Saturday, August 7, 2010

Cookbooking: Mushrooms and Polenta

How did I never know about Bosa Foods until today? I have lived in East Van for 12 years and didn't know there was a giant Italian grocery store. Granted it is in the middle of nowhere, but it is awesome! I bought dried chanterelles and porcinis, a fig jam, polenta and porchetta. They have fresh pasta there as well.

What to do with all of that? Look no further than How to Cook Everything! This is a combination of 2 recipes: Sauteed Mushrooms and Grilled Polenta.

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I have never cooked polenta before, I am not even sure if I have eaten it. It does come up often in my low fat cookbooks, so why not. I think I have stayed away because it is sold like this:
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Mmmmmmm, big tube of squishy, yellow goo. The grilled recipe called for it to be sliced and then cooked. I choose to cook it in the cast iron skillet. I was really surprised that you could slice it. I expected it to be less solid. But I sliced it and sprayed it with a little cooking spray, the recipe called for brushing it with olive oil. I wasn't sure how long to cook it and expected it to get a more crunchy bottom. Maybe I didn't cook it for long enough?

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Keeping with the new theme, I have never reconstituted mushrooms before. The book had a section on how to do that as well. It really does have everything. The chanterelles absorbed water really well, but the porcinis seemed to stay pretty hard.
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Mixed with button mushrooms they cooked for a while. Then you add some white wine, fresh parsley (from my garden!) and garlic (from the farmer's market) and let that cook down. This was really tasty. I enjoyed the mix of the mushrooms and the white wine. I then spooned it over the polenta.

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I was really happy with the mix of the two recipes. It worked! Served with a side salad and some more of the wine- it was open after all! The cherry tomatoes were also fresh from the garden!

Next weekend we are going back to Bosa for Italian sandwiches!

1 comment:

  1. bosa is fabu.. if you haven't been to their super store it is worth it. off boundary on Vancouver side just before 1st. just like the little one on victoria but bigger.. oh yeah and more stuff!

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