The December issue of La Cucina Italiana seemed to have been written just for me. Page after page, every dish was something I wanted to eat. When I first read the issue, I immediately made the ribollita which was delicious topped with fontina. Last weekend, I tried a couple of other meals from an article about hearty, festive, holiday season dishes from the northern, alpine region of Italy. The first was spiedini rustici con salsiccia. I used chicken, hot Italian sausage, but that was my only change to the instructions provided.
Polenta was cooked and allowed to cool in a loaf pan before being cut into skewerable pieces. The sausage was browned on top of the stove and then sliced. The spiedini were built with alternating pieces of sausage and polenta with sage leaves on the ends. Then, and this is the important part, they were dotted with butter before being heated through in the oven. So, think for a moment if anything bad ever results from dotting something with butter before placing it in the oven? I don’t think it does. These spiedini are as simple as it gets, but the butter made them something special. I added a touch of chopped sage with a sprinkling of black pepper before serving.
As I made these, I was thinking about how spiedini make good party food. Smaller versions of these, with just one small slice of sausage and a smaller chunk of polenta, would make great hors d’oeuvres. I’ve served a similar mini spiedini before using rosemary sprigs as skewers. Full size or miniature, be sure to dot with butter for rich flavor and nice bits of crust on the polenta.
Polenta was cooked and allowed to cool in a loaf pan before being cut into skewerable pieces. The sausage was browned on top of the stove and then sliced. The spiedini were built with alternating pieces of sausage and polenta with sage leaves on the ends. Then, and this is the important part, they were dotted with butter before being heated through in the oven. So, think for a moment if anything bad ever results from dotting something with butter before placing it in the oven? I don’t think it does. These spiedini are as simple as it gets, but the butter made them something special. I added a touch of chopped sage with a sprinkling of black pepper before serving.
As I made these, I was thinking about how spiedini make good party food. Smaller versions of these, with just one small slice of sausage and a smaller chunk of polenta, would make great hors d’oeuvres. I’ve served a similar mini spiedini before using rosemary sprigs as skewers. Full size or miniature, be sure to dot with butter for rich flavor and nice bits of crust on the polenta.
do you need my mailing address -because you need to send me some of those.....
ReplyDeleteThese look terrific! I love the picture!
ReplyDeleteyum! i love the idea of a polenta skewer!!
ReplyDeleteWhile you're mailing those out, please add us to the distribution list. Polenta on a stick is just too much!
ReplyDeleteGreat idea about turning them into hors d'oeuvres. Would it be total sacrilege to serve them with a light pomodoro?
ReplyDeleteskewers make food look so festive, not that your polenta, sausage, and sage needed any help in that endeavor... :)
ReplyDeleteWhat a great idea for a party.
ReplyDeleteI love Cucina magazine. I will go out and buy that issue today!
Thanks for the tip!
I'll keep you all posted should mail delivery become an option!
ReplyDeleteMarc-- I'm not sure about the level of sacrilege, but a little sauce with these sounds good.
Stacey-- The Dec issue may not be available now, but several of the recipes are on the web site.
Those look fantastic! I'm making polenta tonight that I'm going to top with a rabbit ragu I bought at Carlucci's, our local Italian cafe/shop.
ReplyDeleteThese look delicious and I like the idea of mini size for appetizers.
ReplyDelete