[Music Playing]
Hi, I'm Chef Scott Samuel here at The Culinary Institute of America, at Greystone in Napa Valley.
And today I'm going to be preparing a a bite-size appetizer incorporating grapes,
grilled polenta and mascarpone.
So, this is going to be a neat.... It's a Grape Sofrito on Grilled Polenta and Mascarpone.
Simple as an appetizer, or a bite-sized canapé....
which is a traditional Spanish base to lots of dishes that includes
onions, peppers, green peppers, and olive oil. These are our base ingredients.
So, we're gonna make this base Sofrito. And when all of our vegetables are cooked down,
we're gonna add our fresh grapes, cook them for a couple more minutes.
And this will be the base for a really neat flavorful bite.
We're also going to make a traditional polenta today.
And the polenta is going to incorporate milk, the polenta grain....
And I'm going to finish it with some Parmesan cheese, and some roasted jalapeño for a little bit of bite.
So, let's get into making the sofrito.
The first thing I want to do is start the base with olive oil.
I'm gonna start this on medium-high heat to get it going.
And then I'm gonna cook it down on a medium low heat for about a half an hour to develop the flavors.
So, 1/2 a cup of olive oil. About a cup of diced onion.
A cup of red pepper. And a cup of green pepper.
And I'm gonna give it a pinch of salt, just to start it going, to extract some of the moisture.
Alright.... So, I'm gonna put this on medium heat. And what I'm trying to do is cook this down slowly without any color....
....to basically extract all the moisture from the vegetable and concentrate the flavor.
And in about 25 to 30 minutes, we'll come back to this and take a look at the texture....
And we should be ready to add our fresh grapes to this,
cook for another couple more minutes, and we'll have our grape sofrito.
So, the other part of the dish is making a very basic polenta.
So, I do a three-to-one with three parts liquid - one part polenta grain.
So, I'm doing 3 cups of milk.....
A bay leaf.... And at this point you can add other herbs that you might like. A sprig of thyme, a little bit of rosemary.....
Basically, we're gonna give some some flavor to the base of it.
I've decided to do some roasted jalapeño.
And basically I just cooked it on low heat on a grill.
Or you could put it in the oven at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes.
Remove it, take the stem out, take the seeds out....
And then we have a nice diced jalapeño.
This will be incorporated into my polenta when it's almost done.
So, to make the polenta, I'm bringing this up to a simmer.
And then when it comes to a simmer, I'm gonna add my 1 cup of coarse grain polenta.
You may use cornmeal, but I prefer the coarse-grain polenta for the texture.
So, ultimately when we're done making this, my three-to-one polenta will be quite thick.
And then we're gonna cool it in a baking dish that's been greased with butter,
let it sit for about an hour - to two hours - to firm up.
And then we'll cut out little bite-size pieces, grill them up, and top them with our Sofrito.
So, it's gonna take a minute here for this to come to a simmer. I don't want to add it until I've actually scalded my milk.
And that should just happen right now.
Let's come into our Sofrito here.
Take a look at the the base. I'm cooking this slowly, without any color.
And the amount of olive oil, you might think is a lot, but for a traditional Sofrito, you do want a good amount of olive oil.
Basically we're melting the vegetables, sweating the vegetables on low heat.
Okay, so I'm adding my jalapeño in here with the bay leaf.
So, that it can incorporate flavor.
And it's just coming to a scald here. This is the time when I want to add my polenta grain.
And I'm gonna add it while I'm stirring it in a slow stream, so that I don't get any lumps.
And once I've added it, I'm going to turn it on Low Heat,
Medium/Low heat and cook it for about 30 minutes,
stirring occasionally so that the grain absorbs the milk.
By the time I'm done cooking this, it'll be quite thick.
And I'm gonna taste the grain for al dente. I'm gonna expect a little bit of all dente.
And then I'll pour it into a greased dish and refrigerate it for over an hour.
All right, so I'm just gonna manage the heat here on the polenta. You can see that it's already getting thick.
And this beginning stage is kind of crucial. Make sure I stir and avoid lumps.
Okay, in the meantime, let's come back to our sofrito.
So, at this point, looks like our vegetables are getting nice and soft. We probably got another - maybe - ten minutes on these,
until we've lost all the raw texture of the vegetable, and evaporated a lot more of the moisture,
and concentrated the flavor.
So, traditionally a sofrito will be finished with tomato.
So, I would be adding diced tomato and cooking that down for another twenty to thirty minutes,
to develop a really nice base. But I'm playing with the concept of *grapes*....
