The release of Hollywood with its interpretation, which is very far from the original...
Hutsul banosh is an everyday dish that is prepared in the Carpathians, namely in the mountainous regions. About three or even four times a week it appears on the dinner table of local residents. Previously, banosh was considered the food of the poor, but nowadays it is a national and extremely popular dish. It is served in local cafes and restaurants. The local population claims that Hutsul banosh cannot be cooked at home, as it is made in a large cauldron over a fire. It is with the help of this heat treatment that the dish acquires a magnificent taste and divine aroma.
If it is not possible to cook over a fire, Hutsul banosh is cooked at home. A step-by-step banosh recipe will help you cope with the task and prepare the national Ukrainian dish. As for the banosh ingredients, the recipe suggests using not only cornmeal, but also sheep/goat cheese. In addition, you cannot do without fried lard, namely cracklings. It is advisable to use a good piece of lard that has a meaty cut. Some people add porcini mushrooms to make the taste and aroma of banosh more rich, vibrant and memorable.
To make the banosh real, it is important to follow some rules. First of all, such a Hutsul dish should be prepared by a man. The ideal way to cook is in a cauldron over a fire, as the dish should absorb the wonderful smell of smoke and absorb the strength and energy from the fire.
The second, no less important rule is that the dish is prepared with homemade sour cream, which has been left in the refrigerator for three days. The main highlight of banosh is that it should have a light, unobtrusive sourness. Do not use cream instead of sour cream, it will give a different taste. If you wish, you can dilute the full-fat sour cream using water or milk.
The third rule is hidden in the magic of the Hutsul dish. That is why, according to ancient legend, the dish should be stirred in one direction using a wooden spoon. If you use an ordinary iron spoon, you will not be able to achieve the desired taste. As for readiness, the dish itself will tell you when to remove the dish from the heat. Banosh is stirred until oil droplets begin to appear on the walls of the pan. At this stage, the liquid, sticky porridge becomes slippery, tender, and smooth. This indicates that the banosh is dancing.
Ingredients
To prepare banosh you will need the following ingredients:
Preparation
Algorithm for preparing Hutsul dishes:
1. Prepare all products. Pour milk and sour cream into a saucepan and bring to a boil. You should not replace sour cream with cream, otherwise you will end up with a completely different dish. If desired, you can add a little salt, but keep in mind that the brisket and feta cheese are salty, so you don’t need to overdo it.
2. The mixture is stirred with a wooden spatula, and the cereal is carefully poured in in a thin stream. This is extremely important so that lumps do not form; they are not needed in this Ukrainian dish. It is better to use the finest grains.
3. During cooking, you need to constantly stir the banosh. Cooking takes about twenty minutes. It all depends on what grind of cereal you used in the recipe.
4. Next, thinly slice the brisket. If you wish, you can refuse to use this ingredient and use bacon or lard instead.
5. Heat a frying pan on the stove and place the prepared brisket on it. Fry for five minutes until golden brown.
6. While preparing banosh, you can make cheese. It can be cut into small cubes, but it is better to grate it on a grater (large).
Hutsul traditions attract ordinary people with their mysteries and secrets. One has only to remember the famous film by Sergei Parajanov “Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors”, as images of the mountain Carpathians, clear springs, birch trembita and forest makos that hide among the trees and lure random travelers into their arms appear in our imagination. It is among this pristine beauty that people live who wear embroidered shirts, raise sheep and, of course, cook in a cauldron the traditional dish for this region - banosh. The smell of a fire certainly gives it a special charm. But if you prepare this dish at home, it will be no less tasty.
Secrets of Banosh
There is nothing complicated in preparing the dish. Banosh, the recipe for which was invented by the Hutsuls, is the soul of their cuisine. This peculiar porridge is cooked in milk, cream or sour cream. For Western Ukraine and nearby regions of Romania, the dish is everyday; it often appears on the tables of local residents. If you visit the Transcarpathian region, the historical homeland of banosh, you will be able to taste porridge not only in any restaurant, but also when visiting locals. The residents here are very welcoming and always welcome visiting tourists.
The dish is especially popular in the Rakhiv region. Every year a festival dedicated to banosh is held here, where you can try different variations of porridge. It used to be considered a poor man's dish. Almost all the locals raised sheep. And banosh was prepared when there was nothing edible left in the house except a handful of cereals and a couple of spoons of sour cream. Today, not a single chic feast or wedding in the Hutsul style is complete without this delicacy.
Subtleties of cooking
If you come to the Carpathians, you will find only men preparing this dish. “Porridge does not tolerate women’s hands,” the Hutsuls joke, mysteriously conjuring over a huge pot with a bubbling delicacy. The thing is that sheep farming is the traditional work of the stronger sex, therefore dishes associated with it automatically become the prerogative of the heads of families.
