Creamy Polenta with Grilled Steak and Roasted Tomatoes. It’s delicious, it’s hearty, polenta is full of flavor, the tomatoes burst with flavor as you bite into them and steak melts in your mouth. It’s perfection!
I’m very excited to share this wonderful recipe with you today. I’ve been making polenta for as long as I can remember. Polenta is very common in a lot of cuisines, but probably nowhere as common as it is in Romania. I could probably safely say that polenta knows as mamaliga in Romanian is probably consumed more than bread.
Polenta is a peasant food, usually a substitute for bread. While in Romania, polenta is usually much thicker so that you can slice it like bread, this polenta in this recipe is a creamier polenta. Traditional Romanian mamaliga is usually made with cornmeal, boiling water and salt. However this polenta has a couple more ingredients to give it more taste.
In this polenta, butter, heavy cream and some freshly grated Parmesan cheese was added which gave the Polenta a wonderful creamy taste.
The steak is simply seasoned with salt and pepper and rubbed with some minced garlic, olive oil and oregano. Simple ingredients for a simple marinade, but very bold and delicious flavors. You can use any type of steak here, flank steak would work as well.
The tomatoes are simply roasted with a little bit of olive oil and balsamic vinegar and generously seasoned with salt and pepper.
As the tomatoes bake they release this wonderful juice, but don’t throw this away. You must drizzle this juice over the steak and the polenta. The aroma in the house as you make this meal is wonderful, so if you ever want to make a meal for a dinner party, I strongly recommend this. It’s delicious, it’s hearty, polenta is full of flavor, the tomatoes burst with flavor as you bite into them and steak melts in your mouth. It’s perfection!
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Creamy Polenta with Grilled Steak and Roasted Tomatoes
Ingredients
For Creamy Polenta
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tbsp butter
- 1 tsp garlic minced
- 1 cup cornmeal
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
- 2 cups water
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese freshly grated
For Roasted Tomatoes
- 2 cups cherry tomatoes
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
- salt and pepper to taste
For Grilled Steak
- 2 medium steaks any would work, even flank steak
- 2 tsp garlic minced
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tsp dried oregano
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425 F degrees.
- In a bowl, whisk the ingredients for the steak marinade; minced garlic, olive oil and oregano. Season steaks with salt and pepper then rub the garlic marinade over them.
- In a baking dish toss the tomatoes together with the olive oil, balsamic vinegar and salt and pepper. Roast them in the oven for about 15 minutes.
- To make the polenta, heat the butter together with olive oil. Add minced garlic and continue cooking just until you can smell the garlic. Add heavy cream and water and continue to cook until it starts boiling.
- Now you can start grilling the steak, I usually do mine about 7 minutes per side, but it depends how you like yours done.
- While the steak is grilling you can finish the polenta. Add the cornmeal to the boiling mixture. You will notice that it quickly thickens. Make sure you whisk quickly as to get rid of any lumps. If you notice the polenta is too thick, add more water, we want it creamu, not too thick, but you don’t want it runny either. The polenta needs to cook for about 10 minutes.
- To serve, spoon polenta in a dish, top with steak and tomatoes. Drizzle juice from the roasted tomatoes over the steak and polenta and garnish with parsley.
Recipe Notes
- If you have left over polenta, don’t throw it away, eat it with some feta cheese and some yogurt or sour cream, it’s super delicious.
I planned only to make the polenta from this post (which i did and am now able to rate it – 5 star definitely) but the tomatoes reminded me of another of your recipes, Italian roasted mushrooms and veggies, so i melded the two (adding balsamic – white, not to overpower – from this recipe to the oil and spice from that one and it was SO awesome! And more importantly, could not possibly have been easier. Such a fabulous combination with the polenta. Next time i might roast the veggies on a rack because i didn’t want them to end up soggy so i drained off the juices halfway. I added zucchini, peppers, etc so that may have made them juicier than they would otherwise have been.
In any case, thank you for this and the other recipe.
When is the best time to add parmesan to polenta?
The very end 🙂
Last minute menu switch, this week’s shopper forgot to get the ingredients for Swiss steak with mashed potatoes so I pulled a London broil freeze the freeze and polenta from the cupboard, found this recipe and can’t wait to get cooking!
Warm polenta ( mamaliga) with feta cheese and sour and sour cream mmmm, the best.
I have some striploin steaks in the freezer that I was planning to bbq them for tonight dinner anyway so I will try your recipe with polenta instead of the usual potatoes. Thank you Joanne for your wonderful recipes and ideas.
That’s my favorite way to have it, just had it this week, so good. 🙂
I made this for dinner tonight. There were absolutely NO leftovers and my picky little eaters had several helpings each. I only had grits in the pantry so I used those instead but this was still really good. Also, feeling pretty good about myself because for the first time I didn’t have to get my man to grill 🙌🏼 Thanks Jo for the awesome recipe…it’s a keeper.
Keep it up, you’ll be a grill master in no time! We’re glad you love the recipe 🙂
Peasant food is the best! Well, except for macarons, but I digress. I’ve never made polenta before but I absolutely must try yours! And I love the addition of roasted tomatoes! This sounds like the perfect meal to make when Hubs comes home next!
I really hope you try it. It`s very good. 🙂