“The unexpected connection is more powerful than one that is obvious.” Heraclitus
My connection to buckwheat goes back many many years. It was in the year 1996 when the daughter was 6 months old that I had my first encounter with the grain. Didn’t know it existed before that. We were visiting friends in Moscow (the same ones we were with in Sydney last month), & Meher was just beginning to eat semi-solids. We had landed in Moscow airport on a grey, rainy day, the place full of strapping tall Russians with stern expressions & a ‘cold world’ charm. The city was like it was out of a film…babushkas lined up at bread stalls, swanky SUVs zipping down roads, Ladas honking madly, designer stores, roadside stalls, & astonishingly, prices at most stores displayed in US dollars! We’d been transported to a different era altogether!! It was the era when we had to carry passports/ID on ourselves each time we stepped out of the house, & had to report to the police station each week. The Red Square with the onion domes is very clear in my memory to this day, with the church next to it & a beautiful mall alongside. Since we arrived via via London we carried supplies of Gerber baby food, cereal etc. Uliana then suggested a buckwheat cereal for Meher as it was a locally available one. Of course we tried, & met with some success, since the daughter was the most fussy person on the face of this earth at the time. She used to make me weep with every bite I gave her… but thankfully buckwheat had better luck! A native of Russia, buckwheat is thought of as a cereal, but is actually an herb of the genus Fagopyrum. The triangular seeds of this plant are used to make buckwheat flour, which has an assertive flavor and is used for pancakes and as an addition to some baked goods. The famous Russian blini are made with buckwheat flour. Buckwheat groats are the hulled, crushed kernels, which are usually cooked in a manner similar to rice. Groats come in coarse, medium and fine grinds. Kasha, which is roasted buckwheat groats, has a toastier, more nutty flavor.
From then to a month ago buckwheat had no meaning in my life. Until recently…Circa 2008, while walking towards Echo point in the Blue Mountains near Sydney, Uliana & I began talking food. The conversation veered to buckwheat & we had a good laugh about the days of cereal & baby Meher. Then Uliana mentioned that you can only pick up buckwheat from a Polish store in Sydney, & we had to make sure we stopped by the store, for old times sake!That was not to be with the drama that followed.
Then the other day, back home, I stopped by a lovely store called Fab India, & was looking for some stuff to mail to a friend. Sadly enough, what I came for was out of stock, so I searched each & every shelf for something else … only to find bags of buckwheat staring back at me! HAPPINESS IS … grabbed a bag with both hands & wanted to call Uliana. Turns out that it’s been available in India for years by the name ‘kuttu ka aata’, a locally available flour, especially used in the fasting season. I don’t fast, so I obviously don’t know!!
Literally galloped home in glee & googled for buckwheat cookies … got a match that couldn’t keep me out of the kitchen for long. It was at Heidi’s blog101 Cookbooks … & I knew I could follow that with my eyes closed. She has a wealth of stunning recipes, & I’ve made her peach galette before. This particular recipe, the ‘Nibby Buckwheat Butter Cookies’ is an Alice Medrich recipe, which is a twist on the traditional butter cookie, or maybe on shortbread. Mine spun off some more since cacao nibs are unheard of here, & my elder sis in Dallas would shoot me if I asked for stuff like cacao nibs, matcha powder, lemon myrtle, dried lavender amongst other ‘silly stuff’ … ‘you can’t get this sorta stuff at regular Target, Walmart etc’…she thinks I’ve lost it!!
So, I made the cookies with mini chocolate chips, that I roughly beat up in a bag to break up randomly. GREAT COOKIES…yum & different, & got me many thumbs up from the kids. As Heidi says, you can roll ’em or slice ’em; she rolled hers out & so did I. There’s something inhenrently romantic & elegant about scalloped edges; I stamped out scalloped circles & hearts!I love the use of alternative flours, & was thrilled to use buckwheat here. About the cookie…crisp, wholesome in every bite, great texture & every bit full of Alice Medrich’s brilliance. Her book Pure Desserts is not available here, but it’s on my list of books to own one day! I’ve tried a Citrus Olive Oil Cake of hers…signature style & outstanding. Do stop by at 101 Cookbooks & check out the review of Alice Medrich’s book & much more. Thank you for posting this cookie recipe Heidi. It’s a beautifully written post.
NIBBLY BUCKWHEAT CHOCOCLATE-CHIP COOKIES as adapted from ‘Nibby Buckwheat Butter Cookies’ from 101 Cookbooks Ingredients: 1 1/4 cups (5.6 ounces) all-purpose flour 3/4 cup (3 ounces) buckwheat flour 1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened 2/3 cup sugar 1/4 teaspoon salt 1/2 cup mini chocolate-chips (the original has 1/3 cup cacao nibs) 1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
Method: Whisk the all-purpose and buckwheat flours together in a medium bowl. Set aside. In a medium bowl, with the back of a large spoon or with an electric mixer, beat the butter with the sugar and salt for about 1 minute, until smooth and creamy but not fluffy. Mix in the chocolate chips and vanilla. Add the flours and mix just until incorporated. Scrape the dough into a mass and, if necessary, knead it with your hands a few times, just until smooth. Form the the dough into two flat patties & chill for at least 2 hours. It is quite cold here, so 1 hour was good enough. Lightly grease 4 baking sheets, & preheat the oven to 180C. Roll out with a floured rolling pin and cut out shapes with cookie cutter. Place the cookies at least 1 1/2 inches apart on the baking sheets. Bake until the cookie are just beginning to color at the edges, 12 to 14 minutes. Cool the cookies in the pans on a rack or a minute, & then onto racks until completely cool. As Heidi rightly says…The cookies are delicious fresh but even better the next day.
They can be stored in an airtight container for at least one month….(wishful thinking..mine disappeared in 2 days) Makes forty-eight 2 1/2-inch cookies. ( I got more than 2 dozen 2 1/2″ circles, & as many smaller hearts).
There’s a bunch of events these lovely cookies are going off to over the holiday season. These would make nice gifts over Christmas. I would have loved to send then to Weekend Herb Blogging too, since buckwheat is a pseudocereal/almost a herb, but sadly the rules don’t allow clubbing of events. So the nibblies are en route to…
