Humble Buckwheat Porridge

Humble Buckwheat Porridge

It is easy to cook, it is nutitional and very popular in the Eastern Europe.

Buckwheat was brought to the Eastern Europe by Scytians and Sarmatians.

Archaeolody studies of Nemyriv Scythian settlement that is in Vynnytsya region of novadays Ukraine (late iron age 700-500 BC) show that settlers grew and cooked buckwheat. And making porridge is the easiest way to do this. Very historical grain to eat.

Ukrainian name for it is grechka. And there is an idiom in Ukrainian “to jump into the buckwheat” that means to make adultery. The reason behind it is that buckwheat was usualy grown as a crop that will not be given away to the land owners or the state, something for the houshold itself. So the buckwheat was planted somewhere away from other`s sight. Where the couples went to have some unlawful privacy.

You need:

buckwheat, water, salt

Additional: broth or milk

You may purchase green buckwheat or brown one. If you have green – toss it into the dry pan and heat well and mix with spatula untill it turns light brown.

Depends of your source for purchasing this grain , you may need to take out small rocks or grains of weeds from the buckwheat grains. Let`s consider that we have clean buckwheat.

Put it in a pot, rinse and change the water several time if it is needed untill water runs clean. This helps the grains to become a nice, crumbly porridge.

Take buckwheat and put into the pot. Add salt to the water by little and taste it. You should like how it tastes, not really salty, but like a mineral water or so.

Add water so it covers the grain by 1-1.5 cm. Put it on a medium fire, turn to the small heat when the water starts to boil.

Its better to cover the pot with a lid, but leave a hole for a steam to escape. Keep an eye on it.

when water will evaporate – try and taste one grain – if it soft, but not gruely – it is ready.

If it is still hard – you may add some hot water and wait and give it a try again.

Do not stir the porrige unless you forgot to look at the pot and the water escaped and your porridge burns to the bottom.

Let it cool. And that is it.

You may pour some milk and add honey or sugar.

You may add some broth for more salty type of dish. Use it as a main dish or a side dish for meat, sausages or veggies.
And it stays fresh much longer then rice or wheat porridge, so you may use it as an ingridient of other dishes.