04-20-10: Cooking Mushroom-Zucchini Ragout Over Creamy Polenta From 'Get Cooking'
Monday Night Dinner for Two
So, Monday night I decided to make the Mushroom-Zucchini Ragout Over Creamy Polenta From 'Get Cooking.' The recipe makes four servings -- exactly, as it happens. Here's what I did and here's what happened. I was hoping to provide video from my damnable FLIP thingie, but, alas, it is lost when I finally figure out a reasonable way to use it. I may replace it, or try to find it. In the interim. here's the story:
1. At 6:00 PMish, I set the scene by getting all the ingredients out. I'm not going to cook for another hour, so I go and sit down to read the new Yann Martel novel.
2. I separate the onions and garlic, which I'll need gto chop first from the zucchini, squash and mushrooms; four kinds of the latter, 1 portabella, 3 shiitakes, some white and crimini (3/4 lb total).
3. Chop and start sauteeing onions. I put in some olive oil and a fair amount of sweet marsala wine. When the liquid grows thin, I add more wine,repeating for about 30 minutes.
4. Chop the garlic. I use a lot more than suggested in almost any recipe I make,
5. This is what the onions look like as they cook down. You can almost make a patty out of them.
6. Add gthe chopped mushrooms; 1 portabella, 3 shiitakes, some white and crimini (3/4 lb total). I also added the can of tomatoes at this point, which was too early. Oh well.
7. Add the zucchini and squash at the last moment, cook briefly.
Done! Well, I didn't take pictures of the creamy polenta, which is dead easy; 4 cups of water, 1 of polenta, cook for 15 minutes simmering, lots of stirring.
Here are the mods I'd make; first off, I added about half a bottle of marsala wine over the course of making this, and that was good. I would maybe use less wine or reduce the sauce quite a bit before adding in the zucchini and squash.
Katzen suggests that you can save the leftover polenta by putting it in a bread pan, refrigerating it, and then slicing and sauteeing it in olive oil. I'd do that in the morning before I made this next time, and serve the ragout over bread slice-size polenta slabs, crispy on the outside, creamy on the inside. A great recipe, very satisfying even to this carnivore. Plus a good addition on any weight-loss diet. The whole cooking episode lasted about an hour, not constant work. Cleanup was not too bad; the ragout pan, the polenta pan, plates, etc.
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