Polenta Jacket

It's bone-chilling, paw-freezing, no-messin' around cold outside. Combined with my usual winter blues, it's hard to want to get out of bed in the morning. Especially when your apartment is drafty and you have no control over the heat.

That being said, the thought of polenta with a lacy fried egg and applewood smoked bacon did the trick this morning. Damn good. Nap inducing, which wasn't entirely helpful, but it thickened my blubber and prepared me for the world outside my door.



I don't have a proper recipe for polenta. I use the coarse ground variety that we carry at Zingerman's and cook it with chicken stock. The ratio I prefer is usually 3 parts stock to 1 part polenta- less stock for a thicker body, more if I want it to be loose. Whisk the polenta into hot stock over medium heat and whisk it for 15 minutes or so on low heat. Easy, straight forward. This morning I added a few tablespoons of demi glace (which is making a rare appearance in my fridge), and it added to the richness.

I fried up a thick strip of bacon with a few leaves of sage, and then added some butter and fried an egg sunny side up over med-high heat. I particularly love the lacy edges that come from cooking an egg in a hot cast iron pan, especially when juxtaposed with a runny yolk. Salt. Pepper. Parmesan. In temperatures like these, blubber building meals like this are a survival technique.