Adapted

Polenta with tomato and anchovy

A conversion of an established dish. The underlying technique is known-good; the substitutions below are the novel part, and they are documented.

Serves2
Burners1
Pans1
Water0.9 L
Active12 min
Total20 min
FridgeNot needed
Modestrip, pantry

Ingredients

  • Polenta (instant) 150 g
  • Chopped tomatoes (tinned) 1 pack
  • Anchovies (tinned, in oil) 1 pack
  • Olive oil 40 ml
  • Garlic (dried, granules) 4 g
  • Chilli flakes 1 g
  • Oregano (dried) 2 g
  • Salt (fine) 5 g

Polenta is badly underrated as trip food. It is light, it keeps indefinitely, it is cheap, and the instant sort is ready in five minutes — a hot, soft base that turns a small amount of sauce into a full plate.

Make the sauce first, because polenta waits badly and sauce waits well.

  1. Oil in the pan, anchovies in with it over a low heat. Break them up; after two minutes they will have vanished.
  2. Garlic, chilli, oregano, thirty seconds. Then the tomatoes. Simmer 12 to 15 minutes until thick. Taste for salt — with the anchovies in there it may need none at all.
  3. Tip the sauce into a bowl or mug. Rinse the pan.
  4. Bring 600 ml of well-salted water to the boil. Rain the polenta in with one hand while stirring hard with the other — all at once and it lumps irreversibly. Stir for the time on the packet, usually about five minutes. It should drop from the spoon in a thick ribbon; add a splash of water if it goes stiffer than that.
  5. Polenta into the bowls, sauce over, a serious amount of olive oil.

Serves 2.

What this was adapted from

Polenta with a simple tomato sauce — the northern Italian weekday staple

  • slow-cooked coarse polenta → instant polenta

    Traditional polenta is forty minutes of stirring, which on a single burner with limited gas is not a realistic proposition. Instant polenta is a genuine step down in texture and takes five minutes; this is a trade made deliberately rather than pretended away.

  • butter and parmesan to finish → olive oil and anchovy

    Neither butter nor parmesan keeps without refrigeration. Anchovy supplies the salt and savoury depth the cheese would, and olive oil the richness of the butter.