I made lunch.

Granted, it consists entirely of leftovers (leftover polenta, cut into strips and pan fried, plus leftover brocolli) and is almost entirely covered in cheese, so it’s not like I’m breaking ground in healthful home cooking here, but it was delicious and I am now full at midday.

I am constitutionally incapable of making polenta fries that look appealing. They’re so good, though.

Polenta Fries

I always start with leftover polenta. Polenta is a nice way to make roasted vegetables, or sautéed greens, or cooked mushrooms, or leftover chicken into a real meal. I will talk you through making polenta another time, but I use basically this recipe (halve the polenta part). Mark Bittman also covered polenta in one of his minimalist columns.

You need relatively firm polenta for the fries, so you might need to cook your polenta a bit longer on the stove if it’s a pretty creamy at the moment. Once it’s pretty thick, lightly oil a small square pan and spread the polenta into the pan. Cool.

Ideally, the polenta will harden, making it easy to cut into 1/2” sticks.

Melt butter in a skillet. Add the polenta sticks, making sure there’s some space between them. Cook until a bit browned and crispy, then flip carefully. They’re more likely to fall apart if you flip them before they’re browned. It’s not the end of the world if they fall apart, by the way, but it’s more fun if they don’t. I generally brown at least two sides, but you could also brown three sides, or even all four. It’s really your call.

Once they’re done, transfer to a place and sprinkle some parmesan cheese over them (or any cheese, I don’t think there’s an easy way to go wrong here).

They have a wonderful creamy inside and crispy outside.