Shrimp With Hot Fennel Sausage and Polenta Recipe (2024)

Whenever you cook polenta, toast over medium heat in butter first. A few minutes will do it. When you begin to smell the toasted corn, proceed with recipe. Adds wonderful flavor.

The ingredients don't jibe with the preparation instructions. Step 4 calls for tomato puree and creme fraiche. Unless I'm missing it, there is nary a tomato nor a drop of cream mentioned in the ingredient listing.

Didn't have sausage but used ground pork from a local farm and added fennel, hot pepper flakes, salt & pepper when browning. Used red wine (had a bottle open), a tomato confit puree from last summer's tomato harvest and omitted the creme fraiche at the last minute (seemed rich enough with the butter in the polenta). The scallion mixture was fantastic and it will be a staple from now on. When assembled, the complete dish is restaurant-quality and absolutely delicious!

I highly recommend soaking the polenta in the water you will cook it in for a few hours. See “serious eats” website. It’s already absorbed water, just bring the mixture up to a decent bubbly simmer, I’ve never had it get lumpy, needs just a aggressive whisk now and again. 1 cup polenta, 4-5 cups water.

You'll get even more flavorful results if you simmer the shrimp shells in wine and then add it to the mixture.

What's your thought about soaking polenta overnight? I've had success in doing this and then cooking it. It seemed to take less time (a lot less than 45 minutes) than starting from cold water and produced creamy polenta. Only needs some forthought.

Recipe fixed now.

You say to add tomato puree, creme fraiche,scallions, capers, parsley but they don't appear in directions. What are the amounts?

This was absolutely terrific and easy. One note: use Martha Rose Shulman’s recipe for polenta in place of this one. The microwave version is great (I have made both the microwave and regular oven versions) and reduces the cooking time to 15 minutes.

Note simmer of shells in wine to be added later - more flavor.

In another NYT recipe, a man who had dealt with commercial corn products suggested whisking the dry polenta into the cold water, and then boiling & simmering. Works like a charm—no lumps to speak of, and only occasional whisking or stirring. I’ve started making (real) grits the same way

There's no such thing as too much leftover polenta. Press it into a pan, chill it and enjoy it over the next several days. My favorite: Pan fry leftover polenta and top with marinara and Italian sausage with scrambled eggs for a weekend breakfast.

This was absolutely delicious. I simmered the wine with shrimp shells as other readers have noted. I used tubed polenta from whole foods with 1 cup of water and the same amount of butter & it was delicious and creamy; It also only took 5-10 minutes to make. I would recommend at least doubling the amount of tomatoes & wine -- otherwise I would have been left with very little sauce. Even with doubling it, we were left with very little, very thick sauce.

Served this to my regular Friday night dinner party and it was a huge hit . . easy to prep early, just add the creme fraiche and shrimp at the last minute after a quick heat up. Plus, at the risk of an uproar among purists: I make polenta in the microwave: 4 cups stock, 1 cup polenta, 8 mins at high, stir, 3 mins more. Stir, add some butter, THEN the magic part: put it in your slow cooker on warm. I make it several hours earlier and it's yummy by dinnertime . . a little parm is also nice .

I'm puzzled how a combination of hot sausage, shrimp, garlic, onion, chili flakes, rosemary, wine, capers, lemon zest and scallions turned out "bland." How is that even possible?

Amazing dish. I made the shrimp spicy to give the dish a kick and used yogurt instead of the crème fraiche. It’s a family fav now.

Subbed grits for polenta -Easy & better than any shrimp & grits we had in NOLA!!

What a strange and wonderful combination of shrimp and sausage. Who would have thought. Confessing to heresy, substituted cauliflower mash with butter and Parmesan for polenta.

Would this work with scallops?

I added some ground fennel seeds, which added a very nice flavor.

I used the whole onion - it was big. So I added the meat from a third sausage link to balance out and this dish was really delicious! My grocery store did not have crème fraîche so I spooned in some sour cream at the end. I would love ideas for bases other than polenta, which is problematic for me. Any suggestions? I tried it over rice and that was just OK.

Used bobs red mill polenta, took 15 minutes. Add 2 tbsp butter to polenta. Used blinskis hot Italian chicken sausage. Could make 1.5x sauce for the amount of polenta.

This is a good VERY SIMPLE recipe. But, it lacks the punch and deep flavors I think of when I think of shrimp and grits, it’s almost like a spring version. Still full of flavor—don’t get me wrong on the brightness from the herbs—but I was left missing a deep roastiness and caramelization flavor you can get from other recipes that roast fresh tomatoes. If I were to make it again I might add tomato paste into the sautéed onions to punch it up a bit.

This was delicious. I halved the recipe for my husband and I-perfect amount. The changes I made was subbed mascarpone for crème fraîche because that’s what I had on hand and used Calabrian chili paste instead of red pepper flakes because we love it. Hubby asked me to add it to repertoire.

Absolutely delicious! I made the recipe as presented, and it turned out perfectly. I did substitute the sausage with beyond meat Italian Sausage (it is Lent, after all) and it was just fine. I'll absolutely make this again.

You only need 1 cup of polenta and 4 cups of water. I have about 6 cups of leftover polenta.

I was missing onion so I used green onion whites for the sausage and the tops for the capers. This was a little bit of prep but the instructions were easy to follow and one of the BEST meals. I used fresh italian sausage from our local butcher. Removed from the casing. My husband raved and he's a very picky eater. I used tube polenta (chop, mix with butter then added broth and milk and added parmesan.) I also didn't have creme fraiche (or sour cream) on hand so used cream cheese.

I am wondering what wine to serve with this.

Substituted goat cheese for creme freche. Tip I picked up from two ladies talking about shrimp and grits at the meat counter at Whole Foods in Asheville. "My secret ingredient," said one, and she sure was right. Also uised chorizo instead of hot fennel sausage and added a bit more red flakes. Awesome dish.

This was delicious! I made it for my husband and I and halved the ingredients to make it for two. It worked great. I almost did not use the lemon zest mix but that would have been a mistake. The lemon zest mix was the perfect finish.