lazy bubble for the full 40 to 45 minutes.
Adding the cheese over the heat. Above about 180°F (82°C) the casein in Casera and Bitto contracts and expels fat, leaving grainy curds in an oily polenta. Take the pot off the flame, add the cheese in three batches, and never let it bubble again.
Melting the butter before adding it. Melted butter stirred into hot starch floats instead of emulsifying, and the polenta ends up greasy rather than glossy. Use it cold and cubed, and beat it in a few pieces at a time.
Serving into cold bowls. Cheese and butter set against cold china within seconds, so the base of the portion turns stiff and waxy while the top is still perfect. Warm the bowls and bring them out only as the polenta is spooned.
Wine Pairing
Valtellina Superiore DOCG: The wine of the same terraced slopes and the answer here before any other is considered. Nebbiolo grown on this granite, called chiavennasca in the valley, keeps a high firm acidity and a fine dusty tannin that cuts straight through the butter and the melted cheese. Its rose and tar aromatics have the lift to carry over the earthiness of the buckwheat.
Sforzato di Valtellina DOCG: The dried grape red of the same valley, fully dry despite the raisining, and the bottle to open when the polenta is served beside braised beef or game. Months of drying concentrate the nebbiolo into something denser and warmer, with dried fig and cocoa behind the fruit, while the tannin still arrives firm enough to clear the palate.
Gattinara DOCG: From the volcanic porphyry of northern Piedmont, a nebbiolo of different character: leaner, more iron and woodsmoke than perfume, with a savoury finish. That mineral austerity works against the fat instead of adding to it, and a bottle with a few years of age has softened its tannin enough to sit with melted cheese.
Alto Adige DOC Lagrein: An Alpine red with real colour and body, dark plum and bitter chocolate fruit and an almond twist on the finish that echoes the faint bitterness of the buckwheat directly. Its tannin is rounder than nebbiolo, which makes it the easier bottle for anyone who finds the Valtellina reds austere.
Barbera d Asti DOCG: The practical everyday alternative. Barbera has high acidity with very little tannin, so it slices through butterfat without adding grip of its own, and its bright sour cherry fruit keeps the plate from feeling heavy. Choose an unoaked bottling and serve it slightly cool, around 60°F (16°C).
Storage & Reheating
Leftover taragna keeps refrigerated for 3 days in an airtight container and sets hard as it cools, because the starch retrogrades and the butterfat solidifies. That is useful rather than a problem. Press the warm polenta into a shallow oiled tray about 3/4 inch (2 cm) deep, cover once cold, and cut it into squares straight from the refrigerator.
To bring it back as soft polenta, put it in a saucepan with 2 to 3 tablespoons of milk or water per portion, cover, and warm over the lowest possible heat, breaking it up as it slackens. It takes about ten minutes and it needs patience, since forced over a high flame the emulsion breaks and the cheese separates into oil. Finish with a small knob of fresh butter to restore the gloss.
The better option for set polenta is to grill or pan fry it. Brush the cold squares with butter and cook them for 3 to 4 minutes a side until crisp and blistered, then melt a slice of Casera on top. Taragna also freezes in its set form for up to 2 months, wrapped in portions. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator and grill from cold. Do not freeze it soft, since it separates on thawing.
Nutrition
Per serving, based on 4 generous servings:
Calories: 700 kcal
Total Fat: 42 g
Saturated Fat: 25 g
Trans Fat: 1 g
Unsaturated Fat: 14 g
Cholesterol: 115 mg
Sodium: 1150 mg
Total Carbohydrates: 58 g
Fiber: 5 g
Total Sugars: 2 g
Added Sugars: 0 g
Protein: 27 g
Lactose: 1.5 g
Principal micronutrients: calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, manganese, zinc, vitamin A, vitamin B12
These figures are estimates. Sodium depends heavily on the age and saltiness of the cheeses, and the salt in the cooking water is absorbed rather than discarded.
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