Name: Polenta pasticciata (Baked Polenta with Sauce and Cheese)
Cuisine: Italy
Ingredients: 2 cups coarse-grind polenta; 8 cups water, or 4 cups each water and milk; 1 tablespoon salt; 4 tablespoons unsalted butter; ¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese; 3 egg yolks, lightly beaten (optional); 1½ cups shredded Fontina cheese; Double recipe Meat Sauce from Bologna, Sausage Sauce for Pasta or Polenta, or Mushroom Sauce from Lombardy; 1½ cups grated Parmesan cheese; Unsalted butter, at room temperature and cut into bits, for topping

Preparation info

Difficulty
Medium

Appears in

Italian Slow and Savory

By Joyce Goldstein

Published 2004

About

To assemble polenta pasticciata (sometimes spelled pastizzada), in which layers of cooked polenta are alternated with sugo in the manner of some baked pastas, you do not need a cream sauce, as you do for lasagna, but you do need cheese, which can be either shredded, as is the case here, or thinly sliced. While this dish looks like lots of work, you can cook the polenta up to I day in advance and the sauce up to 3 days ahead of time. Also, the dish can be fully assembled