Buckwheat muffins with mushrooms

Baking tool:

• (flexible  silicon) form
• for 6 muffins (à 125 ml)

 

Muffins (makes 6):

• 200 ml milk
• 100 g buckwheat
• 2 g salt
• 2 eggs (L)
• 100 g cottage cheese
• 50 ml crème fraîche
• nutmeg, pepper

Garnishing salad:

• 1/2 thin cucumber
• 100 ml crème fraîche
• 1 spring onion
• ½  clove garlic
• 1/4  teaspoon caraway seed
• black pepper, salt
• cayenne pepper to taste
• dill branches

Mushrooms:

• 200 g chanterelles
• 2 tablepoons butter
• 1 minced onion
• pepper, salt
• 2 tablespoons minced parsley

This is a combination from the North-Slovenian region Gorensjka, where mushrooms grow lavishly, you just have to pick them. But buckwheat is expensive nowadays. In contrast to the past, writes Professor Janez Bogataj in European Cookery (2004). He is an ethnologist and an authority on the cuisine of his country. Wheat was always scarse. And so legumes and cabbage were staple food until buckwheat was imported in the fifteenth century. That changed the food habits drastically. Then came the potato, which was welcomed with so much enthousiasm that the buckwheat had to make way for it in the seventeenth century. But what tastes nice endures the centuries. That is why we still see Peçena ajdove kaša z gobami (baked kasha with mushrooms). Here with cucumber salad from Prlekija (Prleške murke). Wine: a Slovenian rosé such as Vipava or else a Spanish Rioja rosé.

• Bring milk with salt to the boil in a small pan. Add buckwheat, cover and boil softly during 15 minutes until the liquid is absorbed practically and the grains are done. Stir now and then. Let cool down a bit.
• Preheat the oven to 180˚C/350˚F/gas 4.
• Beat the egg yolks with cheese, crème fraîche and spices. Spoon the buckwheat into the mixture. Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites. Divide this batter into the muffin holes. Bake about 30 minutes on the lowest shelf of the oven.
• Wash cucumber, shred in fine slices. Mix with crème fraîche, minced onion, crushed garlic, caraway, pepper and salt. Sprinkle with some cayenne, garnish with dill.
• Wash chanterelles, dry and make slices if needed. Heat the butter in a non- stick frying pan. Sauté the minced onions, add the chanterelles and sauté for a moment. Sprinkle with pepper and salt. Serve warm with the warm muffins and the salad.

Suggestion for a dessert: forest fruit with a dash of crème de cassis and whipped cream sweetened with honey. Honey according to the Slovenes ‘restores and retains human health, lightens the spirit and alleviates the pressures of modern life’.