What is the difference between hominy grits and polenta

Stone ground grits have a longer cooking time of around 45 minutes. Instant grits are further processed and partially cooked before drying. This reduces their cooking time to around minutes but also reduces their nutrient content. Polenta: Polenta is a dish native to Italy and, similar to grits, is a coarsely ground corn product.

This hard starch provides a distinctly granular texture even after cooking. Polenta can be served hot and creamy or allowed to cool and then sliced. Polenta can be cooked with stock instead of water for added flavor and can have herbs or other ingredients added during the cooking process.

Polenta can be purchased dry or cooked. Unlike grits, the word polenta can be used to describe the ground corn product described above or a porridge made with any type of rice, beans or other grain. Recipe for Laughter:. Change out the protein based on the week or swap out vegetables based on the season; these thoughtfully-composed meat, veggie, and grain dishes are utterly customizable. And in the South, there's no grain that earns more attention than grits.

From savory to sweet, from breakfast to dinner, Southerners have dreamed up myriad ways to serve this simple grain. Often written off as bland or mealy in other parts of the country, grits have found a unique home in the South, where chefs and home cooks alike treat their grits with the utmost love and care—and lots of butter. Grits are made from ground corn, and you can find this grain in many different varieties.

You'll find yellow grits and white grits; instant grits and quick grits; stone-ground grits and hominy grits made from corn that has been nixtamalized. Overall, grits have a thick, coarsely-ground texture, as opposed to cornmeal which is often used in baked goods like cornbread. Like grits, polenta is also made from ground corn. Grits are an American invention that uses a Native American grain and the European technology of the grist mill.

Grits, like polenta, are ground up corn. They are commonly made from all kinds of field corn: white, yellow, and even blue and red corn, not to mention dozens of heirloom varieties that don't fit into any color variety so easily. Corn is a vast topic, and I cannot even summarize its history here, but Gerard Paul at manyeats.

Grits are commonly served at breakfast which is a bit archaic, since coarse stone-ground grits are not a quickly prepared food. Grits almost always get salt and butter, and often grated cheese. Grits make a great starch at any meal, FYI. Native Americans probably didn't eat a lot of anything that resembles grits as we recognize the dish today. This is because corn went hand in hand with the process of nixtamalization in Native American culture.

Also, Native Americans didn't have butter or cheese. One of the products of nixtamalization is hominy , which is its own type of food. Hominy and corn and grits aren't always precisely the same thing, although all three foods are corn. One thing is for sure: hominy is nixtamalized corn. Let me be quite clear: no nixtamal, no hominy. So if your grits don't contain any nixtamalized corn, they aren't "hominy grits", they're just grits. The articles that I'm criticizing here both asserted that hominy is white corn.

That's just wrong as a flat generalization, even if most hominy is made from white corn. Slice, wrap the slices in prosciutto, and then pan fry the wrapped slices until the meat is crisp. If you have not been to the mercantile yet, when you come here let me know and I will drive you up. I apologize for so many responses, but the maximum comment size is set quite low, thus the 9 thousand posts…. So, who the hell am I and how do I know all this? Now, excuse me. I have some leftover roasted chicken and some lovely shiitakes that are screaming to be put on buttery grits.

With thyme and garlic. And butter. Did I mention butter? I mostly cook things in the pressure cooker using the bain marie method, where you have a bowl with the food in it, sitting in the pressure cooker on its trivet with a few cups of water under it.

This is how I cook rice or beans. I forgot to say that I had grits when I was in the Navy in training in Millington Tennessee way back in the 70s.

I loved them with fried eggs and bacon. Or as a quick and handy alternative to polenta with stew upon it. I will not hurl coarse insults nor invective. After all, the course of true love is never smooth. The water course delivers the water and the horses race on the race course, but never on the race coarse, because it would irritate their hooves.

Your email address will not be published. Notify me of follow-up comments by email. Notify me of new posts by email. Any southerners out there? I need some help. What the hell are grits? Any and old advice is welcome! Published by. Steve Sando I dig beans.