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I think buckwheat grain is one of the most nutritious and healthy foods one can ever eat: it is very rich on iron, zink, other minerals and vitamins which makes it perfect food for kids and women during pregnancy.
It is also low on carbohydrates comparing to other grains (and for those which it does have body needs long time to digest);for me that makes boiled buckwheat (straight or with a bit of milk) perfect food for days when I want to eat a bit less and exercise a bit more: it makes you feel full longer without eating too much.
Boiled buckwheat is a perfect side for any kind of beef dishes: I personally prefer to serve it with beef stroganoff or minced beef cutlets; however it can be served as a stand alone dish. Boiled buckwheat grain with milk is very popular breakfast food for children and adults in countries of East Europe.
Ingredients:
2 cups of whole roast buckwheat grain
Salt to taste
Butter to taste
4 cups of water
How to prepare, step by step:
Prepare roast buckwheat, you don’t need to rinse it; you will also need a cooking pot with good fitting lid (if you have one with thick bottom – that would be a good choice, also glass lid makes it easy to supervise the process without opening a lid):
Boiled Buckwheat Recipe: Step 1
Even if grain looks clean it is still good idea to take a look at it more close and remove seed shells or weed which sometimes can happen in the grains. For that pour a bit of buckwheat on the table so you can arrange it in a thin layer and then remove everything which doesn’t look like a buckwheat with your finger, collect cleaned grain back to the bowl:
Boiled Buckwheat Recipe: Step 2
Pour buckwheat grain into it the cooking pot:
Boiled Buckwheat Recipe: Step 3
Add water with exactly twice volume of the grain (that is important!), so for 2 cups of buckwheat I used 4 cups of water, season with salt:
Boiled Buckwheat Recipe: Step 4
Cover pot with a lid, put on high heat and bring to boil. From this moment and on it is important to not open the lid. Boil buckwheat for about 5 minutes:
Boiled Buckwheat Recipe: Step 5
Then reduce heat in half and continue cooking of 15 minutes, amount of water should decrease 2 times by now. Then reduce heat to very low and keep cooking until the water is gone completely (5-10 mins).
After that remove cooking pot from the burner, carefully wrap it up with several layers of towel or blanket and leave aside for 15-30 mins:
Boiled Buckwheat Recipe: Step 7
Add butter:
Boiled Buckwheat Recipe: Step 8
Once butter gets soft stir it in:
Boiled Buckwheat Recipe: Step 9
Then boiled buckwheat is ready. It goes perfectly with any kind of beef main course as a side dish:
Boiled Buckwheat
Or add a bit of warm milk to boiled buckwheat and serve it for breakfast (about cup of milk for a cup of buckwheat, add 1/2 of tea spoon of sugar if you like, I usually don’t, but kids may like it):
Buckwheat with Milk for Breakfast
I'll have to try this method out. My boyfriend is from Russia and he just boils it in water and scoops it out with a spider
Mine was a dister. Going back to the way I have cooked it before.
Thank you for posting this recipe. It turned out perfect! My Ukrainian husband (living in the US now) said this is exactly like the buckwheat from his childhood. I make it at least once a month to have for breakfast or as a side dish with dinner.
Can you make pancakes out of leftover boiled buckwheat? Thanks!
I never tried it personally, but why not? You may want to chop it in blender before making a batter.
Thank you so much for this recipe!!! It worked like a charm and the result was the most perfect fluffy buckwheat!! I bought the grain for the first time in my life 2 weeks ago and since then have eaten mushy kasha and burned a few pots. This method is perfect and it shocked me that not a single grain stuck to the pot without any butter or oil. THANK YOU THANK YOU :))))
You are welcome, I love buckwheat myself :)
Buckwheat is not a grain.
A plant seed.
Total disaster - I think you got "activated" buckwheat from a health food store. If it was quite expensive - $10 per kilo or more - this is a definite. Activated buckwheat is already cooked and then dried. You can eat it with milk without any more cooking. I think you suffered some sort of popcorn effect when you boiled it - it puffed up, as it was already cooked. Good luck
Thank you Mark, I was trying to figure out what that could be as I never encountered such effect...
