While varying these factors will affect the quality of the finished product, no ingredient changes make polenta any easier to prepare. I found that lesser amounts of water yielded gummy polenta. Though the mixture may cook in as little as twenty minutes, it is usually tacky, sticky, and starchy, because there simply isn't enough liquid to hydrate the swelling starches. Besides adding flavor, salt slows the swelling of the starch so that the surface of the cornmeal doesn't overcook before the interior is done. Properly salted water allows the cornmeal to cook evenly and helps prevent seizing.
Good polenta requires a teaspoon of salt per cup of cornmeal.
More salt only makes the polenta inedible and can't prevent seizing if the cornmeal is added too quickly or if the water is boiling too fast. The size of the cornmeal granules will affect the texture of the cooked polenta, but it doesn't seem to alter the cooking process. Determining how finely the cornmeal is ground can be difficult, since one company's coarse grind may be identical to another company's medium. In general, I found that cornmeal with a texture more akin to sugar than table salt delivered the best results. After failing to make any headway by playing around with the ingredients, I began experimenting with alternative cooking techniques.