Cheesy polenta slices with fiddle heads & browned thyme butter

Plus Mel's Staples: Must-haves, essentials & more in your pantry & fridge Part 8

Dear fellow Foodie,

writing this Blog now every week for the past 2-ish months - well except for my monthly cornerstone content that also provides a recipe, too - brings me so much joy and excitement every time I ‘have’ to come up with a new recipe for you.

What started as an idea of introducing my way of cooking & baking by using staples from your pantry and fridge, turned into a very creative and inspiring process of diving deeper into recipe creation, intuitive cooking & baking and even food pairing.

Plus, some of the more obvious (to me) part of using these staples:

Organizing your staples, using up what’s left over from other recipes, but needs using before it’s going bad, stale, etc., efficient usage of your staples and so much more.

Oftentimes, when you’re doing this (almost) every day for the past almost 10 years, you’re so involved in your own way of doing things, I tend to forget that other people are doing it completely different compared to how I do things.

And, I wasn’t aware, that this is something worth introducing people to, too. I guess, it all boils down to my German efficiency here - haha!

Anyway, the recipe for this blog post literally developed right at the spot, while I was brainstorming ideas - not at my desk, where I’m writing these lines right now, but in the kitchen - for what to do with the bunch of fiddle heads that I had and needed using. I knew I wanted to stir-fry them in olive oil.

But, what did I want to pair this delicious gift of nature with?

I had a sweet potato dish in mind for some other recipe I’d like to share with you, in next week’s blog post actually. But contemplating what this dish had as ingredients didn’t match with my fiddle heads really.

Plus, I still had some leftover Polenta that I had made the day before by adding some butter and Cheddar cheese to it.

But what to do with it that made it recipe worthy?!

Polenta slices!

I had enough Polenta to spread on a baking sheet, bake and then broil it under the grill, so it turns crispy on top. Cut into slices, tada!

The browned thyme butter just made everything even better…

Before I’ll share the recipe with you, here’s the staples I used in this weeks recipe and that shouldn’t be on your staples list, just yet.

The recipe is actually a very easy one that doesn’t ask for a bunch of ingredients - as most of my recipes are really -, hence the staples list is a small one this time.

Must-Haves in your pantry & fridge

• Polenta

• Butter

I was unsure, if Polenta and butter really should be in the Must Have list, because I don’t really use both in my everyday meals. Especially butter is only being used for my cooking and baking, not as a spread for bread for example.

But, both are staples that have quite a long shelf life, so I decided to put them in the Must-Haves. I’m alway aware, of how long I can keep a staple before it goes bad, gets stale or wilted, because I’m just very considerate of what I buy when it comes to produce and ingredients.

Since I mostly buy organic, my shopping cart gets expensive quite easily. Considerate usage of those ingredients is crucial for me. Imagine how bad I felt, when I had to discard a bunch of string beans, because they were sitting in the fridge for too long.

Remember, organic food goes bad more quickly, because it doesn’t have a bunch of preservatives in them.

Polenta

The world of corn products just opened up for me about a year ago, when I learned more about a certain way processing of corn kernels. Because not every corn product is made of the same stuff to begin with.

Polenta basically is the ground corn kernels, corn meal actually, depending on the ground size. Finer would get you corn starch.

Usually nowadays you can buy quick-cooking Polenta that gets you a Polenta puree in just 5-10 minutes.

What many Central and South American countries use for their Tortillas and other corn flour products is made from Masa Harina, a type of corn flour that is made after a certain processing of the corn kernels.

In next months cornerstone content here on Mel’s Treats I’ll share that process with you, it’s called Nixtamalization. Plus I’ll share the Nica way of making Tortillas that I learned while staying in Nicaragua in early 2023.

Butter

This ingredient lands in my Sunday pancakes every single time. It’s just one crucial ingredient, next to a couple others, that turns them into these very fluffy pancakes that I love.

I also seem to be a fan of browned butter or nut butter, as it’s also being called due to the nutty taste it gets during the process. By browning the butter in a pan, the water evaporates and the milk fat then caramelizes and turns the butter brown.

The Indian cuisine calls it Ghee, if you’d cook it even longer than I did for the recipe below. It’s basically clarified butter that is supposed to be healthier than butter and has an even longer shelf life. I’m usually using coconut oil for my Indian dishes, so don’t really use Ghee for my recipes.

Essentials for your pantry & fridge

• Thyme

Now that I have a small raised garden bed to receive produce from, herbs should really be on my Must have list. But, I put it in the Essentials for the reason of shelf stability.

Unless you have an own garden or grow fresh herbs in a pot on your balcony or window sill, fresh herbs wilt quite quickly. So you need to be aware of that, when buying a small bundle of fresh herbs in your grocery store or at the farmers market.

Thyme

This herb is so diverse for its usage, I just love it. Got a cough? Brew a fresh thyme tea (and add some fresh sage to it, too, while you’re at it).

I also love cooking with it. Some of my favorite recipes of the past years hold thyme, e.g. a peach jam with thyme, a Crème Fraîche dip with lemon zest and thyme, and now browned butter with thyme.

While dried herbs are a great substitute for fresh herbs, please do me a favor and get fresh thyme if making that recipe below. Thank you!

Cheesy polenta slices with fiddle heads & browned thyme butter

For this recipe you may wanna make a batch of Polenta the day before or make it in advance so the Polenta has a chance to cool down completely. It’s much easier to work with it, when making the Polenta slices.

The window for having fresh fiddle heads is short, I know. But the good news is, if you’re in an area, where they grow every year, like me here in Vermont, safe this recipe for the next fiddle heads season!

This is what you need for 2 servings

• 1 cup dry Polenta (cooked in advance)

• 1-2 tbsp butter, for the Polenta

• 1/3 cup (or more) of Cheddar or other cheese, for the Polenta

• approx 1/2 lb fiddle heads (more or less, depending on how much you wanna top your dish with)

• some olive oil

• 1 stick butter (8 tbsp), for the browned butter

• 4-5 sprigs of fresh thyme

• salt & pepper

How to make the Polenta slices & fiddle heads dish

1. Prepare the Polenta according to the package instructions. Add butter and cheese and let simmer for a couple minutes. Then let cool completely before using.

2. Preheat the oven to 200 celsius (approx 400 Fahrenheit). Prepare a baking sheet with some parchment paper.

3. Prepare your fiddle heads by washing them and getting rid of the brown paper. (Read this blog post for more instructions.)

4. Spread the (cold) Polenta in an even layer on the baking sheet, approx. 1cm or 1/2”. Bake for about 20-30 min depending on your oven.

5. Meanwhile stir-fry the fiddle heads in some olive oil on medium to high heat, add some salt & pepper. This should take about 5-10 min.

6. Make the browned thyme butter by putting the butter into a small sauce pan and start to slowly melt the butter on low to medium heat. Watch it carefully or it’ll burn the butter. Once it starts turning brown, after about 10 min or even longer depending on your stove - stir frequently in between -, add the fresh thyme. If you don’t like the thyme within the butter, add the thyme as sprigs and take out before serving. Since I love thyme, I strip off the tiny leaves and discard the sprigs. Season with salt & pepper.

7. Before the baking time of the Polenta slices is done, turn your oven to the grill or broil function and broil/grill for 5-ish minutes on High. You’d want a nice toasted and crispy top.

8. Serve this dish by slicing the Polenta into triangles, and stack them on your plate. Top with the fried fiddle heads and drizzle the browned thyme butter over both. Enjoy!