Buckwheat

Baked Mini Pumpkins Stuffed with Buckwheat

If you ask me what I consider a very Russian food, you may be surprised to hear that it its not caviar.

Sure, the potatoes are popular, so is cabbage, however, I would say that kasha rules.  In the US you may have heard that word, since here buckwheat is often referred to as "kasha". Incidentally, in Russia all of the grain and cereals that are cooked called 'kasha": that referrers to cooked barley, rice, buckwheat, millet, oat and etc. I know, that technically they are not even all cereals. Even new arrival like South American quinoa is still called kasha, just specified by what kind of grain has been cooked. In fact, Italian risotto, would qualify as rice kasha. If you enjoy porridge every now and then - you are eating oatmeal kasha.

 

Every Russian kid grows up eating kasha for breakfast and every kids knows a story about a solider that cooked kasha from an ax. In this Russian Cartoon the story is retold. This is tale of a solder that is returning home from the war and comes across a stingy farmer's wife, that does not want to extend hospitality to a hero nor share one meal. Few hundred years ago certain number of peasant Russian men were drafted into the tzar's army for a stretch of 20 years or so. After their service was over they made their way home, usually on foot, likely to spend the night in a nearest village. Hospitality of Russian people is well known, so any solder returning home was a largely counting on it. In this cartoon he asks for something to eat and a place to spend the night, however the woman is not willing to provide for nothing more than haystack in the stable. Clever warrior offers to cook kasha from an ax. Intrigued, she agrees. Ax goes in the pot with water and is boiling away. The soldier is very satisfied with the results but the ax just needs some salt. Stingy woman can't wait to try some ax kasha, so she gives him some salt. When solder tells here that it would be perfect if only there was a spoonful of butter. So he gets the butter from the woman, then it would be perfect is only he gets some grain. The greedy hostess is so mesmerised that she is willing to provide that, too. Now, it needs little more time for cooking and they have a kasha out of ax. "But what about the ax?", asks the woman. "Well, the ax is not quiet done, you need to cook that longer and your husband will finish it tomorrow", replies the solder. That is how the clever solder gets to eat.

....But I digressed....

The Buckwheat comes in groats and sometimes milled in to flour. Groats is what referred to in the States as kasha. Groats can be found in bulk at supermarkets like Whole foods, and in regular supermarket. Buckwheat is a very popular grain in Russia. It is eaten like a morning cereal or a side dish for supper. It has a wonderful rich nutty flavor and is full of iron, zinc and has some antioxidants in it, too. Russia is still the biggest producer of buckwheat and is in frequent competition with China for the title. 

Weather you are buying buckwheat in bulk or in a package, before you cook, it is a good idea to look trough the grains to make sure that there are no loose stones or some other grain made its way in the mix. You are likely to come across some black seeds in the same shape as the rest of the groats. You can pick them out or let them cook, since it is still buckwheat, that did not loose it's outer coat during the processing.     

If you are buying it in bulk you may come across some grain that are pale blown and almost yellow or those that are brown. Traditionally, the grains are toasted to that brown color and if you are getting pale grains you will need to toast your groats till they are brown, so just stick with brown ones. Heating already brown groats is also possible, that releases the aroma of the goats and it will not hurt as long as you don't burn it. However, it is not absolutely necessary.               

Basic recipe is 1c of buckwheat to 2 c of water. Salt to taste and some butter once it is cooked. They cook rather fast - in about 20 min.  I get my buckwheat in Russian stores or my local middle eastern store, that is owned by Assyrians from Iran. They know their customers and carry a certain selection of Russian foods.  

In a regular supermarket you may find buckwheat in Jewish/Kosher foods section of the store in small but expensive brown boxes. That type goes by the name of kasha. I noticed that their product is almost instant kind of buckwheat. The grains are broken into pieces and cook in a matter of few minutes. On this box it says "Fine Granulation" - or simply half milled buckwheat. If you are unsure about buckwheat but want to try it - by all means start with the box, just keep the proportions.

Most people that eat prefer their grains to be nice and loose, like the perfectly cooked basmati rice. I have this photo to demonstrate what it looks like cooked. However, there are few people (I am one of those) that love their grains to be overcooked to the point when they become one homogeneous mass topped of with large load of unsalted butter called "raz-maz-nya" or roughly translated as "mushy". If you do not keep your proportions and add too much water - you will end up with kasha like that. As a child I remember my grandma giving kasha as a hot cereal. Quite simply hot milk was added to the bowl of kasha with butter and spoon full (or more) of sugar. These days I feed this dish to my kids - they love it.

There lot of things you can do with buckwheat and flour from it. Russian crapes called blini can be made with it. Perhaps you heard about the dish brought to US by Eastern European Jews called kasha varnishkes, or buckwheat with bow tie pasta mix. Somehow, my grandma did not make that recipe, so I only learned that it is "traditional Jewish" here, in the States. I would like to share a recipe I made a couple of Thanksgivings ago. 

 I'm particularly proud of this recipe since it was not only delicious and nutritious but also looked good on the plate and was easy to make. For this dish I cooked the buckwheat and mixed it in with vegetables and stuffed it into small pumpkins that where baked.

You will need:

oil for sauteing

1 large diced  onion;

1-2 celery sliced stalks;

1-2 shredded carrots; 

1 package of  sliced mushrooms; several sprigs of thyme or about 1 tsp of dry (mix of both is OK);

about 4 or 5 small pumpkins cut in halves and cleaned; 

2 c of dry buckwheat and some additional fluids for cooking pumpkins such as stock or water.

The rest is simple. Cook buckwheat according to package or few minutes less.Saute onion, celery, carrots and mushrooms, add salt and pepper, then thyme. Mix with cooked buckwheat and fill pumpkins. Place pumpkins in the baking dish and add approximately 1/2 or more cups of liquid like stock or water if you want to keep it vegetarian. Cover the pan with foil to prevent buckwheat from drying out and bake at 350° till pumpkins are fork tender.

This recipe can be cooked with pumpkin not in the form of container for the kasha mix but with pumpkin or butternut squash diced up and cooked with other vegetables and mixed in with cooked buckwheat.

Hope you will try buckwheat.