NYT Recipe- Polenta Lasagna With Spinach and Herby Ricotta

You people seem to love the word "marinara" and hate the word "tomato".

Sailors are hot.

You'll have to cut and paste the recipe for us poor folks.

4tablespoons unsalted butter, plus more for greasing the pan 1tablespoon plus ½ teaspoon kosher salt 2cups polenta (not instant) 5ounces baby spinach (about 5 cups) 2cups grated Parmesan 1pound whole-milk ricotta (about 1⅔ cups), preferably fresh 3tablespoons finely chopped parsley 2tablespoons finely chopped fresh basil (or use more parsley) 1large egg ½teaspoon black pepper ⅛teaspoon grated fresh nutmeg 1(25-ounce) jar good-quality marinara sauce (3 cups) Large pinch of red-pepper flakes, 1 pinch of dried oregano, 1 grated garlic clove or a drizzle of good extra-virgin olive oil, or a combination (optional) 1pound shredded mozzarella (about 4 cups)

Add to Your Grocery List Ingredient Substitution Guide Nutritional Information PREPARATION Step 1 Heat oven to 425 degrees and butter an 13-by-18-inch rimmed baking sheet pan. Grease a rubber spatula with butter.

Step 2 Prepare the polenta: In a large pot, bring 6 cups water and 1 tablespoon salt to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat to medium, then slowly pour in polenta, whisking constantly. Cook, whisking often, until polenta thickens, 8 to 12 minutes. Whisk in 4 tablespoons butter until melted. Whisk in spinach until wilted, about 2 minutes. Remove from heat and mix in 1 cup grated Parmesan.

Step 3 Scrape polenta onto the prepared baking sheet. Using the greased rubber spatula, spread the mixture into a thin, even layer to cover the entire pan, all the way to corners. Sprinkle ½ cup grated Parmesan on top. Bake until polenta is firm and cheese has melted, 12 to 18 minutes. Let cool in the pan on a wire rack until completely cooled, ab

bout 40 to 50 minutes. (Polenta can be baked the day before and refrigerated until needed.)

Step 4 When ready to bake the lasagna, heat oven to 400 degrees. Butter a 9-by-13-inch baking dish.-

Step 5 Prepare the ricotta filling: In a small bowl, mix ricotta, parsley, basil, egg, black pepper, nutmeg and the remaining ½ teaspoon salt.

Mix until well combined and set aside.

Step 6 Taste the marinara sauce. If it needs some zip, stir in any or all of the optional ingredients.

Step 7 Assemble the lasagna: Using a knife or pizza cutter, cut cooled polenta in half widthwise, creating 2 pieces roughly 9 by 13 inches each. Using a large spatula, gently place one half in prepared baking dish. (It is important for polenta to be completely cooled and firm; otherwise, the pieces may break when transferring to baking dish. If anything breaks, just reassemble it in the pan. It won’t make much of a difference once it’s covered in sauce and baked.)

Step 8 Spread about half the ricotta mixture in an even layer on top of polenta. Pour about half of marinara sauce on top of ricotta, sprinkle with about half of the-

shredded mozzarella. Repeat with remaining polenta, ricotta, marinara and mozzarella. Once assembled, sprinkle the remaining ½ cup Parmesan on top.

Step 9 Place baking dish on top of a rimmed sheet pan in case the lasagna bubbles over. Bake until cheese melts, about 30 minutes. If you like, you can broil lasagna for 2 minutes after baking until cheese starts to bubble and develop brown spots.

Step 10 Remove from oven and let lasagna stand for about 15 minutes to firm up before serving. Leftovers can be refrigerated for up to 1 week or frozen for up to 3 months.

Sounds DELICIOUS OP, hope it tastes fantastic.

How can something be both lasagna and polenta?

Lasagna is the name of a pasta, which isn't in this dish.

That would be like making a marinara sauce that doesn't contain tomatoes.

One wonders what making one's own sauce means to this OP.

One giggles at the vision.

R10- It's a NYT recipe for marinara sauce.

Yum, this sounds great. Do enjoy!

R12- Thank you. I cut the lasagna into six portions, wrapped each in aluminum foil and put them in my freezer. I will defrost one portion for my lunch on Tuesday which I will serve with a large salad. I will report back here on this thread later on Tuesday to let everyone know if all of the work involved was worth the outcome.

Fuck ricotta!

Yeah, the name is silly, but I get it. It is "lasagne-like", using polenta as the grain instead of pasta, which I have done many times, and it is assembled in layers of sauce and cheese just as one does when preparing a traditional lasagne with pasta sheets. I would make this in a heartbeat. I have often made polenta and then just poured a homemade bolognese sauce over it and sprinkled it with parmesan, but this sounds even better. Although this recipe uses the traditional method of making polenta, I have found it just as successful to start the polenta in cold salted water. You still need to stir it often, and then as the water comes to a boil and the polenta starts to thicken, you need to stir it constantly until the polenta begins to boil up and "spit" (like a volcanic mudpot in Yellowstone). Then cover tightly, and turn the heat off (if electric) or to the very lowest possible setting (if gas).

I might make this tomorrow!

Yuck. This is one of those Only in America mash-ups.

Everyone is so creative! Do you like polenta? Lasagna? Parley? Basil? And oregano? And jars of marinara sauce from the store? And red pepper flakes? Good! Cause you're gonna throw all that shit together in a pan together with three cheeses and some other stuff. But no lasagna!!!

Americans are never happy with a recipe. They have to fuck it over with 37 extra ingredients, then substitute half of those for something very different.