Banosh porridge, the recipe for which is sacredly kept in any Hutsul family, is imbued not only with smoke from the fire, but also with various legends. They say that they named it after the local Hutsul. A long time ago, Gazda Banosh lived in these places, known throughout the area for his love of work. After a hard day of work spent in the field, he came home, where his wife brought him a nutritious meal to restore strength and energy - corn porridge, seasoned with aromatic pieces of lard sizzling after the fire. At the same time she kept saying: “Eat, Banosh, eat.” This is where the name of the delicacy came from: it was immediately picked up by the locals and, spread throughout the area, it quickly took root in every Transcarpathian house.
Main Ingredients
If you want to pamper your household with a traditional Hutsul dish, then prepare banosh with milk. The recipe includes the following main components: 400 grams 100 gr. sheep cheese - feta cheese, 50 gr. smoked lard. The basis is usually sour cream and milk - 250 ml each, but instead of the latter you can safely use cream. The main thing is that they are not store-bought, but completely homemade, natural.
Corn flour must be sifted through a sieve. It is ideal if it is finely ground, in which case the porridge will turn out more homogeneous and tender. It is advisable to use not fresh sour cream: it is better if it sits in the refrigerator for two or three days beforehand. The Hutsuls kept it in a barn so that it would not go sour. We don’t have such a room, so in a pinch, a balcony will do, unless, of course, it’s +30ºС outside. By the way, banosh is seasoned with lard cracklings, but you can additionally use dill or paprika as a seasoning to taste.
Classic banosh
This dish includes all of the above ingredients, the proportions of which are designed for two people. A classic recipe is provided for cooking in cauldrons. According to it, Hutsul banosh is prepared with sour cream from sheep's milk. You can replace this component with cream: it will not spoil the taste, but, on the contrary, will add some zest to the dish.
Let's start simple. We dilute the sour cream with a small amount of water or vegetable broth, pour it into a cauldron and bring to a boil. Next, take corn flour: pour it into the cauldron in a small stream, constantly stirring the liquid so that it does not burn. Add salt and pepper to taste. The porridge is considered ready when it has reached a thick consistency and looks like semolina. After this, use a wooden spoon or ladle to place it in deep plates, sprinkle on top with feta cheese, previously finely crumbled, as well as cracklings - small pieces of lard, fried in a frying pan until crusty. You cannot mix the ingredients. The dish should be served hot.
Ingredients for banosh in a slow cooker
Unfortunately, we don't live in the mountains. For an ordinary city person, fires and kettles are available only in rare cases: during a hike or while relaxing in the village. Therefore, in order to prepare a tasty dish, modern people have to make some adjustments to the classic recipe. Banosh with feta cheese is delicious and, of course, very healthy. But it is not always possible to find it in city supermarkets and markets, so it can be replaced with the usual one: hard Russian or Dutch, as well as melted.
Based on this, we will need the following components:
- 600 gr. milk.
- 450 gr. homemade or purchased sour cream (20% fat).
- 450 gr. corn grits (about 3 multi-cups).
- 200-300 gr. feta cheese or other cheese.
- 100 gr. lard
- Butter and vegetable oil.
- Salt and pepper.
If for some reason you do not eat lard, you can replace it with mushrooms. They go perfectly with cheese and corn porridge. Using regular champignons, you can cook mushroom banosh. The recipe for cooking in a slow cooker will be slightly different from the classic version.
Basic recipe
Turn on the multicooker, setting it to the “Frying” mode. Pour a little vegetable oil (40-50 g) into the bowl. While it is heating up, finely chop the onion. It is not necessary to use it, but since we do not have a cauldron that gives the dish a specific taste, we try to add zest in another way. And the bow is perfect for this purpose.
Grate the cheese. We cut the champignons into slices. First add the onion to the boiling oil. After it acquires a golden hue, add mushrooms to it and saute them together. When the ingredients release their juice, transfer them to a separate bowl. Wash the multicooker bowl thoroughly and pour the cereal into it. Add milk, sour cream and spices. Select the “Buckwheat” mode and cook the porridge for 35 minutes. When the time is up, using the “Heating” function, simmer our banosh for 30-40 minutes. The recipe in a slow cooker is designed so that the porridge will end up crumbly and sufficiently boiled. Place it, hot and freshly prepared, on plates, grease with butter, sprinkle with cheese and place mushrooms and onions on top.
Other types of banosh in a slow cooker
Our imagination is the source of new variations of the dish. Don't be afraid to experiment to make banosh to your liking and in your own personal interpretation.
To prepare porridge, first you need to rinse it thoroughly under running water and pour it into a slow cooker. Pour a mixture of milk and sour cream on top of the cereal, adding sugar and salt to taste. By the way, if the device does not have the “Buckwheat” function, then you can cook porridge using other modes: “Milk porridge” or “Stewing”.
