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Farina of Corn Meal, Piemontaise

A creamy cornmeal polenta cooked with butter, Parmesan, and served with beef gravy and mushroom essence.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,232 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Farina of Corn Meal, Piemontaise

Ingredients

Directions

Make the polenta

  1. In a saucepan, bring 3 quarts of water to a boil.

  2. Add ¼ teaspoon salt and a piece of butter.

  3. Slowly stir in 2 pounds of corn meal Farina.

  4. Once it thickens, reduce heat and cook for 25 minutes, stirring occasionally.

  5. Remove from heat and mix in 6 ounces of butter and 6 ounces of grated Parmesan cheese.

Mould and serve

  1. Pour into buttered Charlotte moulds and keep warm until serving.

  2. Turn out and sprinkle with grated Parmesan cheese before serving with reduced beef gravy and essence of mushrooms.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  2. Parmesan cheese + mushroomtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,199 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (apple, fatty).

  3. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Corn + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together399 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Corn meal farina
Forms the thick body of the polenta as it swells and sets in the hot water.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the finished polenta.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savory, salty flavor and helps the polenta hold together as it cools.

The step that matters

Slowly stir in the corn meal Farina. Adding the meal slowly while stirring prevents lumps, because dry starch clumps when it hits hot water before it can disperse. Keep stirring as it thickens so the bottom does not scorch.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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