Roasted buckwheat with mushrooms is a delicious Polish recipe for kasha with onions and lots of herbs.
After one year entirely dedicated to Romanian food, I am starting another Eastern Europe recipes short series today. This time, I will show you some wonderful Polish recipes.
Why Poland? Well, we spent a week in Poland during the kids' autumn holidays at the beginning of October last year, and I liked the food soooo much, that I just had to try to recreate some or, better said, almost all of the delicious dishes we had there, at home.
Because quite a few of them I wanted to cook myself, I decided to make a blog series out of it. Maybe you would like to try these delicious and super easy-to-make puff pastry croissants filled with jam, these Polish meatballs, or this amazing Bezowy or meringue cake, which is one of the best cakes ever.
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What is Kasha?
Kasha is a porridge made from buckwheat or other grains, like wheat, pearl barley, or semolina. In the US, when referring to kasha, people mean porridge made with buckwheat groats, but otherwise (in Eastern Europe), there are many types of kasha.
Kasha means "groats" and not buckwheat, as I used to think.
I am starting with this roasted buckwheat recipe or kasha because we have had it for breakfast in the hotel a couple of times. It would have never occurred to me to serve such a dish for breakfast, but there it was: a rather dark (almost black) heap of nondescript food with bits of mushrooms and onions in it in the middle of all the other breakfast foods.
Despite the looks, this kasha with mushrooms and onions was the best-tasting dish we had in Poland. And that is saying a lot, considering that all our food there was delicious!
If you have some buckwheat flour, too, make this delicious Buckwheat Bread.
Roasted or unroasted buckwheat?
You can purchase buckwheat, either roasted or unroasted. The package will sometimes specify, but not always.
Most recipes I've used call for roasted buckwheat, so I searched online to learn how to roast it myself. I had assumed it was unroasted unless stated otherwise on the package. Turns out, I was mistaken and ended up roasting groats that were already done...
Buckwheat sold in stores is usually already roasted, and the package only mentions if it's raw. I wish I had known this earlier.
The easiest way to tell if the groats are roasted is by looking at them: raw grains are very light, while roasted ones are brown and crunchier when you bite into them... It's that simple! Since all the buckwheat I've bought has been very brown, I now realize it was always roasted.
Why is buckwheat toasted with egg?
- A commonly asked question.
- The egg helps separate the groats, giving the kasha its specific consistency. You will not really be able to taste the eggs.
More buckwheat recipes
Did you buy a bag of roasted buckwheat to make kasha with mushrooms and onions? And you don't know what to cook with the rest of it?
Do you like this recipe?
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Roasted Buckwheat with Mushrooms – Polish Kasha
Ingredients
- ¾ cup roasted buckwheat groats 150 g/ 5.5 oz, Note
- 1 egg
- 2 cups chicken stock or vegetable broth, 450 ml
- 3 small onions
- 2 tablespoons butter divided
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 9 oz brown mushrooms 250 g
- fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
- a small bunch of dill
- some parsley less than dill
Instructions
- Beat the egg lightly in a bowl. Add the buckwheat and mix well.
- Roast buckwheat and egg: Heat a nonstick pan without any fat, place the buckwheat into the pan, and cook for about 3-4 minutes until all the corns are dry and separated.
- Slice onions: In the meantime, slice the onions thinly.
- Simmer buckwheat: Remove the buckwheat from the heat and transfer it to a small saucepan. Add the chicken stock or vegetable broth, bring to a boil, turn the heat down, and simmer for about 15 minutes or until the buckwheat is soft and the stock has been absorbed.
- Cook onions: Heat 1 tablespoon butter and the oil in the pan and cook the onions on low heat for about 15 minutes or until they are very soft and deeply golden. Stir often, and don't let them catch. I added two small splashes of water in between; the onions were threatening to catch, and I didn't want to add more butter.
- Cook mushrooms: Clean the mushrooms with kitchen paper and slice them as well. When the onions are cooked, add the mushrooms and continue cooking until they release their juices and the juices then evaporate, which will take about 5-7 minutes. Adjust the taste with salt and pepper.
- Combine: Add the buckwheat to the pan and stir well to mix. Stir in the second tablespoon butter. Chop the dill and the parsley and add them to the pan. Serve immediately.
Laura says
At first I was hesitant about this, but it turned out absolutely delicious!! Definitely going to make this again
Martin Stoll says
I made this the other night, following the recipe fairly closely and it was easy to make and delicious! I cooked spiced tofu and cavolo nero as accompaniment and they went very well together. I will certainly be making it again.
Adina says
So glad to hear it, Martin.
Phil says
In the beginning, after soaking the buckwheat in egg... do you add the whole egg to the pan or just the soaked buckwheat?
Adina says
Hi Phil. Everything, the whole buckwheat-egg mixture.
PhilaBob says
I love buckwheat kasza and yours looks delicious. One thing I do, to keep it all to one pot, is to cook the onion and mushrooms in a deep saucepan and remove them when they are done. I then toast the buckwheat and egg in the same pan, add some broth, cover and cook the buckwheat. When the buckwheat has absorbed all the liquid, simply stir in the onions, mushrooms an herbs. The steaming buckwheat will heat them right up. Dzięki!
Adina says
Sounds great! Thank you for the feedback.
Phillip A. Bobrowski says
In my search for "authentic" Polish recipes, I came upon one that, through translation, seemed rather vague. As I dove into further, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the starch for the recipe was buckwheat groats.
The recipe?
Gołąbki - or as many of you know them, cabbage rolls.
In many of today's recipes, they call for rice to be mixed with the meat. BUT, rice was something you would probably NOT find in a Polish kitchen in the 18th and 19th centuries.
To add to my surprise, the cabbage leaves used were NOT taken from a head that has been boiled. Fuel for cooking was something that needed to be conserved, so it would NOT be "wasted" just to boil water. The cabbage leaves were taken from whole PICKLED heads of cabbage. When you think about it, why not let some water and salt passively take care of preparing the cabbage.
Well, after waiting the 2 months for the cabbage to pickle, I prepared my tray of gołąbki, using that and a buckwheat/meat filling.
WOW! A TOTALLY different, yet intriguing taste. The simple task of pickled cabbage gave these "little pigeons" a tartness that was easily tempered by the the depth of flavor brought around by the buckwheat.
Old World. Old School.