Polenta con friccioli, pecorino cheese and anchovies from Montalcino
Polenta or “Pulenda” as we call it in Montalcino (boiled ground maize) is a typical dish for the cold winter months and especially when it snows because it warms you and gives you energy.
read and seen for by Donatella Cinelli Colombini
polenta
During the period when the olives are picked, something that at Fattoria del Colle and all over Tuscany is done manually and lasts from November to January, the polenta was necessary to hearten the pickers, who regardless of the north wind had to go up the ladders and hand pick the olives.
Fattoria Del Colle - fireplace room
Another tradition regards the racking of the wine in the Brunello cellars. Many years ago pressing the grape skins after fermentation was a very very hard job, and the men frequently paused for a snack. On the last day it was tradition to have a party with polenta as the main dish.
In the farmhouses polenta was rarely accompanied with anything else, only rarely with a meat sauce. The housewife would stir the polenta copper pot over in the fireplace and then would put it over a wooden board where everyone cut their own slice with a bit of string. What is left over of the polenta would be served for the next meal either toasted or fried. Still today in the Montalcino grocery shops the amount of yellow flour for polenta sold increases when it is snowing. Heaven knows how much they sold this February which seems to have seen the most since 1985!
INGREDIENTS for 10 people: 1 kg of maize flour, 2 slices of bread or pork lard, 4 anchovies, 300 gr. of aged pecorino cheese, extra virgin olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper
PREPARATION Put the water to boil, add salt, lower the heat and gradually
Written Siennese cooking tradition
pour the ground maize flour in, continuously stirring energetically for 45 minutes. Continue without stopping even when the polenta has consistency. Crumble the bread or lard and fry it in oil and put it into the pot, mixing it in well. Desalinate the anchovies in water and vinegar, remove the fishbone, grill them lightly and then cut them into pieces and dress with the oil. Pour the polenta onto the table and shower with the grated pecorino cheese, black pepper and the anchovies.
It is to be eaten still hot.