Foodie Chickie

Cornmeal is a very versatile ingredient. It can adapt to any dish and is used in a many different cultures for all types of meals. My mother would make a dish her mother had made for her as a little girl called Mamalika. My grandmother learned about this Cornmeal dish when she lived in Romania. You add equal parts yellow Cornmeal to water and also a bit of salt for flavoring. If we wanted the Mamalika saltier we would add Feta cheese to it and some sour cream. Until I realized that Cornmeal is used to enhance many different dishes, Mamalika was the only dish I knew of with Cornmeal. The second time I tried Cornmeal was when I had Empanadas(also can be made of wheat). And oh did that open up my palate. The crispy flavorful dough surrounding the flavorful filling. However finding this current way to eat Cornmeal was purely by accident. I was in the supermarket recently when I saw Polenta(cornmeal)in casing, in the dairy aisle. It was flavored with Basil and Garlic. The instructions said it needed to be baked or fried before being eaten. I was curious to try it. I heated it up a pan, added some olive oil and and then lightly fried the Polenta which I had cut in one inch slices while waiting for the pan to heat up. Then I added some premade Marinara sauce on top of it and topped it off with grated Parmesan. Niel and I ate it for dinner with some fresh sausage Niel had purchased from Whole Foods. I would really recommend trying fresh sausage once in your life time. We could totally could taste the quality and all the spices. Which were garlic, sun dried tomato and oregano. The two went very well together.

 


 


 


Here is a link for some Polenta Recipes.

Song Stuck In My Head: "What Do I Get?" by The Buzzcocks