Polenta Chips

The moment I heard about polenta chips, I was fascinated by the concept. I don't have many experiences cooking with polenta or even eating it, but I've always enjoyed it when it was around. The thought that it would be the ingredient for some slightly naughty chips was just too much to resist. So I had to cook some polenta chips.

Couple of weeks back Felicity Cloake's article How to make the perfect polenta chips was published on the Guardian and that was the definite sign for me to try to cook them. I was most nervous about getting the texture right, but it actually turned out very easy to handle. Felicity, as always, consulted several different recipes in order to find the best combinations, and I adapted my recipe from her version following it pretty closely. I made a tomato-chilli dip to go with the chips, which was a good combination.

Polenta Chips with a homemade Tomato-Chilli Dip

Polenta Chips

650 ml vegetable stock

1 tsp sea salt

125 g + 50 g polenta

50 g vegetarian pasta cheese (veggie parmesan)

Vegetable oil for frying

Cook 125 g of polenta in the vegetable stock until done and mix the grated cheese in.

Spread the mixture evenly into a lined roasting tray and let it cool. Chill it in the fridge.

Cut chips from the polenta and coat them with the rest of the uncooked polenta.

Shallow fry the chips in vegetable oil until the coating is crispy.

Tap any excess oil off with kitchen roll.

Tomato-chilli Dip

200 g vine tomatoes

1 garlic clove

1 red chilli

Olive oil

1 tsp smoked chilli paste

Cook chopped tomatoes in olive oil until most excess liquid has cooked off.

Add finely chopped chilli and garlic into the pan and let simmer.

Season the dip and purée.

Enjoy the chips with the dip!

Your VegHog