Merchant-Style Buckwheat with Pork

📝 Ingredients

• 250 g buckwheat groats
• 500 g minced pork, 15% fat
• 2 carrots (about 200 g)
• 2 brown onions (about 200 g)
• 2 garlic cloves
• 2 tbsp tomato purée (30 g)
• 1 tbsp rapeseed oil
• 1 tsp sweet paprika
• 1 chicken stock cube + 600 ml hot water
• 1 bay leaf
• 200 g plain whole-milk yoghurt (to serve)
• 15 g fresh parsley
• Salt, black pepper

🍴 Utensils

• Large sauté pan with lid
• Fine sieve
• Grater
• Wooden spatula
• Cutting board and knife
• Bowl

📖 Steps

1. Rinse the buckwheat in a fine sieve and drain well. Toast it in a large dry sauté pan over medium heat for 4 to 5 min, stirring constantly, until it is dry, slightly darker and smells of toasted hazelnuts. Tip it into a bowl.
2. Peel and slice the onions, coarsely grate the carrots and chop the garlic. Heat the oil in the same sauté pan over medium heat and soften the onions for 4 min, until translucent.
3. Turn the heat up to high, add the minced pork and break it up with a spatula. Let it brown for 6 to 7 min without stirring too much, until no pink remains and brown bits stick to the bottom of the pan: that's where the flavour is.
4. Add the grated carrots and garlic, then cook for 3 min over medium heat. Stir in the tomato purée and paprika and stir for 1 min to fry them lightly, without letting them burn.
5. Add the toasted buckwheat and mix. Pour in the stock (cube dissolved in 600 ml hot water), scraping the bottom to release the browned bits, add the bay leaf and season with pepper. Taste the liquid: it should be well seasoned, so add salt if needed.
6. Bring to the boil, then cover and cook over low heat for 18 to 20 min without lifting the lid or stirring, until all the liquid has been absorbed and the buckwheat is tender but not mushy.
7. Turn off the heat and leave to rest, covered, for 10 min: the buckwheat finishes swelling and the grains separate. Remove the bay leaf, then gently fluff up with a fork.
8. Finely chop the parsley. Serve piping hot, sprinkled with parsley, with a spoonful of plain yoghurt on each plate, to stir in as you eat for freshness and creaminess.