What is the point of Polenta?

[Tellmewhyy]

How is it supposed to be cook?
Anyway I try to cook it tastes nasty and crumbly.
I just fried it with garlic.
Was not nice.

It's delicious Italian comfort food.
Do you have a slow cooker?
If so, grease the bottom and sides of a slow cooker with oil or butter. Whisk the cornmeal (or polenta), water and salt together in the slow cooker. Cook on low for 4-5 hours, stir one time half-way through. Grate some Parmesan in at the end.

Or you can cook it in a saucepan but you need to keep stirring it.

loads of recipes here

Makes a lovely orange cake too.

I have used it to make cakes - that was nice...

I've never got the point of it and assumed I was doing it wrong - so I ordered it in a lovely restaurant in Italy. I still didn't get it. I think it's just one of the (very few) carbohydrates I just don't do. It was like wallpaper paste.

Ooh I like it made with stock and infused milk, then with butter and cheese stirred in, it's amazing like that. Probably totally non-authentic though

You can bake it too if you can't be faffed with all the stirring, I think how to make the perfect in the guardian tells you how.

We eat it instead of mash sometimes with a tomato and beef stew.

It's also nice with tomato/basil/mushroom/pepper sauce with parmesan grated over.

It has to be cooked right - it needs quite long cooking with the water topping up and stirring. You can't overcook it IMO. If you do it right it is creamy and smooth even when made just with water. If it is grainy it hasn't been cooked long enough and probably hasn't absorbed enough water. Done badly it is tasteless wall paper paste.

Butter and cheese is the point of polenta. It's just a bland base to transport these delicious things from plate to mouth!

Use instead of flour to make a fabulous dense lemon drizzle cake.

Sprinkle on pizza dough before baking

Sprinkle on cold par-boiled potatoes before roasting for a fab crunchy skin