Polenta bake 

 

I love polenta for its comforting, earthiness, and love sorrel for its sour, brightness. Both of them together are a dream combination. I prefer serving this bake at room temperature. Once cooled, it cuts neatly into squares and is excellent as finger food. It’s good while still warm too, though, don’t let my preference for eating everything at room temp put you off eating this straight out of the oven.  

 

The sorrel is what I think makes this dish, but if you can’t find any use some finely grated lemon zest instead, and add an extra handful of silverbeet to the mix. 

 

100ml olive oil

1 brown onion, sliced

2 garlic cloves, peeled and sliced

1 can crushed tomatoes 

500g silverbeet, washed, leaves and stems separated, leaves roughly chopped and stalks finely sliced

Salt

1 bunch sorrel, roughly shredded

1 handful of mint, roughly chopped

1 handful of dill, roughly chopped

8 spring onions, sliced

200g feta, roughly crumbled

1 lemon, juiced 

2 eggs, lightly whisked

190g greek yoghurt

150g coarse polenta 

 

Heat the oven to 200C. Heat two tablespoons of oil in a large saute pan, then saute the onion until brown over a medium flame. Once the onion has a nice golden colour, stir through the sliced garlic. Stir through for around 30 seconds before adding in the stalks of the silverbeet. Saute the stalks until almost tender before adding in the leaves, followed by the can of tomatoes. Cookout for around 15 minutes, stirring now and then, until silverbeet is tender and the liquid has reduced. Take off the heat and stir in the sorrel, mint, dill, spring onions, feta and lemon juice.

 

Put the eggs, yoghurt, remaining oil, polenta, 150ml water and a half-teaspoon of salt in a large bowl and mix to a thick batter. Pour most of the batter into a 20cm x 30cm ovenproof baking dish, so it completely covers the base, then spoon the greens evenly over the top. Pour the remaining batter over the greens, and then bake for 40-45 minutes until golden-brown on top, leave to stand for 10 minutes before serving.