Does oven polenta actually work?

Question

Several sources give recipes for making polenta (cornmeal porridge) in the oven instead of on the stovetop. Among them are: America's Test Kitchen, Epicurious, NYT, and Martha Stewart. I got the recipe I tried from Deb Perlman's Smitten Kitchen Keepers, which went:

• put 4.5 cups room-temperature water and 1 cup polenta in a casserole dish and stir
• cover tightly
• bake at 375F for 40 minutes

What I ended up with was 3 cups of water on top of a layer of hot, wet, but undercooked polenta. I had to finish it on the stovetop.

My hypothesis is that doing polenta in the oven doesn't actually work. This is upheld by those recipes, which each have different temperatures, proportions, steps, and cooking times, and that those sources mostly never mention oven polenta again.

Am I wrong? If I am, why did it fail so dramatically for me?

(just to eliminate some of the obvious: my oven is calibrated, and the polenta was fine once I cooked it on the stovetop, so it wasn't "too old")

Answer 1

I have cooked polenta in the oven several times. I found the most success by starting with hot water so that I when I stirred the water and polenta it thickened up a bit. I think this helps it hold together instead of separating. I like to make a very firm polenta, so I used 2:1 water to grains and that worked well. Because it was so thick I found an immersion blender was helpful to stir it all before baking. I have also tried 1:1, but that came out more like a thick cornbread so I don't recommend that.

One of the linked recipes says to stir half way through cooking. Maybe yours failed because it wasn't mixed enough, and it separated too much before it got hot enough to stay mixed together? If you try again I suggest any or all of:

1. Making sure it is mixed enough initially.
2. starting with hot water so it soaks up more water right away and stays mixed
3. stirring halfway through

The more water you use, the more effort it make take to keep it homogenized. If you are using close to or over 4:1, then you might need to pay closer attention to mixing it thoroughly initially or part way through. For all the old mythology about cooking polenta, it is a very flexible grain to cook.

My preferred recipe for a extra firm polenta:

1. Boil 2 cups water
2. Mix 1 cup polenta and 3/4 t salt thoroughly with water in a bowl (immersion blender makes this easy)
3. Add to a greased cooking vessel and bake at 350 for 40 minutes to an hour.
4. Put in the refrigerator to firm up. If you leave it uncovered then it will create a dry "cracked" surface that crisps up really well if you fry in the pan.
5. Slice and fry in butter/serve as desired.