The flavors were wonderful. The cabbage was a bit like sauerkraut, but not so pungent. The sauce, with the beer and mustard, was a good mix and complemented the cabbage perfectly, and who doesn't like fried cornmeal with cheese!
The thing I had the hardest time with was the process of frying the polenta. It was probably my pan or maybe I wasn't using "leftover" polenta, but I did not have the lovely little patties that are pictured in the blog post. After a little while and a couple failed attempts, I had better luck, but it was mostly clumps of polenta that were mostly fried, but some that weren't.
My variations:
I was thinking of some other recipe and I used 3 green onions instead - whoops.
I didn't have any apple cider vinegar, so I used red wine vinegar instead. I used honey instead of sugar. I made the polenta (recipe from my favorite cookbook below) a couple hours before, put it in a pan and cooled it in the refrigerator. I used a brown ale that a friend and I brewed - delicious, if only I could drink what was left in the bottle! I skipped the caraway seeds since I didn't have any - I didn't miss them. I threw the beans (I used garbanzos since that was what I had on hand) into the sauce while it was reducing.
Polenta:
2 cups water
2 cups milk
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
1-1/4 cups cornmeal
2 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
Bring the water, milk, nutmeg and salt in a heavy saucepan to a slow boil. Turn the heat down (simmer). Slowly add the cornmeal, whisk constantly. Cook until the consistency is like mashed potatoes and it begins to pull away from the side of the pan, about 5 minutes. Remove from the heat, add the butter and cheese and mix in. Spread in dish or on a greased board to cool - size will depend on how thick you want the polenta. A 9x13 baking dish will give you about a 1/2" thick cake.
I was pleasantly surprised at the results (flavor-wise), and Ebon even went back for seconds. However I probably won't make this recipe again due to the amount of work required. Maybe I'll find a way to use pieces of it in different recipes.
