SMOKY POLENTA CHIPS

A very quick and easy dish - and economical too. Use the quick cook Polenta and these will be ready in no time. So how many calories are there in these chunky Polenta chips?
You can also buy ready made blocks or rolls of plain Polenta, and simply cut these into your desired shape. But by making your own, you can add whatever flavours you like.
If you want to incorporate a bit of smokiness, then follow the recipe below.
We cooked the chips three ways as a trial - deep frying, shallow frying and baking.
The results were interesting, yet we found there was one clear message for us.
Here's how we made these gorgeous light and fluffy chips, and the results of our taste test:

POLENTA CHIPS

Ingredients

400ml boiling water

100g quick cook Polenta (note this ratio of Polenta to water was recommended on the packet)

20g smoked cheese - we used Applewood - crumbled

20g butter, cut into small cubes

1 tsp of vegetable stock powder or (1 stock cube)

a little salt and white pepper

semolina

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Mix the Polenta with the boiling water and vegetable (or chicken) stock. Add salt and white pepper.

Stir continuously until the mixture thickens - around 4 minutes.

Add the crumbled smoked cheese and butter.

Pour mixture into a lined (cling film) oblong dish, and allow to cool before refrigerating them for at least half an hour. 

Cut into chunky chips and coat in semolina. 

Cook until golden brown. Deep frying took around 4 minutes, shallow frying about 6-8 minutes and baking about 20 minutes. Times will vary according to the size of your chips - these timings were for 2cm square x 10cm long. We wanted very chunky chips and this recipe made 10 pieces. This works out roughly at 70 calories per (very chunky) chip. You'll need to add the oil used for cooking. 

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The clear message for us was the shorter the cooking time the better! Hence our preference for the deep fried chip, which was lovely and crunchy on the outside and very soft and fluffy on the inside. The shallow fried chips were crunchy but not as soft inside. The baked chip was pale in colour and very chewy without much crunch, possibly down to the longer cooking time.

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