What if Polenta and Panelle had a child?

Okay weird title but you get the idea. This is something that I made up so it doesn’t have name. Surprised? I thought not. This is one of those things that comes from area 51 (what my husband calls my kitchen) when I have time to think. For whatever reason I was thinking of both polenta and panelle yesterday and it finally occurred to me that they were so similar there was no reason I couldn’t combine them into one recipe. So that is what I did. The idea was to use this to deliver condiments, nut cheese, pesto, that sort of thing. I made two versions one baked and one dehydrated and here is what I did.

Panelle and Polenta Hybrid
Makes 24

Ingredients:

1 cup of garbanzo bean flour (or dried garbanzos you turn into flour with your Vitamix, which is what I did)
1 cup of polenta
6 cups cold water
2 tablespoons hot crushed peppers (wet hots)
1 lime, zested and juiced
1 teaspoon gray salt
Black pepper to taste

Directions:

Combine the bean flour, polenta and water and whisk to thoroughly combine. Then add the remaining ingredients and turn on the heat and cook over low heat, stirring very often until the mixture is thick and you can see ribbons when you stir. This will take a while, in the neighborhood of 30 minutes, depending on the heat level and pan you use. When the mixture has cooked you can pour it into a pan to be baked or dehydrated.

If you are going to bake do so at 250 degrees until the mixture is firm to the touch. This happened at 2 ½ hours in my oven, at which time I flipped it over to firm the other side. The second side cooked for another 30 minutes. I intially spread the mixture to a thickness of about ½ inch on silicone to make it easier to flip and it worked fine. Use a spatula to loosen the bottom as it will still be moist. If any of it sticks you can use a knife to return it the mixture and spread it flat.

I dehydrated the second version on 105 degrees. After 10 hours it was still wet on the bottom. Additionally I am not happy with the way the surface cracked. I expected the dehydrated version to be more visually appealing, but it is not. Next time I will bake the entire recipe.

Nutritional information:

Amount Per Serving
Calories - 37.09
Calories From Fat (8%) - 2.96

Total Fat - 0.34g
Saturated Fat - 0.03g
Cholesterol - 0mg
Sodium - 101.2mg
Potassium - 36.1mg
Total Carbohydrates - 6.87g
Fiber - 0.8g
Sugar - 0.45g
Protein - 1.38g

Comments:

This combination worked really well. I am pleased with the taste and the texture. Even my omni parents liked this so I would call it omni approved. Dan and I like the lime flavor and the little bit of heat that these have. This is going to be something that I make again, and often. It will be nice to have an alternative to the flax crackers. The texture of this is much softer, more like bread than a cracker.

I topped this with lemony pine nut and macadamia ricotta and a sun dried tomato and golden raisin pesto (recipe to follow). This makes a great little addition to a salad or soup. I hope you give this a try.

Unrelated note:

Today was another long day at our house. The gray weather set the tone for the day. We were both a little blah. On the bright side the new issue of Vegetarian Times is still waiting to be read. The magazine is something for me to look forward to this evening while I relax.

I am going to try to get the tomato pesto recipe posted this evening. Dan gave it too thumbs up and since he never does that I want to get that up for you all. If you like food with a lot of flavor punch you will enjoy the latest pesto. On that note I am off to write the pesto post. I hope to be back later today if not, I will get it up for you in the morning. I hope you all have had a great weekend.