Sunday, March 13, 2011

Kasha: The Russian Grain Stir Fry

I got a cooking lesson from my friend, Vlad, this weekend.  He showed me a really easy recipe concept in Russian cooking.  They call it Kasha, and in this case (but not always) it featured buckwheat.  "Kasha" is what they call any quick grain meal.  He soaks the buckwheat (or whatever grain) and briefly cooks it.  Interestingly, if you just soak buckwheat for a few hours (1 cup buckwheat, 2 cups water--not that I actually measured) you don't actually have to cook it more than just bringing it to a boil and turning it off right away while you get everything else ready.  He mixed it with sauted onion, mushroom, and shredded carrot.  Then he tossed in cilantro before serving.  I made it the same way, except I first fried bacon (local), took it out and broke it into the buckwheat, and then cooked the veggies in the bacon grease.  I didn't have mushrooms, so I substituted spinach and black beans (randomly).  I was excited that this recipe gave me an opportunity to use the cilantro I have growing in a pot indoors.  Anyway, it was really easy and quite tasty.  I'm definitely making this again!

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