the best meal of my childhood
buckwheat, chicken kotleti + sour cream dill salad
we’re baaaaaack with another recipe from my protein princess series and this one has a very special place in my heart because it’s from days of being a wee little princess.
kotleti aka pan fried meatballs/patties
buckwheat (with butter duh)
cucumber dill tomato sour cream salad
this is the meal my sister and I would often find on the stove when we’d return from school. toasted buckwheat in one pot to help yourself to, and pan fried kotleti in another. they were often just warmer than room temperature and dare I say that’s the best temperature to enjoy them. although, nothing really beats a fresh steaming hot one straight from the pan - that would just require patience for cooling, and I did not have that. nor do I now for that matter, hence a perpetual burnt mouth.
salted cucumber slices on the side were always a non negotiable, and sometimes a squirt of ketchup would find it’s way on our plates too. now if my sister was lucky (huge potato aficionado) we’d have mashed potatoes in lieu of the buckwheat. recipe for my mash here. but I never minded the buckwheat because that meant I got to eat leftovers with hot milk, salt and pepper, like a bowl of hot cereal. sounds weird but it’s the best. I know some of my friends used to eat it with a tiny bit of butter and sugar instead of the salt/pepper but that was certainly not my jam.
now for the kotleti, you can use various types of meat but my preferred is chicken. they result in the fluffiest little clouds. and they’re the best to bulk prep - I make 2 lbs of meat at a time and it fed alex for 2 days. he came home late one night and told me he had been thinking about eating them all day :’)
as for buckwheat, you’re probably already walking past it in the grocery store when you’re there. my preference is toasted buckwheat, it has a nuttier deeper flavor and I like the texture better - but a bit harder to find if you’re not near an eastern european grocery store. but it’s a really great grain that’s high in fiber, magnesium and has 5g protein per 1 cup!
I’ve read you can just toast the unroasted variety on a dry skillet until toasted and browned or in a 350 F oven for 20-30 minutes but I haven’t tried it myself! Amazon does carry toasted buckwheat though so that makes things easier lol. here’s a brand with good reviews! bobs red mill has buckwheat (untoasted), as do some other smaller brands I’ve seen in Shoprite - Wolff’s Kasha is one and Eden Organics in Whole Foods is another.
if you’re lazy, which I often am, you can also scrap the salad and enjoy with slices of salted cucumber and/or tomatoes like I mentioned :) I’ll just use any excuse to make this sour cream salad, but sometimes yeh just can’t be bothered especially at lunch time. which btw these leftovers make great for!
