Hearts upon Hearts

 
Cuori di Caricofi su Cuori di Polenta

I do enjoy playing and coming up with fun food for special occasions. For Valentine's Day my friends are my heart cutters and my imagination.

As a starter for a romantic meal, this year I came up with heart shaped polenta crostini topped with fried fresh artichoke hearts embedded in white cream cheese, surrounded by two very red Mediterranean shrimp. These shrimp don't turn red, they are deep red to begin with - softer in texture, high in flavour and what a colour!

If you don't eat shrimp, you can leave them out; maybe make an edging of sliced halved red radishes instead? You could then top with Parmigiano-Reggiano shavings. And I think I should have let the outline of the polenta crostini show more, instead of covering it up completely when assembling. That's what I'll do when we make this on the Saint Valentine’s weekend cooking class in Bologna.

To make this pretty starter you will need.

 - Pre-cooked polenta in a slab about half an inch high.

Make this well ahead, as the drier the top the better it will hold together when frying. You can use the quick cook kind and follow the package instructions but I made mine (nearly 40 minutes of stirring!) using just over a pound (500 g) of medium ground polenta, 2 litres of water and a tablespoon of coarse sea salt.  If it isn’t well salted polenta turns out dull and bland. 

Here is a link to wonderful post on making polenta from scratch from Frank Fariello's excellent Italian food blog.

 - Two tablespoons soft white cheese like Straciatella (which is what you find in the middle of Burrata ) or Robiola  - I used the local Squacquerone from Romagna which has a nice acidity and the right consistency.

 - A fresh artichoke

- A lemon

 - 4 medium shrimp

-  Extra virgin olive oil

 - Rapeseed or ground nut oil

- Salt

- Small salad leaves for garnish.

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I am going to go into detail on how prepare the artichoke hearts, in the clever Italian way, so if you already know what to do skip this part.

I assembled the following:

Bread knife with serrated edge

Potato peeler

Small sharp knife

Small coffee spoon with a sharply pointed edge

A bowl of cold water

A lemon.

The lemon I used first on my fingers, as artichokes stain them black. Then I cut a piece and squeezed it into the bowl of water, tossing it into the bowl as well. I cut the rest up into pieces to use on every cut surface as soon as possible after cutting, as they too go black very fast.

Though I did not need it for this recipe, I did the stem first, cutting off the tougher bottom end with the bread knife, rubbing the cut base of the artichoke and tossing the head in the water before peeling round the external hard part of the stem to reach the white core. I did the stem with the small knife first and then I trimmed with the potato peeler.

Next I picked up the artichoke head and used the bread knife to cut off over half the top part, which I discarded, then rubbed the useable part with lemon.

Then I removed all the tough outer leaves, working round, until only tender pink and yellow leaves were left, no trace of green or dark, and I rubbed all round the base with lemon. Then I trimmed the base with the potato peeler and did the lemon treatment again.

Next I cut the artichoke in half (the waiting half went back in the lemon water) and checked the choke. My artichoke was really young and tender, the choke hardly there and silky, so I did not need to use the coffee spoon to remove it. So I sliced the two halves thinly into slivers and the job was done!

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To make the Crostini

Use a  round or heart shaped  cutter to cut out 4 or 5  crostini – yes, more than you need but they are not easy to fry, so best to have some spares!

Drain 8 or 9 artichoke slices from the water and then flour well, shaking off excess. Set aside.

Bring a small pan of water to the boil, tip in the shrimp, and cook until the water comes back to the boil then scoop up the shrimp and refresh in cold water for a minute. Allow to cool then shell.

I left the heads on because I love to pick them up with my fingers and suck the succulence out of them, very sensual and so tasty. But leave them off if you prefer, or leave them on and skip the sexy sucking part!  Oh and by the way, we’d never dream of buying headless shrimp here, you can’t tell if they’re fresh without the head for starters.  

Heat a ridge cast iron “piastra” like the one below or a heavy skillet  - I used my non stick ceramic frying pan for this -  and when it is hot pour in 3 tablespoons of EVO oil. Oil the polenta slices on both sides and then the carefully place them in the oil. The oil needs to be good and hot and you need to be attentive and armed with a thin edged spatula. 

 

Fry till golden on both sides. Little bits will stick to the pan: I scrape those up and stick them back! Keep the edge of your spatula clean by scraping off and polenta bits that cling to it and be very careful not to break them when turning over – who wants a broken heart on Valentines Day?

Once they are fried, place on absorbent kitchen paper. You can make these and the shrimp ahead and warm up in a pan or the oven when you need them so the only thing you have to do last minute is fry the artichoke slices and assemble the crostini.

In a clean pan bring the rape seed or ground nut oil up to heat and fry the artichoke heart slices till crisp and golden. Place on absorbent kitchen paper and when they have cooled a little season with salt.

Place the shrimp on the polenta crostini and mound a little of the cream cheese in the centre. Wedge the fried artichoke hearts into this and you’re done. All that’s left to do is to plate, scatter a few salad leaves and pop a bottle of Prosecco!