Perhaps you will like this Polenta Lasagna with Kale and Lentils, only try substituting potatoes for the kale and lima beans for the lentils, and beets for the red bell pepper. You'll be glad you did!

r16 It's not a criminal offense to create new recipes. Some can be very good and some can be disasters. But I agree that calling something by the name of something else with very different ingredients is suspect. I suppose people do that to get others to look at recipes that they'd never see otherwise. (Lasagne is such a popular food that any recipes with that name will have a better chance of being seen than yellow grits with potatoes, lima beans, and beets.). Polenta was peasant food back in the day - frankly, most of the foods that we imported from Europe were originally peasant foods, because our ancestors were....well....peasants. That includes most pasta dishes, potato dishes, and breads. Except for holidays, when there would be company and traditions to uphold, I'm quite certain that peasants cooked with what they had on hand or had picked that day in the garden. Sausages and other cured meats would be much more used than fresh meat because peasants don't slaughter animals every day or every week. So meats were preserved by curing. If tender cultivated greens were unavailable because of the season or the weather, someone would be sent out to pick some dandelion greens or some mache. Sun-dried tomatoes could be kept in a cool place for months and used when fresh tomatoes were not in season. Stricter religious fasting rules meant that beans or legumes had to be substituted for meat in many recipes as a protein source when meat was not permitted for religious reasons.

It's not variation and innovation I object to, R17, and not entirely the Ship of Theseus objection either, the manoeuvre by which all or very nearly all of the essential components of a thing are replaced until the thing is no longer itself but something else altogether. Worse than that is the American Dump Cake approach to recipes: just throw it all in, the more the better, like those hot sauce competitions where instead of an essential 6 ingredients it's a Colonel's Secret Blend of 47 secret ingredients.

Americans innovation = 1.) substitute every ingredient in a dish + 2.) add a whole bunch of crazy shit.

Or, 'Polenta Lasagna with Kale and Lentils' is a thing.

[quote] Worse than that is the American Dump Cake approach to recipes: just throw it all in, the more the better

I was having a discussion on breadmaking last night with a friend who can afford anything he likes, but insists upon using the cheapest possible flour to make bread until "I really know what I'm doing." Well, learn by using the good stuff. And then he actually said, "I don't really follow a recipe. I just do what I want."

Has anyone ever found a good New York Times recipe?

R18- This recipe was a LOT of work. I made the Marinara sauce on Wednesday which took 40 minutes to properly cook. I made the polenta on Saturday and put lots of fresh spinach in that and just to prepare the last part on Sunday took me 33 minutes plus 12 minutes to assemble it before placing it in the oven for 34 minutes.

Someone wrote a letter after the recipe saying that THIS polenta dish was a classic in Italy- so you queens mocking it for it's lack of authenticity are wrong.

[quote]Has anyone ever found a good New York Times recipe?

I like the marinara OP used for his lasagne.

Ages ago, in the New New York Times Cookbook from 1979, there was a wonderful recipe for a hazelnut pate. A friend made it all the time for company and got nothing but compliments.

Thank you so much for putting up your recipe. I love these kind of posts and threads. Such a nice break from the dour complaining out there, lol. Thank you. I hope it was de-lic-ious!

and I'm gonna try making it!

I've never seen a bitter green baked into polenta in Italy. My family is northern Italian.

Using a recipe for food as an example of the ship of Theseus quandary…hmm

OP, I wouldn't question that this way of preparing polenta has authentic roots in Italy. It's the NAME that is wrong. Lasagne specifically means sheets (the meaning being that sheets of pasta are cut or broken into long and wide strips), and the dish we call Lasagne (or lasagna in America) is made with those pasta strips, so any dish made with polenta cannot possibly qualify. Polenta is a grain without a strong taste or texture, so any kind of Italian sauce and accompanying cheeses designed for pasta could easily be used with it and will likely be delicious. You can google Polenta with marinara sauce, polenta with bolognese sauce, polenta with bechamel, polenta with puttanesca sauce, polenta with anchovies, polenta with clam sauce, polenta with pesto sauce, and you will find many recipes for each kind, even though most of these sauces were originally designed to be paired with pasta.

[quote]Americans are never happy with a recipe. They have to fuck it over with 37 extra ingredients, then substitute half of those for something very different.

Thank you!

I just finished lunch. It was really good but not what I would describe as special unlike the Lasagna with Roasted Eggplant.

Still, I have five servings left which will provide me with five more tasty lunches over the coming weeks.

I think I would be missing the lasagna noodles.

That’s too labor intensive for me

R30- It was a TON of work and a TON of cleaning up after as well. One problem might be the fact that I put no salt in the Polenta when I made it. The NYT recipe called for 1 Tablespoon of salt. I put in none because I'm was trying to keep the sodium levels down. Perhaps that was a mistake. I should have added say 1/2 a Tablespoon of salt- enough to give it some flavor.

Yikes - yes, you have to have salt. (If you've ever had bread made with no salt, you'll also find it barely edible). However, you can use "Lite Salt" which is a half and half mix of sodium chloride and potassium chloride. You'll get enough salt flavor to give the dish its proper flavor, but only using half the sodium. A die hard low-sodium person could use 100% potassium chloride, but some people can detect a slightly bitter or metallic taste in that formulation. Same thing goes when a person on a low-sodium diet prepares pasta. You need to have some salt flavor in the pasta water. But it doesn't all have to be sodium chloride. I have high blood pressure and am supposed to limit sodium in my diet. It's a very dull way to live, culinarily-speaking, I'm afraid.

ALWAYS the Italian nutters come out of the woodwork to rant and rave if anyone dares to change any Italian dish and not make it EXACTLY like Nonna did in Milano.

It's such a bore.

Like Italian food.

Thanks for posting recipe. I just can't enjoy cornmeal with cheese or tomato sauce though. I may try this one with noodles and spinach.

R33- It's not Italian food that's overrated ( I LOVE Italian food)

French food is OVERRATED- the media including the NYT gushes over it