Monday, March 29, 2010

TV-Inspired Cooking

Here's a recipe I came up with, hoping to impress my gf (her parents are British so she knows her cheese). The idea came from foods mentioned on a couple of tv shows.

On
The L Word, Kit Porter (Pam Grier!), operator of the lesbian cafe "The Planet" mentions that their best selling menu item is the pear polenta tart
.


Pushing Daisies's Charlotte "Chuck" Charles (Anna Friel) devises a way to get her cheese aficionado aunts out of their depression and back into their synchronized swimming routines by baking homeopathic mood enhancers into a pie: pear with gruyere baked into the crust.



The Giant Eagle was out of pears, so I used peaches, but I think it would work with either.

"Kit and Chuck's Peach Polenta Tarts"

Ingredients (all measurements are approximate):
-1 tsp. olive oil
-1 1/3 c. water
-1/3 c. cornmeal
-1/2 c. gruyere, grated
-3 tbsp. butter
-cinnamon and sugar
-1 peach
-1/4 c. gruyere, sliced

1.) Grease 8x8 casserole dish with olive oil

2.) In a small saucepan, bring water to a boil. Whisk in cornmeal in a thin stream. Simmer on low heat (it should be just barely bubbling) for twenty to twenty-five minutes, stirring constantly.

3.) When cornmeal mixture is sticky, pulling away from the sides of saucepan, pour into casserole dish. Mix grated gruyere into polenta. Pat down mixture flat. Bake at 350 degrees for approximately ten minutes, until gruyere begins to melt. Press down again so polenta is flat and chill in refrigerator.

4.) Melt butter in microwave. Cut peach into thin slices, about 1/4 in. thick, and brush with butter. Sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar.

5.) Turn polenta out onto a cookie sheet (it should just slide out when you turn the casserole dish upside down). Cut into 2 in. squares. Place a few peach slices on each. Top with one slice of gruyere per tart. Bake at 350 degrees until cheese melts. Serve hot!