Across Italy and particularly in the northern regions, stews and braised meats are served over polenta during the colder months.  Before I ate a vegan diet, I would do the same, making a rich polenta with butter, cheese and then more butter.  In this recipe I have left out the vegan cheese, though that would work wonderfully, and substituted my favourite vegan butter, topping the polenta with a layer of tender spinach, then savoury, meaty mushrooms.  A variation includes making vegan-friendly polenta with canned coconut milk though we thought that tasted a bit too sweet for a dish with such umami wallop.

INGREDIENTS (serves 2)

4 cups (UK folks, that’s a mug) of roughly sliced mushrooms (button, cup, portabella, shitake, chestnut, any kind you can get/afford)

2-3 tbsp tamari sauce

1-2 tsp Henderson’s Relish. Traditional Worcestershire sauce contains anchovies, Hendo’s does not. And it’s from Yorkshire!

Large bag of baby spinach, standard UK supermarket size is fine, equivalent to about 6 cups when raw

3 tbsp olive oil

1/2 tbsp sesame oil (optional)

Salt

2-3 tbsp Vegan butter / margarine

2 large cloves of garlic

1 cup of polenta

2 cups of almond milk or any unsweetened plant milk

Tbsp pine nuts

Truffle oil and chopped parsley to finish (optional)

METHOD

Add 3 cups of boiling water into a large pan with the 2 cups of plant milk and bring to a bubbly simmer. Add one cup of fine polenta, the slow cook kind, and be on hand with your whisk. The polenta needs to cook over a low heat for almost an hour to get rid of the gritty texture, with whisking every few minutes to get rid of lumps and stop it sticking to the pan bottom.

Slice your mushrooms, little ones can be left whole. Chop the two cloves of garlic and heat 2 1/2 tablespoons of the oil in another pan, large enough to hold all the mushrooms. Sauté the garlic until it softens and loses some of its opacity, don’t let it brown or burn, it will have plenty of time to cook down with the mushrooms.

Add the mushrooms to the garlic and oil, stir in the tamari, the sesame oil if using and the Henderson’s Relish. You can taste the mushrooms when they are cooked and always add a little more of each sauce if you think it needs it. Cook the mushrooms over a low heat for about 30 minutes, during which time they will let down their own fluid and become silkier to look at and meatier in texture.

Keep whisking that polenta. If the mixture becomes too tight and dry, add half a cup of boiled water and repeat if necessary. I find some polenta needs a 1:5 ratio of polenta to liquid and others 1:6, sometimes slightly more. The polenta should be smooth, velvety and not gritty, which takes lots of time and whisking. Don’t be alarmed if it tastes of water or nothing, that’s why we add the butter.

When the mushrooms and the polenta are almost done, take another large pan, add the remaining olive oil and a splash of water, put the spinach in and put lid on. Place the pan on a medium heat. When you hear the fizzing of the spinach and oil-water mixture, take off the lid and stir the spinach, some of it will have wilted and some won’t. Give it another minute and repeat the process. Keep repeating this until your spinach is wilted and glossy. Drain off any extra remaining water that hasn’t steamed away.

Whisk in the vegan butter / margarine to the polenta, season with salt to taste, it should now taste creamy and buttery. Add more butter if you like!

Spoon the polenta into a bowl to serve, add the spinach layer then the mushrooms and finish with pine nuts, which you can toast if you prefer. Sprinkle with a few drops of truffle oil and the fresh herbs.