Microwave Polenta

[Lesley]

Microwave Polenta. Serves 8 and may be halved. This is from Barbara Kafka’s Microwave Gourmet Healthstyle Cookbook.

Soft

4 cups water
3/4 cup yellow or white coarse cornmeal
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/8 teaspoon fresh ground pepper

Combine water, cornmeal and salt in a 2 ½ quart souffle dish or casserole. Cook, uncovered, at 100% for 6 minutes in a 650 to 700 watt oven or 9 minutes in a 400 to 500 watt oven. Stir well, cover loosely with a piece of paper towel, and cook for 6 minutes more (higher wattage) or 9 minutes (lower wattage). Remove from oven. Uncover and stir in pepper. Let stand for 3 minutes before serving.

Firm

4 cups water
1 1/4 cups yellow or white coarse cornmeal
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/8 teaspoon fresh ground pepper

Combine water, cornmeal and salt in a 2 ½ quart souffle dish or casserole. Cook, uncovered, at 100% for 12 minutes in a 650 to 700 watt oven (see below for a 400 to 500 watt oven), stirring once. Remove from oven, stir in pepper, and let stand for 3 minutes. Pour polenta into a 7x4x2 inch pan that has been sprayed with nonstick spray. Let stand until cool. Cover and refrigerate until chilled. To serve, slice the polenta about ½ inch thick and fry or grill.

For a 400 to 500 watt oven, reduce water to 3 ½ cups and cook for 20 minutes.

[slimcris]

Thanks for this - I've been experimenting with amounts and times to make microwave polenta and I haven't gotten it quite right yet. Hopefully this will steer me in the right direction!!

[pat5031]

Lesley, thanks for this microwave polenta recipe. I made the firm version the other day and it was great. ;D

[lyndam52]

Make note that almost everyone's microwave is much higher wattage than these examples. Mine is 1200 watts so I am finding that I need to cook most things at partial power to keep them from boiling over.

[Lesley1]

I'm glad everyone is finding the recipe useful. Lyndam52 has a good point. The cookbook is 7 or 8 years old and the recipes were developed for the ovens available at that time. That's why I included the oven wattage.

Recently I experimented with making 1/4 the recipe, because I didn't want leftovers, and the timing was way over.