Buckwheat with onions and mushrooms is a beloved Russian side dish. Decided to make it tonight. Below you will find not a standard recipe, but what I simply experimented with.

Ingredients

• 1 1/3 cups of buckwheat groats
• 2 2/3 cups of boiling water
• 1 astonishing chunk of butter
• 4 small onions, sliced in thin half circles
• 250 g (1/2 pound) of button mushrooms (шампиньоны), sliced about 1/4 inch thick

Method

1. I boiled the water in my electric teapot. Added it plus a bouillon cube to a pan that had the buckwheat. Put that over a low flame. Covered the pan.
2. Melted the butter in a heavy-bottomed frying pan. Threw in the onions. Cooked till translucent. I didn't add the mushrooms at the beginning of this step because I wanted the onions to carmelize as the mushrooms where added in the next step, but I didn't want them to burn.
3. Added the mushrooms to the frying pan.
4. When the buckwheat was still just a bit tougher than I wanted to eat, I turned off the heat and uncovered it.
5. I had some extra chicken fat and juice in the fridge from a previous recipe, probably about a quarter cup's worth. I added this to the frying pan. Wow, what a great smell.
6. By this stage there was no free water in the pan with the buckwheat. Once the mushrooms seemed done, I added the buckwheat to the frying pan, along with half a cup of water to complete the cooking process. Once the water was gone, I considered the dish done.

Turned out quite well.

Comments

• In retrospect I shouldn't have added the bouillon cube or chicken stuff later. Instead I should have cooked it so that the flavors of the buckwheat, butter, onions and mushrooms were clear, along with nothing else. My reasoning is that the first time you make something, you should do the really basic version so that you later understand why people do the more complex versions.
• If you don't use bouillon in the buckwheat, you will need to add salt to the water that boils the buckwheat.
• You should also probably add a bit of salt and some black pepper to the frying pan for the last minute or two before adding the buckwheat.
• There are lots of variations on this recipe, but if you are using it as a basic side dish to complement an interesting main dish, then why make it more complex? Not too surprisingly, there are variations that add a bit of sour cream.

Damn, this is simple.

• Vegetable oil
• 2 cups of buckwheat
• 4 cups of boiling water
• 1 cube of chicken bouillon

Pour vegetable oil in pan. Turn on low heat. Pour in buckwheat. Turn on your hot water pot to boil. In the meantime with a spatula mix the buckwheat so that all the grains are covered with a bit of oil. You could toast it a bit if you wanted. Pour the boiling water over it when ready. Drop in the cube. Put a lid on it. Cook till the water is gone. Don't stir.

I suspect you could skip the oil step.

Turned out fine. In the past I've had buckwheat with a much stronger taste, but this time it was pretty mild. I wonder why?

Variations:

• I think this would be accompaniment to strong-tasting main dishes.
• It would also be good with some brown gravy and a poached egg or two on top.
• It would also be good to reheat the cold buckwheat in butter, but it aside, and serve up a couple fried eggs with it.

2014-07-12: I've tried a couple more variations.

• Mix the buckwheat with some hot mustard, throw it in the microwave. Good.
• Mix the buckwheat with some soy sauce, throw it in the microwave. Good.