Polenta. Fries/Chips Otherwise.

I bet you thought we went missing again! Not far off ? but still here. Just about.

I somehow believe, not actually make that ?I am sure? blogging will be on the difficult side this year. We have so many personal projects (maybe too many?) which will take up our time that we will find it hard to take time off to breathe. On the professional side, well, it?s as busy as it can get. But in between, one got to eat, no?

I am still amazed we find the time to cook at all. However, cooking is one of the time luxuries we are not ready to give up just yet. True, most of the time we aim for food that takes less than half an hour to cook. And we have indulged in one-pot dishes, eating half, freezing half. Which automatically saves us another day/ evening for the aforementioned projects.

More about that one day soon.

For now, enough with the moaning. Back to what this blog is all about: food. Polenta chips/fries.

Living in Belgium we are not exactly fries-adventurous. We already have the best fries available at practically every corner. Moreover, Mark perfected the fries at home art as well.

Here and there we come across other types of ?fries? which intrigue us. In Brazil, we tires the manioc fries and fell in love with. And recently, in a local restaurant we tried polenta fries. Yes, polenta. Crunchy, yet soft in the middle. The slight saltiness and consistency of your traditional fries, but the crumble and flavor of polenta. Something we had to give a try at home.

Not as straightforward as the potato fries, these polenta fries took some time to get right. In the end though we achieved what you see. Perfect, golden, crunchy polenta fires.

The how-to. I will leave it up to you to cook the polenta according to the package instructions. I usually boil some water, then measure 1 cup polenta to 2 cups of water and mix till I get the consistency of a runny dough (does this make sense?). If necessary, add some more boiling water. For polenta fries you will ideally have a fairly runny polenta mix ? but not too.

Once cooked, pour the mixture into a square baking tin. Make sure the polenta is evened out, and leave it to cool. Then cover with cling film and leave in the fridge overnight. The next day the polenta will be set and quite hard, so easy to cut into fries / strips. Heat your oil or fryer, and then add the polenta fries one by one till they reach a golden color. You?ll realize when get all crispy on the outside that they are ready. Then serve ? and enjoy fries/chips otherwise.

So, what do you think?

More polenta recipes: Creamy Polenta and Mushrooms or Grilled Chicken with Polenta.