Merchant-Style Buckwheat with Pork and Vegetables

Name: Merchant-Style Buckwheat with Pork and Vegetables Recipe
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 45 min
Total time: 1 h
Cuisine: European
Ingredients: Buckwheat groats 1 cup (170 g); Water or meat stock 2 cups (400 ml); Pork 250 g; Garlic 1 head; Carrot 1; Onion 2; Tomato paste 1 tbsp (17 g); Butter 2 tbsp; Salt, black pepper, thyme to taste; Flour, full-fat sour cream optional

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Very often simple, everyday dishes cooked with heart and imagination get grand names. That’s how we got royal-style chops, merchant-style porridge, boyar-style pancakes and so on. In fact, such dishes use plenty of special additions that make them more nourishing and better looking. And as a rule, they are always very tasty.

Buckwheat has always been considered peasant food. Lately, at the peak of the healthy and diet eating boom, this grain has become incredibly popular and in demand. I remember we hardly ate buckwheat in my childhood, even though my grandmother grew it in her village. I just never got used to it. Although buckwheat porridge with milk was always a favorite of mine. Especially with raisins and honey.

Most often, crumbly porridges and boiled grains are “upgraded” with meat, chicken, often mushrooms or other tasty additions. Even plain butter can turn a simple dish into something completely different. Just fry some sliced pork or chicken fillet, add onion and mix it with already cooked buckwheat, and you get an excellent, hearty dish.

Cooked buckwheat goes best with pork and fried onion. Once upon a time, porridge mixed with a can of tushonka (canned stewed meat) was the number one dish. It was quick and simple, especially outdoors, when there’s no time to cook or you just can’t be bothered. The beauty of it is that you can cook the grain at home and just heat it up outdoors.

Small pork trimmings are ideal: they’re inexpensive and sold everywhere. Onion and carrot, plus whole garlic cloves, round out the flavor. Among the spices, thyme deserves special attention: it makes merchant-style buckwheat really delicious.

At first glance this may seem like a simple, even “empty” dish. The amount of grain and the amount of meat and vegetables are almost equal by volume. The dish turns out rich and filling, with a mild, luxurious flavor. As people in the know say, you wouldn’t be embarrassed to serve it to guests. By the way, the whole unpeeled garlic cloves are a treat, and I advise adding plenty. When the dish is fully cooked, the cloves become sweet, with a very pleasant flavor that isn’t garlicky at all.

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Ingredients

2 servings

Buckwheat groats 1 cup (170 g)
Water or meat stock 2 cups (400 ml)
Pork 250 g
Garlic 1 head
Carrot 1
Onion 2
Tomato paste 1 tbsp (17 g)
Butter 2 tbsp
Salt, black pepper, thyme to taste
Flour, full-fat sour cream optional

Step-by-step recipe

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Meat and vegetables

Well-made merchant-style buckwheat with slices of pork and vegetables is tasty and filling. Large stores often sell so-called meat trimmings sets for ground meat patties or goulash: they are boneless, without big pieces of fat, and work well for cooking. Buy the best-quality buckwheat, evenly roasted. You will need a deep skillet with a lid.
Remove any bones from the pork and cut it into small pieces.
Melt 2 tbsp of butter in the skillet over medium heat. You can use equal parts butter and olive oil, which tastes great.
When the fat is hot, fry the pork pieces until lightly browned.
Separate a head (or two) of garlic into cloves, leave them unpeeled, and add them to the meat.
Experience shows there will be a “fight” over the delicious garlic cloves, so don’t be stingy and put in plenty.
Peel the onion and carrot. Cut the carrot into strips and add it to the meat.
Cut the onion into large wedges lengthwise and add it too. This keeps it from falling apart during cooking.
Fry the meat with the vegetables for 4-5 minutes, stirring constantly.
When the onion pieces start to brown a little, add 1 tbsp of tomato paste (17 g) and stir.
Merchant-style buckwheat should have only a faint tomato flavor. By the way, at this stage many recipes suggest adding full-fat sour cream and a little flour. I don’t do that, although it’s an acceptable option, so you can try it.

Buckwheat

Add a cup of dry buckwheat (170 g) and stir. Keep frying everything, stirring, for 2-3 minutes.
Season the buckwheat lightly with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Add fresh thyme leaves picked off the sprigs, or a quarter teaspoon of dried thyme.
Pour in two cups of water (400 ml) or meat stock and bring to a boil over high heat.
Once the liquid boils, stir the grain with the vegetables and meat. Lower the heat to the minimum at which it still visibly simmers.
Cover the skillet with a lid and simmer the buckwheat for 15-20 minutes. It should absorb all the liquid completely and become crumbly.

Serving

Ideally, let the dish rest in a warm place, or wrap the skillet in a blanket, for at least 30-40 minutes. Then the buckwheat settles and becomes even tastier and more crumbly.
Serve it only hot. When serving, I suggest grinding some pepper over the buckwheat and adding 1-2 sprigs of thyme.
It can also be used as a side dish.
One way to cook and serve the dish is to boil the buckwheat separately and put fried pork with vegetables on top when serving. Beef is often used in this dish; it needs longer cooking. Chicken or duck are not unusual either. When mushrooms are among the ingredients, especially wild ones, it’s very tasty.

Calories and macros

780 kcal

Serving ≈ 500 g

Protein35 g18% of kcal
Fat36 g43% of kcal
Carbs73 g39% of kcal

100 g156 kcalProtein 6.9 gFat 7.2 gCarbs 14.5 g

Calculated from the recipe ingredients, excluding salt and spices. Data: USDA and Matvaretabellen.

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