So, I'm adding *grapes* at that point.
And basically I'm willing to cook it for a few minutes, because I want to infuse the flavor, but I want to keep some of the texture.
We're getting a nice.... nice cooking here. Just a slight amount of color, evaporation of vegetables.
So, this is a traditionally the point where we would add tomatoes.
But we're doing something different. We're gonna be adding fresh grapes.
And we're gonna be cooking the grapes for just about five minutes to kind of meld the flavors.
But I want to keep the fresh bite and texture of the red grape.
So, this is kind of our sign right here, based on the look of the vegetables. They're translucent.
They've lost a lot of volume.
And what I want to do is taste. And I'm looking for texture in the peppers, to see if I have cooked them enough.
And they're soft. That's kind of the sign that says I can go to the next step.
Add my grapes.
Okay, so once I've added my grapes, I kind of want to stir to incorporate.
Cook them for a few minutes, and these are really adding just kind of a sweetness.
And the sweetness is gonna pair well with the smokiness of the grilled polenta,
and the base flavor of our peppers and onions, that have been cooked down to concentrate flavor.
So, at this point looking at our polenta. It's getting quite thick. We are almost done here.
I'm going to season my Sofrito.
Small amount of black pepper, a little bit of kosher salt.
And that's what it should look like. The grapes are just starting to break down.
And I will cool this down. And I'm going to serve this dish warm.
So, I'm gonna keep this in the pot until I'm ready to grill the polenta.
So, we're down to the point where our polenta is quite thick.
Finish this by seasoning with a touch of kosher salt.....
And my grated Parmesan.....
Let's remove that bay leaf.
This is what the polenta should look like.
We have a nice flavor of the bay leaf, and the roasted jalapeño in there.
And let me taste this grain and make sure, uh.....
.....it's cooked enough.....
And touch more seasoning.
A nice spicy bite that's gonna go great with a sweet grape.
So, I'm going to spread this out. I want to keep the thickness of my polenta about 3/4 of an inch thick.
A nine by nine pan will work. But since you can see how thick this is, I can kind of work with it.
I'm gonna use half the pan for cooling it. Smooth out the top....
And then I'll just pop this in the refrigerator for about an hour to two hours to cool completely.
And then I'll be able to come back and cut them out into little rings for our Canapés.
Let's finish this dish by grilling our little polenta bites.
After I've cooled them, I've cut them out into little one-inch circles - about almost an inch high.
What I want to do is season my grill. I'm using a grill pan here. There's a couple brands out there.
So it should be smoking hot. I have it on medium heat.
Before I put my polenta on here, I want to do a little oiling on it.
[sizzling sounds]
So, I'm gonna grill these for about three to four minutes per side.
And I'm gonna need a little color. And in about a minute or two, I'm going to turn them for grill marks.
I really don't want to touch them right now. I hit the hot grill.
If I was to touch them right now, they would stick.
So, in about two minutes, I'll turn them, and I'll flip them to the other side for about another four minutes.
Ultimately I'm developing a nice smoky caramelized crust.
My Grape Sofrito.... I've seasoned with a touch of cayenne.
So, I have a nice sweet flavor from the slow-cooked peppers and onions.
And my fresh red grapes. And the Cayenne is kind of playing the sweetness and the heat.
Then I have my smokiness of my grilled polenta.
And then to finish this dish, I have some mascarpone
and some fresh black grapes for garnish.
So, I'm going to present this on a little platter, as if I was serving it - passed appetizers at a party.
So, I'm just going to turn about 45 degrees.
And you can see that they're not sticking. They've had enough time on one side.
Okay, we're flipping our polenta now.
[sizzling sounds]
So, that's what they should look like. Nice crust on them. Nice caramelization crust.
And they were firm a second ago. And they're starting to kind of get soft. The cheese is melting again.
So, I'm gonna give it about another two minutes... two to three minutes.... on the underside,
and then I'm ready to plate these.
I think it looks great. Exactly what we're looking for.
Crispy on the outside, soft in the center, with a little bit of smokiness from the jalapeño.
We're gonna pair this perfectly with our grape sofrito, and our mascarpone, to kind of smooth it all out.
Top with our fresh black grape.
And we're gonna serve this warm.
And this concept can be developed as a side dish.
If we want to be serving this with, uh, grilled skewers for a summer lunch, summer dinner....
It'd be perfect. Grilled polenta with our Grape Sofrito and Mascarpone.
Enjoy.