Want a gluten free alternative to oatmeal porridge for breakfast? This polenta porridge is made in a few minutes and is creamy, delicious and comforting. Top it with figs or whatever fresh fruit you fancy and some chopped nuts and a drizzle of honey!
This breakfast recipe was inspired by a recent fridge clean and I found no less than three bags of polenta, one of them was woefully out of date. I ditched that and had two remaining bags, one that I used in this recipe. I usually eat savoury polenta so I wasn't sure how it would taste but polenta has very little flavour to it so it lends itself to both sweet and savoury cooking and this was so comforting and delicious.
I paired it with some figs that I bought the other day. Call me kinky but a recurring fantasy of mine involves figs. It involves being able to buy fresh figs at a ridiculously cheap price and being able to hand pick them myself (I'm so raunchy). I rarely if ever buy prepacked figs. These tend to be the lower quality figs-there may be a couple in each box that are luscious and jammy but more often they are hollow and light. Fine for drying or for making a compote but deeply unsatisfying to eat by themselves.
And one day, at Paddy's markets my fantasies came true! One stall had figs at $10 a kilo that you could pick yourself. Better still, 98% of these figs were absolutely perfect specimens. Plump, heavy and juicy, some dripping with syrup at the base. I got so excited that I asked the man how much a tray would cost knowing that I was about to head overseas in a few days' time. He sold me a 2.3kg tray of perfect figs for $20! He also let me pick through each and every one of them feeling them for perfect ripeness. I think he let me feel them all up because I looked like a crazy woman not to be messed with (I'm sure they think it's easier not to confront crazy).
Some people on Instagram and facebook have asked me how to find the perfect fig so I thought I'd explain what I told them here. First go to a tray where you can pick them yourself. Buying from those prepacks will be disappointing but as I've mentioned the hand picked trays are better quality ones.
Look for a heavy fig-these are full of jammy syrup. If it is slightly bursting at the base then that's good too although you'll have to eat them that day or the day after. You want figs where you can feel the flesh underneath the skin too-you basically want a fig to feel like the fattest part of a fleshy, dimpled thigh. Avoid hollow or light figs. And if you find a whole tray of them at a reasonable price buy them and eat them as is or on top of polenta porridge!
So tell me Dear Reader, is there a fruit that you go crazy for? Do you like figs and do you know how to choose them? And have you ever tried polenta porridge?
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