Polenta taragna

Polenta with buckwheat

Many people are now familiar with polenta and some of you may even have eaten it – whether you cooked it yourself or had it cooked at an Italian restaurant. The classic polenta recipe with polenta made from maize semolina is said to originate from Friuli. A special form of polenta is polenta with buckwheat, called polenta taragna. Buckwheat is a plant that is not actually a grain at all, but the name has probably developed because of its widespread use in bread and other cereal dishes in the past. The fruits resemble small beechnuts, which is where this part of the name comes from.

Polenta taragna

Polenta taragna

Buckwheat is particularly widespread in Valtellina. You may be familiar with the buckwheat pasta pizzoccheri. Due to the use of buckwheat (Italian: grano saraceno), it does not necessarily have the most beautiful color, but tastes very good when prepared correctly (e.g. as pizzoccheri alla Valtellina).
Polenta taragna does not consist of 100% buckwheat, however, but ground buckwheat is added to the corn semolina. Before corn was introduced to northern Italy in the 16th century, rye semolina or spelt semolina was used to prepare the poor people’s dish polenta.

Polenta taragna with green beans and bacon

Recipes for polenta taragna

You can use it just like normal polenta, the buckwheat is just a little more filling. This was important for the farmers in the mountainous regions – a cheap dish that could keep them full all day. Why not try polenta casserole with green beans? An easy to prepare and super tasty vegetarian dish. It can also be refined with bacon, but during the test cooking in the Gustini kitchen, even some meat-eaters liked the version without bacon better.
Our recommendation: use pre-cooked polenta taragna to reduce the cooking time.