Buckwheat is to the Russian kitchen what rice is to much of Asia. Russians eat more of it than anyone else in the world, and an old saying pairs shchi and kasha, cabbage soup and porridge, as the food of the people. Grechka, as buckwheat is called at home, is cooked plain with butter on any weekday; po kupecheski, merchant style, is the richer version, with meat, onion and carrot cooked into the grain in a single pan. The name suggests a table that could afford to add pork to its porridge, and the dish tastes accordingly prosperous.

Home cooks make it in a heavy pan on the stove or in clay pots in the oven, and everyone adds their own touch: a spoon of tomato paste, a little garlic, sometimes mushrooms. The buckwheat drinks up the meat juices and stays fluffy and separate, never mushy, provided nobody stirs it while it cooks, which is the one rule worth obeying.

There is a Russian proverb that you cannot spoil kasha with butter. This recipe takes it at its word.

The pork and vegetables

Ingredients

• 1 1/4 lb (570 g) boneless pork shoulder
• 2 tablespoons (30 ml) sunflower or vegetable oil
• 1 teaspoon fine salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1 large yellow onion
• 2 medium carrots
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1 1/2 tablespoons tomato paste

The buckwheat

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups (270 g) toasted buckwheat groats
• 3 cups (720 ml) hot chicken, beef or vegetable stock
• 1 bay leaf
• 1/2 teaspoon fine salt
• 2 tablespoons (30 g) butter
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill or parsley

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