• 1 glass of buckwheat;
• water 2 cups;
• 1 teaspoon of salt;
• 1 teaspoon butter.

METHOD

1. Measure the cereal, sort it out, clearing it of debris and spoiled grains. Next, buckwheat must be washed with cold water several times and dried a little - let the water drain well through a sieve or colander with small holes. You can spread the cereal on a paper towel and let the excess moisture soak.
2. Then put buckwheat in a frying pan and calcine-fry, stirring, until the groats become golden and a pleasant light aroma of fried grain appears. Make sure that the cereal does not burn to coals, it is not necessary to keep it for a long time. You can not fry the cereal, but it is the fried core that gives the taste of porridge a pleasant and piquant shade.
3. Melt the butter in a saucepan (do not heat, but melt over low heat). Add salt and fried buckwheat, mix everything. It is not necessary to fry, just make sure that each grain is covered with oil, pour hot water. As soon as it boils, reduce the fire to a minimum, cover the pan with a lid and simmer for 15—20 minutes, absolutely not interfering with the cooking process. Those. open the lid and stir the porridge is not necessary. It turns out that the porridge is not cooked in water, but steamed. When all the water boils away, the porridge is ready. Add oil and serve.
4. Sometimes it happens that the time is up, the porridge is ready, but the water is still left - it gurgles merrily and is not going to evaporate. Then remove the lid, add a little fire and wait until all the liquid has boiled away (do not miss this moment so that the porridge does not burn).

Well, now that we are no longer read by those who think that the perfect buckwheat porridge can really be cooked in a matter of minutes, let's be serious: it's not difficult to cook buckwheat correctly, but it will take more time. For convenience, we break the whole process into three stages.

1. Wash the buckwheat. Pour the buckwheat into a bowl, fill it with running water and rinse, trying to wash as much dust as possible with your hands, and at the same time looking for pebbles that could be caught among the buckwheat: it is better to get rid of them immediately. Drain the water, add new water, and repeat this process five times until the dripping water is clear enough to drink. Throw the buckwheat on a sieve and let the remaining water drain.
2. Ignite the buckwheat. Buckwheat is calcined so that the finished porridge turns out to be more crumbly, and along the way, the cereal acquires a richer, nutty flavor. Sometimes oil or egg whites are added during roasting, but I like roasting buckwheat in a dry frying pan. Take a large frying pan, put it on a fire above medium and pour buckwheat into it. No matter how well you dry the buckwheat after washing, there will still be some water left on it. Fry buckwheat in a dry frying pan, stirring constantly, and you can clearly catch the moment when all the water evaporates - buckwheat grains suddenly stop sticking to each other, begin to crumble along the bottom of the pan with a quiet dry rustle. Don’t yawn here: bake the grains for another 3—4 minutes, stirring constantly, the buckwheat should be in motion, not stick to the bottom, and when you smell this incomparable nutty aroma, remove the pan from the heat.
3. Boil the buckwheat. In the absence of a Russian stove, the best tool for cooking buckwheat is an oven, the best utensils are a pot, ceramic or cast iron. Of course, any saucepan will do, but a pot is preferable: due to the low thermal conductivity of ceramics, porridge in a pot is not boiled, but slowly languishes. Pour buckwheat into such a pot, add a pinch of salt, pour hot water over it and close the lid. Put the pot in the oven, preheated to 180 degrees, immediately reduce the temperature to 110 degrees and leave the pot in the oven for three hours. After that, the buckwheat is ready, but it would be a good idea to leave the pot in the oven after turning it off so that it slowly cools inside.

Serve your perfect buckwheat porridge with butter, and if that seems too easy for you, here are a few ideas on what to add to your porridge to make it more delicious:

• Fry mushrooms in oil, add chopped hard-boiled egg and finely chopped greens.
• Melt the chopped bacon, and fry the chopped onion in it.
• Serve buckwheat as a side dish to any dish with gravy.
• Pour in hot milk and add a spoonful of sugar - my childhood favorite food!
• Instead of water, use milk, broth or decoction of mushrooms.