When temperatures fall off, few things are as warming and heartening as a steaming pot of polenta accompanied by a rich stew and a full bodied red wine. Here are some of the dishes I especially enjoy serving with polenta.
Verze e Luganega, is a classic north Italian winter dish, and though one might class it as a vegetable, it is actually a superb accompaniment to polenta. You'll find variations on this dish throughout the north; this particular interpretation is from the Veneto. Regular mild link sausages will work fine if you don't have Luganega sausage.
Brasato al Barolo is one of the classic, elegant Piemontese dishes, and really does require a hearty red wine, ideally Barolo (though you could use other hearty red wines, e.g. Chianti, Brunello, or Taurasi), to come out right. Save it for a special occasion, and you'll be quite pleased with the results.
Tuscany is crawling with boar, and the Apuans are no exception; this stewed boar recipe is from the mountains overlooking the coastal plain to the west of Lucca. While it will work best with wild boar, it will also be nice with farmed boar, or pork, and you could also use other larger four-footed game.
Peposo is the signature stew of Impruneta, a town south of Florence renowned for its terracotta. Indeed, it was made by the tileworkers, who would slip a stewpot into the kiln as it slowly cooled after the firing, and simmer their dinner for hours....
Carbonade is one of the classic Valdostan stews, and was a mainstay of the valley diet. The traditional recipe calls for the use of salt-cured beef, which is quite dark and gives the dish its name (carbonade, charbon, charcoal). Now restaurants commonly prepare it with fresh beef, though some marinate the meat overnight. Cooking times have also decreased from the three hours of the original and now some put the onions through a strainer or thicken the sauce with a little flour.
Though this packs a punch, the sauce and the polenta go together beautifully. Should you prefer it less hot, reduce the pepper content. Serve it with a good, full bodied red wine that will not be overwhelmed by the pepper, or with beer.
A number of years ago I finished Vinitaly, the major Italian wine trade show, with a delightful potluck dinner at the home of Lorenzo Begali, who makes wonderful Valpolicella and Amarone. And wrote down the recipes. This time it was a much quieter dinner, and Adriana, Lorenzo's wife, served pasta followed by stew and polenta.
In Piemonte fricandó is made with a variety of meats, in essence the trimmings, which, according to Alessandro Molinari Pradelli, butchers used to set aside especially for those who wanted to make the dish. He mentions trimmings from breast of beef, neck, shank, and fillet, while the fricandó I had in Torino also included short pieces of Luganega sausage.
My mother-in-law usually roasts lamb (well done, which is what Italians like, and if you don't like rare lamb, I suggest you try it because I much prefer it the Italian way), but my father-in-law had a hankering for what his Mom used to do, so Graziella stewed it instead. The recipe is very much oral, in the tradition of home recipes, and quantities are rather approximate.
Everybody has a recipe for Chicken Cacciatore, and they're all different. Here are two, one simple and the other more elaborate.
