Heavenly Polenta

I am feeling a bit smug after spending the last half hour trashing my kitchen and making the best polenta I have ever made. Before, I have usually ended up throwing my polenta in the trash because it was more lumps than loose cornmeal, but I think I cracked the code. Unfortunately, I think I also got jalapeno oil underneath my thumbnails as they are currently burning. Here's what I did. All of it together makes a fantastic dish. The polenta by itself is pretty average.

Polenta
Small dice of half a turnip
Hachet of shallot
Hachet of 1 clove garlic
Small dice of 1/2 white onion
2 cups veg stock/broth
1 cup water
1 cup polenta (large ground cornmeal)
3 tbsp creme fraiche (french style sour cream, better than sour cream)
2 TBSP Grated Parmesan cheese (or another aged hard cheese like parrano or the one I got at the local posh store called aged mahon which is divine, but $21/lb)
Salt

Toast the cornmeal in the sauce pan (just put on burner with no fat) until it starts to smell nutty. Put aside. Sweat (low heat) in saucepan onions and turnip in olive oil until onions are clear. Add garlic, shallot. Cook 1 min. Add .75 tbsp butter. When melted, add broth and water. Bring to a boil. Take off heat (this is the secret, let it stop boiling, then whisk cornmeal in slowly pouring cornmeal over whisk, then keep stirring for a while until you are sure the cornmeal isn't going to stick together) add cornmeal. Bring back to a boil. Bring down to a low simmer. Cover and cook for approx. 20 minutes or more until cornmeal is no longer crunchy. Try not to stir or take lid off pot until it is done (much like rice). Add creme fraiche and cheese. Season with salt when finished.

Cilantro/Jalapeno/Sage oil
Blanch one bunch each of fresh cilantro and fresh sage. Peel and de-seed 1.5 jalapenos (save the rest for the mushrooms) then mince. (Reserve blanching liquid for tapioca) Blend all with olive oil. Just enough to make it blend. (This doesn't turn out very hot. Maybe if the jalapenos were cooked?)

Tapioca with seasoned oil (I know this sounds weird. I only tried it because the water I poached the herbs in smelled so good I wanted to cook something in it and I had some tapioca handy. Plus they use the large tapioca all the time on iron chef. Yes, that makes me a foodie nerd.)

The way I did this was to bring a 3 quart stock pot full of water to a boil and blanched the herbs in a small mesh sieve that I just dropped in the water with the herbs in it so I wouldn't have to fish them out. When I was finished with the herbs, I salted the water and put half a cup of tapioca in the sieve and put it back in so the water covered the tapioca and stirred occasionally to keep them from sticking together. Put a lid over it and cook until clear. When it is finished, add a few tablespoins of the above oil and some salt until nicely seasoned. The texture is very odd for people with the traditional american pallete. It's kind of like roe. But trust me, it makes this dish awesome.

And the last bit...

Saute (per serving) the following in 1/2 TBSP butter:
6 porcini mushrooms (de-stemmed and sliced)
2 TBSP small diced onions
1/4 jalapeno small diced

To PLATE:
Mound polenta off center on the plate with a divet in the center. Pile the sauteed mushrooms on top of that, then top with a spoonful or two of the tapioca. Drizzle the oil over it and around the plate (to make it pretty). Top with a small dollop of creme fraiche and some more of the grated parmesan (or cheese of choice). Serve!

I know this dish is a pain, but it is so worth it. If you are prepared and not making it up as you go along, it would probably take less than an hour but still use up half the dishes in your kitchen.