We got lot of stuff working here for thanksgiving. Here we had some chicken stock, we're going
to make polenta. This is a really nice large green polenta. We're going to slowly add the polenta
to the broth. You're going to notice how quickly this thickens it up. Keep stirring it, you don’t
want any lumps in there.
We're going to make a vinaigrette out of morels. We're going to cook the polenta, lay it down a
sheet tray, let it set up really nice in the refrigerator. And then we can take it out, it's going to be
nice and firm. We can cut lots of the polenta out, heat it up on the grill and then put the morel
mushroom vinaigrette on top of it. It’s a really good side dish for thanksgiving.
So we want to keep cooking the polenta, we're going to add some fresh corn to this. Some
parmesan and salt and pepper. You sort of fold all of these together. And you want to add this
right at the end. This takes about, I think we've been cooking this probably for about 35 minutes.
Just continue to stir it.
Alright. Now, you can actually just kind of serve this in a bowl if you wanted to. You have nice
soft polenta, I might put a little mascarpone cheese on top. Maybe some fresh herbs and you can
serve it right up. But for this polenta, we're just go into put it on a sheet tray. Get everything out
here. Smooth it out. We want to be a sort of thickness, so I think the thickness of this tray is
probably a good thickness. So we're just kind of push it up to that so it’s all uniformed. Then you
can put this in refrigerator, this will probably take about maybe 2-3 hours to firm them up. You
can do it the day before and leave it over night. That works really well too.
Okay, so we're going to make a morel vinaigrette. Now these morels are actually dried morels, so
they're not always in season. So you can always buy dried morels, and what you do is you just
take some hot water and you throw the water right on top of the morels. And you want to let
them rehydrate. Soften them, make them nice and pliable. Bring out that really nice earthy flavor
back to life. And we're going to make little bit of a vinaigrette here.
We have sherry vinegar, some Dijon mustard, shallot. Just take the skin off here. Little shallot.
Sherry vinegar with Dijon mustard, some of my morels. Give this a whirl. Slowly add some olive
oil. And just at the end, just a touch of walnut oil. Salt and pepper.
The walnut oil is obviously add a little walnut flavor. I mean, walnuts and morels really have a
great affinity for each other. So that should work out fine. But any nut oils are very, very
powerful. So you just want to add a little bit at the very end when you're making a vinaigrette.
We're going to cut out some of the polenta here. So we can just grill this. That’s what you want,
you see that little polenta cakes.
Alright, so we have grilled polenta, the morel vinaigrette. Let's spoon some of the vinaigrette
right on top of here. And you want to do right when the polenta comes off the grill. And what I'm
going to do, just shower it with love. Some fresh grated parmesan and some Italian parsley.
Okay, that’s one side dish.