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Italian Polenta

Polenta is a thick cornmeal mush seasoned with salt and pepper, cooked, then mixed with cheese and butter, baked until browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cheese and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,962 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Italian Polenta

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the polenta

  1. Make a thick mush of cornmeal, seasoning it with salt and black pepper.

  2. Cook over hot water for 1 hour.

  3. Stir in 1 cup of grated cheese for each pint of mush until melted.

  4. Turn into a greased pan.

  5. Cut into slices when done.

Bake and serve

  1. Cut into 2-inch squares and sauté in butter.

  2. Spread on a buttered pan, sprinkle with cheese, add a second layer, and sprinkle again with cheese mixed with buttered crumbs.

  3. Place in a 400°F (200°C) oven until slightly browned.

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. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Pepper + cheesetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Cornmeal
Forms the thick mush that sets into the body of the polenta.
Cheese
Melts into the mush and adds savoury flavour and richness, and browns on top.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the squares brown when sautéed and baked.

The step that matters

Cooking the mush over hot water. Cornmeal thickens and gelatinises as it cooks, and cooking it gently over hot water for the full hour without scorching gives a smooth, fully cooked texture before it is set.

“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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