This was one of my favorite pub dishes when I lived in Philadelphia. Yes, a pub dish. I was blessed to have lots of places in the neighborhood that offered not just a veggie burger or two, but all kinds of creative and delicious vegan and vegetarian options. Polenta puttanesca was my favorite. Tofu ricotta is pretty amazing. Even after I’d made the stuff myself, when I first ordered this dish out I had to repeatedly ask the server “Really? This can’t be vegan.” It felt so rich, even more so than in other tofu ricotta dishes I’d had, and then being buried under heaps of spicy puttanesca sauce…I never would have guessed I was eating tofu. Now that I’ve made it myself, I finally believe it. What makes this dish even more scrumptious is the puttanesca sauce. This part of the dish was new to me. When I ordered polenta puttanesca while eating out, it came with a super flavorful, extra spicy red sauce. I didn’t really think much of it (other than “yum”), and actually assumed puttanesca was like regular old red sauce and the cook at my local pub was really into spice. As it turned out, puttanesca is more of an amped up red sauce, containing capers, Kalamata olives, red pepper flakes and lots of garlic. If you’re that person at the table who is known for dumping hot sauce on everything, puttanesca might just be your red sauce of choice. It just became mine.
