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.
Jenny Caneen says
I don't use non-stick pans, so for fat I was lucky enough to have duck fat in the fridge. That gives everything an extra richness! I put meatballs and sauce on the side of this lovely dish, and rounded it out with boiled beats (that's pretty authentic, right?). Very tasty dish.
Adina says
Thank you for your feedback, Jenny, I am so glad you liked it! 🙂
Debbie says
Just made this today. Its delicious. Love the ideas above of capers or adding a poached egg.
Adina says
So happy to hear it, Debbie. Thanks for the feedback.
Jessica says
hello! I'm curious about the egg and buckwheat at the beginning; this is the first time I've encountered such an application before cooking the kasha in liquid. Is this a common step? Is it necessary? Thanks, I look forward to cooking this recipe!
Adina says
Hi Jessica. Coating the buckwheat in egg helps the grains stay separated. Otherwise they might clump together a little and the finished dish will have another consistency. It will still taste good though. 🙂 You might want to try both ways and see what you like best.
MIchael says
Finally a savory buckwheat recipe that looks delicious:) I will try your recipe soon. Great website ! Best wishes from Germany/)
Adina says
Thank you, Michael. I hope you liked the kasha.
Rochelle mogilner says
Kasha and varnishkes or bow tie pasta is a popular Jewish food which I learned from my mother who came from Uman and my mother in law who came from Vilnius . It is made exactly the way you describe with mushrooms and onions and the pasta is added to the batch. It was and is a nostalgic food of immigrants from Eastern Europe. I just. Made a batch today.
Adina says
Sounds great! So basically kasha is made with buckwheat and varnishkes with pasta instead of buckwheat? I am sure it tastes wonderful.
Sophia says
@Adina, varnishkes just adds pasta (usually bowties) in addition to the buckwheat.
Adina says
Sounds good!
Steven P Shiflett says
Toss a few capers in the mix to give it a little pop.
Adina says
Sounds great! I will try it Next time.
Staslav says
LOL Why did you write that you did not manage to make your kasha as ugly as the one in Poland? Kasha is ugly?
Adina says
Oh, you should have seen the one we had in Poland, like a big heap of p..p!!! Dark brown, almost black with little worm like stripes of onion... really ugly, but tasty.
Caroline says
Hi
This recipe looks great - I have a bag of buckwheat and can’t remeber why I bought it ! I thought buckwheat needed to be soaked overnight ? Also my bag says toasted is that the same as roasted ?
Cheers
Caroline
Adina says
Hi Caroline, buckwheat should not be soaked overnight, you can use as it is. And toasted is roasted, so everything is fine. 🙂 I hope you like it!
Kimberly says
Sound delicious! I've actually never made buckwheat before. Just curious, I notice it does say serve immediately. Do you think this would be ok as a meal prep meal, heated up? Or more of a fresh one time dinner?
Adina says
Hi Kimberly. To tell you the truth although some dishes are definitely best when served immediately and this one is indeed better when freshly cooked, I do heat up most anything if I have leftovers, I don't like to waste food. Add a bit of broth and stir often to make sure that the buckwheat doesn't catch to the pan, if you decide to reheat it.
Sissi says
What a nice surprise to see Polish recipes! I'm so happy someone likes Polish cuisine abroad!
I love buckwheat groats (I have several recipes on my blog if you look for some new ideas... it's delicious with miso for example and in general in many non-Polish recipes ; try it instead of rice in fried rice!) but I've never heard about it being served for breakfast!
You have managed to create a beautiful buckwheat bowl!
(I don't know if you know, but, in spite of what English sources suggest, "kasha" or rather "kasza" doesn't mean buckwheat groats, but "groats" in general, for example "pearl barley" is "kasza jeczmienna", semolina is "kasza manna", etc. Buckwheat groats is "kasza gryczana").
Adina says
Thank you, Sissi, I didn't know that, my Polish is quite unexisting. 🙂 One word I've learned there and probably will always remember was biedronka - ladybug. Or I can recognize some words that are similar in German, English or Romanian. 🙂 I will have a look at your buckwheat recipes, I must admit that although I love it, I use it mostly for soups.
Anca says
Looks lovely and it's easy to make it vegetarian. I will keep it in mind.
mjskitchen says
What hearty and healthy meal! Just happen to have some buckwheat waiting for a dish. Thanks Adina!
Dawn - Girl Heart Food says
Oooooh- I love the heartiness of this recipe! I bet this would also be yummy for breakfast with a poached egg on top 🙂
Adina says
We did have it only for breakfast in Poland. 🙂 The poached egg sounds great!
Agata says
@Adina, you need to try that with beef stew and soured( as oppose to pickled ) cucumbers. Thats the best combination.
Adina says
Ok, thank you. 🙂 I will try that.
Adina says
It almost always makes a difference, in my opinion, it cannot be compared with the cubes. 🙂
Angie@Angie's Recipes says
This looks simply amazing! Homemade stock must have made a huge difference here.