Buckwheat tastes like grass; chicken tastes like chicken
I cooked up some buckwheat porridge this morning, which I was excited to do, getting in touch with my Polish roots and all.
It tasted like dirty grass, but I threw enough stuff in there (butter, cinnamon, splash of soy sauce, probably some sour cream, some extra milk) to keep it edible. I also cooked off too much of the water and left it too thick.
Doing research afterwards, I discovered I probably should have rinsed it first. I rinsed another batch this afternoon and when you look closely, it's filthy.
Who knows what I was ingesting. There are definitely little (dead) bugs in it, which I suppose is neither here nor there. Rinsing would probably get rid of the siltiness.
Though it may still taste like grass. Further researched clarified that what I have are raw buckwheat groats; the Polish variety are toasted. Apparently I can toast them myself. I will try tomorrow, but who knows if that will make them more or less palatable. I'm trying soaking them overnight as well. I don't think they have tons of phytic acid, but anything to break them down sounds like an improvement. Now, of course, I am reading that buckwheat is overwhelmingly a savory lunch and dinner food and not a breakfast porridge. Like rice, I suppose, though I've made that into a breakfast porridge several times and it's pretty good.
I felt good after eating the buckwheat, though, which is something in its favor.
I had my main meal early today, as I'm attending a talk in Manhattan at my usual dinnertime. I made mashed [sweet] potatoes and another chicken drumstick. The drumstick was way better this time; it was actually exceptionally delicious! I knew ahead of time what to do this time to cook it on the stovetop. I chopped up an onion and cooked it down in butter for a few minutes, then pushed them aside and lightly seared the drumstick in some more hot butter in the same pan. Then I spread the onions into a bed, placed the drumstick on top, added some water, and stuck the lid on. The effect was amazing! The onions became these irresistibly delicious carmelized + chickenized golden buttery morsels. Once I put all that on the plate, I did the same sort of pan saucy thing as I did yesterday, deglazing the (wonderfully browned!) pan with Shaoxing and then adding butter and sour cream. Boy oh boy! The drumstick was much better cooked than last time, and the flavor of everything was like nothing I've made in many weeks. Plate-licking good, for sure!
The potatoes were nice, too, though I forgot how to make mashed potatoes lol. I was boiling and boiling waiting for the them to disintegrate and for the water to boil off, when I remembered from some vestige of my memory that that's not how that works, and that you have to take the cooked potatoes out and mash them before you add all the extras. I had been in porridge mode so long I had forgotten! But it wasn't too late; I fished everything out with a flipper tool (lol a spatula?), mashed it in a bowl, and added more butter, sour cream, and some of the water they had cooked in (on advice of a friend). I threw in some salt, soy sauce, cilantro (since I had it), and black pepper. I think the cilantro was maybe the odd ingredient out. I know nothing about these garnishing herbs so I am learning by doing. If I put it in again perhaps I would chop it smaller so it won't be so leafy; though even the leaves I did have were smaller than the skins that I left on the potatoes.
Overall not only a wonderful learning experience but a wonderful meal, too!
