A couple of weeks ago I made a recipe from All About Braising called Grillades and Grits. The grillades are thin-pounded chuck steaks braised in a Louisiana-style spicy sauce based on green pepper, onion, celery, tomato paste, and cayenne.
The grits, however, posed a problem. I’d never made grits before, and I looked all over for them. The book warned sternly against using instant grits, so when I found a box at QFC labeled “quick grits,” I figured that was the same thing. Turns out it’s not, but I learned that too late, so I got some polenta instead.
Polenta with parmesan didn’t sound right for this stew, but I was reluctant to give up cheese in my polenta, so I threw in a handful of grated Tillamook cheddar. It was delicious, and of course I’m not the first person to come up with cheddar polenta, as a Google search will reveal.
The polenta method I used was from Cook’s Illustrated. It’s the only method I know that is relatively low-maintenance but also fast: you cook the polenta on the stove over low heat for half an hour, stirring vigorously every five minutes. That Christopher Kimball, man: how can he be so right about food and so wrong about everything else?
After the successful cheddar polenta, I went and bought the box of quick grits, and Iris and I had some for breakfast today. I put brown sugar and milk on them like I do with oatmeal, which I’m sure will be an affront to grits purists. I suggested to Iris that we put butter on them next time, but she said, “These already buttery.” Which they kind of were.
I can’t say I really understand the difference between grits and polenta. Oh, I know that grits are made from hominy and polenta isn’t, but they take about the same amount of time to cook and taste about the same to me, possibly because I cover up their ephemeral flavor with things like brown sugar and cheddar. I’m complaining, anyway, since polenta and grits are both delicious and dirt-cheap.
Restaurants seem to gravitate toward crunchy fried polenta, which is certainly good, but something I’ve never seen in a restaurant is polenta with ragu, a big bowl of soft polenta with ragu bolognese ladled over it. How can you beat that?
Have you ever had the soft, sexy grits that Jan Birnbaum does at Sazerac? They are fantastic and he always tops them with some sort of braised meat. I found the recipe online and have duplicated at home many times. I’ll have to see if I can dig it up.
Lauren, I haven’t, but I’d love the recipe. I’d also love to go there and eat some.
Mmm, soft, sexy grits.
Ha! I do worse things to grits; I mix them with yogurt for the perfect weight-watcher’s breakfast.
Favorite grits quote, from one of my favorite books (Randall Jarrell’s Pictures from an Institution):
Gertrude said she would as soon eat boiled worms as grits, and then regretted that she had not spoken like a lady.
As I remember from my first trip South to live (or was it “survive in the early ’60s?) for a short period time, my southern born friends would say:
“Ya damn Yankee, you eat your grits with sugar, and drink Jack Daniels wirh Coke.”
Since my proper southern education the grits have always been under eggs in the morning, under fish at night and not more Jack Black. Period.
Dave
Grits are ground hominy. The skin has been removed by soaking it in CaL (lime). Polenta is ground cornmeal, including the skin.
polenta = cornmeal = mush
And just to confuse things, there are some places in the south where they have grits and hominy grits. In this case, grits = polenta and oh, never mind.
Dave, I hadn’t considered grits under eggs, but it sounds great. I think Iris and I will have some of that for breakfast this week. With a couple of shots of Jack, of course.
I assume the dehulling of the corn is what makes it easier to cook grits to a nice consistency than polenta. With polenta I’m always worried about getting little unsoftened gritty bits.
We’re pretty fond of hominy in any form, I guess. We also love pozole.