Millet polenta followup

[bunnyjadwiga]

Well, after leaving the millet mixture in the fridge for 48 hours, I got it out last night and prepared to fry it.
First I poured off the liquid on top. Then I tried to slice it.
It was definitely too wet/gooey. Drat!
So, we fried some in butter in globs. Interesting, but it kept falling apart when I went to turn it.
Still, it was fried starch-- what could be bad? Especially with cheese.
Sarah wants to try it again with broth in the cooking water, and I want to use less liquid.

However... there is a problem. There are three dishes I had already planned on for the meal:
Eggplant Morisco
Lombardy Sops
Carrot-Cheese Pie
that all have cheese. That makes a 4th cheese dish. Hm. That may be too much dairy.

Drat drat drat.

Back to the drawing board, I guess: I could do plain rice and barley or bulgur with almond milk...

Comments

[dr-zrfq.livejournal.com]

I'd say try it again using less liquid. Broth will give it more flavor but shouldn't affect the end consistency much. Nevertheless, if you're going to go without cheese, you'll want more flavor. (Although if I read it right, going cheeseless would be deviating from the recipe...)

[amykb.livejournal.com]

Try using the proportions on the back of a box of oatmeal...it could be a preperation difference between a period recipe and a modern one due to a difference in the way the grain is ground or because of a evolutionaly difference or something weird like that.

(not the cook)

[montuos]

IIRC, millet absorbs less liquid than most grains.

[dr-zrfq.livejournal.com]

Could be; modern millet might require less liquid than medieval millet. As I understand it, you want enough liquid to swell the grains such that the hulls burst or crack, allowing starch to leach out into the liquid; and enough liquid so that the starch+liquid makes a paste of sorts to hold the thing together. Too little liquid and there won't be enough paste; too much liquid and the end result would be too wet to hang together when fried (what happened this last time). *takes off the FoodScienceGeek toque*

[jackoutofthebox.livejournal.com]

try reducing the liquid by 1/4 and substitute an egg or two. the egg will bind

<3

[montuos]

Icon love!

[trinapink.livejournal.com]

Maybe try pressing the cooked millet during the 48 hours it sits in the fridge, like you do with yogurt cheese (colander lined with cheesecloth; fill with millet and cover with cheesecloth; then put bricks or something heavy on top to press the liquid out). That would not only get rid of the excess liquid, it would also press the millet together while the starch is still liquid and mallable.

Might be worth a try anyway!

[lyzrecusant.livejournal.com]

You could just serve cooked millet without making it into polenta. Millet cooked in broth is yummy just the way it is, and I would tend to imagine that cooking it that way (or in water) would also be period, even if nobody ever bothered to record it. It would probably fall into the category of "Things Everybody Knows", like how to hard-boil an egg or something, and no one would feel it necessary to write down instructions. (Says the woman who is advocating for less dishes with dairy in them...)

When is this feast again?

[bunnyjadwiga.livejournal.com]

The feast is Labor day weekend...

I've decided to hold out some of the cooked millet for people with dairy issues, but go ahead with the polenta. While cooked plain millet is documentable for our period, I don't have good documentation for it in the Iberian peninsula, and this feast is special: I've been asked to make it as documented as possible. So, as close as I can go with an original recipe from that place, the better.