Worst recipe ever...
1. Pour 1 cup Organic Buckwheat from whole foods into calphalon pot.
2. Turn to high heat (per instructions).
3. Wait to boil.
4. Approx 2 min in (prior to boil), all water is gone and buckwheat has triple in size.
5. Kitchen smells like burnt nuts.
6. In panic, pull from stove, add water directly from faucet.
7. Buckwheat trips in size again (now 9x).
8. Wife laughs at me and consols me that cooking is very "hard".
9. Wife cooks me grilled cheese.
FINAL COMMENT: This recipe sucks, but it might get you a very nice Grilled cheese with garlic and cucumber.
I cook mine buckwheat from russian store like this, works like a charm every time. Sorry to hear it didn't work for you :(
Buckwheat, perhaps the best food on earth (cabbage is also up there). Boil buckwheat like rice (make sure its boiling and it has enough water to absorb). You can try it for doneness along the way, if not done, just add more water and boil. Eat it warm with milk (nothing is even close) or with meat in gravy. You got it right Julia.
Total disaster for me.
When it started to boil the water started to spill out of the pot. I had to continue boiling without the lid..
Also, on the package it sais that we should put the buckwheat in water for about 5 hours before cooking (i don't know the english word for this) so it will become "soft". Should we?
If water boiling hard then reduce heat, it doesn't need to spill out of the pot and it is important to keep lid on.
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I'll have to try this method out. My boyfriend is from Russia and he just boils it in water and scoops it out with a spider
Mine was a dister. Going back to the way I have cooked it before.
Thank you for posting this recipe. It turned out perfect! My Ukrainian husband (living in the US now) said this is exactly like the buckwheat from his childhood. I make it at least once a month to have for breakfast or as a side dish with dinner.
Can you make pancakes out of leftover boiled buckwheat? Thanks!
I never tried it personally, but why not? You may want to chop it in blender before making a batter.
Thank you so much for this recipe!!! It worked like a charm and the result was the most perfect fluffy buckwheat!! I bought the grain for the first time in my life 2 weeks ago and since then have eaten mushy kasha and burned a few pots. This method is perfect and it shocked me that not a single grain stuck to the pot without any butter or oil. THANK YOU THANK YOU :))))
You are welcome, I love buckwheat myself :)
Buckwheat is not a grain.
A plant seed.
Total disaster - I think you got "activated" buckwheat from a health food store. If it was quite expensive - $10 per kilo or more - this is a definite. Activated buckwheat is already cooked and then dried. You can eat it with milk without any more cooking. I think you suffered some sort of popcorn effect when you boiled it - it puffed up, as it was already cooked. Good luck
Thank you Mark, I was trying to figure out what that could be as I never encountered such effect...
Worst recipe ever...
1. Pour 1 cup Organic Buckwheat from whole foods into calphalon pot.
2. Turn to high heat (per instructions).
3. Wait to boil.
4. Approx 2 min in (prior to boil), all water is gone and buckwheat has triple in size.
5. Kitchen smells like burnt nuts.
6. In panic, pull from stove, add water directly from faucet.
7. Buckwheat trips in size again (now 9x).
8. Wife laughs at me and consols me that cooking is very "hard".
9. Wife cooks me grilled cheese.
FINAL COMMENT: This recipe sucks, but it might get you a very nice Grilled cheese with garlic and cucumber.
I cook mine buckwheat from russian store like this, works like a charm every time. Sorry to hear it didn't work for you :(
Buckwheat, perhaps the best food on earth (cabbage is also up there). Boil buckwheat like rice (make sure its boiling and it has enough water to absorb). You can try it for doneness along the way, if not done, just add more water and boil. Eat it warm with milk (nothing is even close) or with meat in gravy. You got it right Julia.
Total disaster for me.
When it started to boil the water started to spill out of the pot. I had to continue boiling without the lid..
Also, on the package it sais that we should put the buckwheat in water for about 5 hours before cooking (i don't know the english word for this) so it will become "soft". Should we?
If water boiling hard then reduce heat, it doesn't need to spill out of the pot and it is important to keep lid on.
I never soak buckwheat in water before boiling.