Monthly Archives: October 2008

three forms of buckwheat:  dark-seeded Japanese for green manures, light-seeded Common Gray kasha groats, and buckwheat flour

Shchi da kasha pishcha nasha:  A Russian proverb loosely meaning “We need nothing more than cabbage soup and porridge for our food.”

So, this local eating thing has boosted my decades-long interest in la cucina povera (peasant food).  By looking at my own little warm patch of lakeland-Michigan soil, I have often wondered how colder, less sunny climes have fed their people.  Onward to Russia, my friends.

When I was a poor grad student, my boyfriend and I trolled the Polish and Russian eateries in our Chicago neighborhood.  These places, of the banquet hall, all-you-can-eat variety, were true vendors of stick-to-the-ribs hearty fare.  It was in one of these places that I discovered buckwheat kasha, cabbage soup, and borscht.  (Oh and pierogi: those little savory pies would really tip you over the edge to gluttony.  We were always thankful we had no car and were forced to walk home.)

Kasha simply means porridge, and it does not necessarily have to be made of buckwheat.  Buckwheat is a small pseudograin (unlike other cereal grains it is not a grass, but instead part of the polygonaciae family, which includes bindweed, rhubarb and sorrel) that’s fairly easily grown because of its short growing season.  I plant buckwheat in my gardens to act as a green manure; it’s a tap-rooted, fleshy plant that’s easily frost-killed and is actually rather pretty with its white flowers.  The name “buckwheat” comes from the seed’s resemblance to miniature beech nuts:  Buchweizen, in German, or “beech wheat.”  Its botanical name is Fagopyrum (fagus=Latin for beech, puros=Greek for wheat).

Like most cereals, though, buckwheat groats (grains) have a tough shell that is usually removed before making flour.  The shell is removed by crushing with a roller and sifting/blowing the remainder to separate the seeds from the shell before milling.  Some of the dark shell usually cannot be removed and shows up as the darker flakes in buckwheat flour.  One doesn’t have to remove the shells to make kasha, though.  (Thankfully.)

To make savory buckwheat kasha: In a deep skillet, lightly toast 1 cup of buckwheat groats (the caramelizing process of browning the groats adds a nice taste to them) over medium heat for about 3 minutes.  Remove from pan, and brown a medium chopped onion in about a tablespoon of butter.  Add 2 minced garlic cloves, 2 cups vegetable, beef or chicken stock and salt/pepper to taste; cover and bring to a boil.  Add the buckwheat, stir well and replace the lid.  Cook over medium/low heat until most of the liquid is absorbed, about 7-10 minutes.  Remove from pan onto a platter and fluff with fork; taste for seasonings and adjust.  It starts out kinda sticky but when it cools it separates.

To make buckwheat crepes: Combine in a blender 2 eggs, 1 cup milk, 1/2 cup flour, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/2 cup all-purpose flour, 1/2 cup buckwheat flour, and 3 tablespoons melted butter; blend until smooth.  Remove lid and scrape down sides and blend some more, about 5 more seconds.  Cover and set in the refrigerator to rest:  I make mine in the morning then use in the evening; the all-day rest gives the flour a chance to absorb the liquid; I rebuzz the batter before using.  Heat a small nonstick skillet (up to 10″) or crepe pan, then brush with a little oil or butter; when it sizzles, it’s ready.  Pour about a scant 1/8th cup of batter into pan and swirl immediately to coat the bottom of the pan.  Cook until golden on bottom (about a minute) and flip, carefully, with your fingers or a flexible pancake spatula; cook another 30 seconds or so until finished.  Remove, stack on plate and keep warm and repeat; you will have about 14-18 crepes when finished.  Fill with anything:  melted cheese, sautee’d spinach or beet greens, leftover meats; drizzle with some lovely sauce.  Crepes are mutable, crepes are infinite.  Make a crepe cake!

Thank you Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking For Everyone for the backbone of these recipes.

End of harvest soup, salad, half cornmeal biscuit, local wine:  my idea of a decent worknight meal

Would that I had a real tractor.  I might just bust up some sod and grow some grains here.  Of course, had I a tractor with tiller attachment I would need a thresher too.  I am not there yet, I guess…and probably never will be, knowing how rough our clay soils are.

Two roadblocks in the Eat Local Challenge involve two big food groups:  grains and dairy.  Granted, you might be able to do without dairy altogether for a month’s challenge, but what about grains?  The staff of life?  Many people have therefore excused flour for their Challenge.  But flour isn’t the only way one can eat grains.

What about corn?

Most everyone has access to corn.  (You can grow your own even.  Corn is pretty easy to grow, and as long as you can keep the corn borers and pesky raccoons away…)  I made posole, or hominy, recently and it was fairly easy, though a bit time-intensive.  What I love about grains is that a little bit of corn puffs up to a lot of hominy. Four cups of kernels made nearly 7 cups of the stuff.  I froze what we couldn’t eat for future meals.  I also plan to throw some in the food processor and make us some mmm-mmm grits; I could dry it and grind it further and bang I have some masa flour for yummy tasty tortillas and sopes and tamale filling.  In other words, the humble corn kernel is very versatile.

Nixtamalizing (note the word “tamal,” as in tamale) is the process of chemically separating the corn shell  from the edible part through an alkali soaking.  This soaking has the added benefit of releasing niacin (B3) from the corn in a readily digestible form.  Pellagra is what occurs when folks eat lots of corn that hasn’t been so treated.  Nixtamalizing also gives the corn that nice lime-y, corn-y taste: think fresh corn tortillas on a hot griddle and you probably know what I mean.

Rinse and sort four cups of dry corn kernels (I used yellow dent corn from my corn/buckwheat source), then soak overnight in water to cover.  Set in a nonreactive (enameled, pottery or stainless steel) deep pot with 1/3 cup of baking soda and more water to cover and begin boiling.  I used my ancient Crock Pot for this.  What you’re going to do is remove the pericarp and tip cap (tough shell and shell attachment to the cob) by soaking the kernels in an alkaline solution to loosen the hulls.  The typical alkali used is lye.  Lye scares the hell out of me personally, though Mrs. Wages’ makes a pickling lime that is a bit less scary.  I couldn’t find any in time so I resorted to the more time-intensive but easier-found box of baking soda.  (Next time, I will try lye.  The baking soda kind of dissolved the hulls.  I do need to get over my fear though first.)

Boil, rinse, boil, rinse:  eventually you will find that the kernels are poofing up and the hulls are coming off.  (The alkali is only in the first go-round of boiling.)   While rinsing in the sink in a colander set in a deeper bowl, I scrub and pinch off the hulls.  They float, and with a bit of work you can figure out the easiest way to separate them.  Note, this process does take time, so…prepare yourself mentally for what the task is at hand.  Separating the little floating boogers of pericarp is kind of annoying.

The reward was yummy though.  I made a nice soup with the winding-down tomatoes, peppers, onions, celery and garlic, and scraps of a pork picnic (basically the “arm ham” or bicep of a pig) that we roasted in a low barbecue all day, then separated the somewhat stringy tasty meat for future meals…lots of future meals as it turned out; that “picnic” was 4lbs, bone-in.  The hominy is destined for another spin with Thursday’s meal:  nice, buttery grits as the side dish.  It’ll show up in a couple other forms too.