Meal Thirteen (or twelve according to Eddie) - Sweetcorn and Bean Tamale Pie

Time for another vegetarian dish.

Tonight it's Sweetcorn and Bean Tamale Pie. Nope, I've never heard of Tamale either, though I'm guessing by the ingredients, there must be some sort of Italian influence?!

It tasted great, though at the very beginning I must admit I had to take a double glance at the amount of ground cumin you need - 2 tablespoons to be exact.
It's not a print error, it is actually 2 tablespoons and do you know what? It really works!

I've cooked with polenta before and will admit I wasn't the biggest fan, but I was willing to give it a go.

Before, I bought the ready made polenta and had it grilled with a tomato sauce and tasted rather bland to me.

This time around, it's not just the polenta you taste, as there are other flavours incorporated such as the cheese.

The dish is very eastern in it's taste. The cumin, onion and garlic are very much curry ingredients but the chilli, kidney beans and tomatoes take it into the South American flavour bracket.

Add polenta and parmesan to the mix and you've got yourself a complete mishmash of flavours that really do work. A definite dish I'll be sharing with my vegetarian friends.

Ingredients:

2 corn on the cob

vegetable oil

1 onion, finely diced

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

1 red pepper, seeded and chopped

2 green chillies, seeded and chopped

2 tbsp ground cumin

500g ripe tomatoes, seeded and chopped

1 tbsp sundried tomato puree

425g red kidney beans, drained and rinsed

2 tsps dried oregano

For the topping:

125g polenta

25g plain flour

1/4 tsp salt

2 tsp baking powder

1 egg, lightly beaten

150ml milk

1 tbsp melted butter

80g grated mature cheddar cheese

grated parmesan