While the porridge cooks in a slow cooker for half an hour, fry onions and carrots in a frying pan, as well as diced brisket or minced meat. Place the meat filling on top of the porridge. By the way, women also often use cottage cheese. The product has those qualities that make banosh cooked in a slow cooker as healthy and nutritious as possible. The recipe with mushrooms and feta cheese makes it possible to prepare an amazingly tasty dish. But with cottage cheese, the porridge turns out no less appetizing.
Meet Banosh's "brother" - Tokan
Very often these two dishes are confused or considered that there is no difference between them. But this is a grave mistake. Banosh and Tokan are indeed very similar, but fundamental differences between them still exist. Firstly, tokan is cooked in water. A layer of porridge placed in a multicooker bowl is filled with water or light and cooked for 30-40 minutes. Due to the absence of a sour cream base, such a dish is lighter and less caloric.
Secondly, the filling in the tokan is not laid out on top, but between the layers of porridge. That is, part of the finished cereal is transferred to a dish, sprinkled with feta cheese, grated cheese or cottage cheese. Next comes another layer of porridge. Pour the remaining filling and some cracklings fried in a frying pan on top. There can be as many layers of tokan as you like, and the more there are, the tastier the dish turns out. Thirdly, the Banosh is a native of the Rakhiv region of Transcarpathia. The tokan recipe is more used by residents of the neighboring Tyachiv region of the same Ukrainian region.
Benefits of banosh
The main component of the dish is corn grits, which are rich in fiber. It perfectly cleanses the intestines, while preventing the development of putrefactive processes in the body. The selenium it contains protects against stress and slows down aging. Porridge is recommended for children and elderly people, as it contains a large amount of carotene and strengthens the immune system. It also does not cause allergies.
Banosh, the recipe for which is described above, is useful for people suffering from anemia. It contains vitamins E and B12. Pregnant women, who often suffer from a lack of folic acid, simply cannot do without porridge on the menu. It should be the basis of their diet. Banosh also contains magnesium, potassium and phosphorus - microelements that contribute to the normal functioning of the cardiovascular system.
But it is worth noting that with all the advantages of the dish, it also has a number of contraindications. Thus, banosh is very high in calories, so it is not recommended for people prone to obesity and those with high blood cholesterol levels. It is also prohibited for patients with problems with the gastrointestinal tract.
Banosh (banush) is, one might say, the rich cousin of cornmeal dishes such as polenta and hominy. Only it is prepared not with water, but with cream or sour cream. Banosh comes from the Carpathians and their environs, is especially common in Ukraine, in Hutsul cuisine, but other surrounding peoples also know it, albeit under slightly different names. Some consider banosh a holiday dish, others say that it is the first food for hard-working peasants to replenish their strength. They eat banosh with rennet cheese crumbled on top, with cracklings, with mushrooms, with an egg, or just like that.
Obviously, as many families as there are, there are as many ways to prepare banosh. Some swear and swear that real banosh is only made with sour cream. Others stand breastfeeding for the cream. Still others strive to dilute one or the other with milk or broth. Of course, there are also such “inviolable rules” as stirring with a stick and not a spoon, cooking in a pot over a fire, etc. and so on. I decided to try a banosh with cream first (simply because I had a lot of cream on hand, but didn’t have that much sour cream). But now I want it with sour cream too, for sure! Not because I didn’t like it with cream - I really liked it!!! But now I’m curious: WHAT COULD BE TASTIER?!
Banosh, like many ancient dishes, is calculated not in scales, but in volumes and ratios of products. It’s logical: they had cups and bowls, but the vast majority of the population did not have measuring cups and scales, you understand. Therefore, try this: for one volume of corn flour - more than four volumes of cream, but less than six (too liquid). The volume of the finished dish is approximately equal to the volume of cream. Have you found your bearings?
The amount of salt and sugar depends on what you plan to eat the banosh with. If you take a teaspoon of both for the amount of flour and cream that I took, then the taste will be, in general, just normal: you can additionally fry some greaves from salted lard, and take the cheese more vigorously.
Strategies for cooking banosh are also different. I chose essentially steaming for myself. To do this, the cream is first brought to a boil.
Then the pan is removed from the heat, and cornmeal is poured into the hot cream in a thin stream. By the way, in this case you can even stir it with a whisk, it turns out evenly, without lumps! Then the pan is returned to the lowest heat (on an electric stove - one) and left there for 20 minutes.
After the steaming time has passed, turn the heat to maximum and begin to actively stir the corn mixture. But we do not interfere with it anyhow, but in general - in a circle. At some point, you will see that the entire mass has formed into a single lump, which easily separates from the bottom and “dances” around the stirrer.
Banosh is ready when it begins to “sweat” oil, i.e. it is clearly released from the corn mass and is clearly visible. The crust on the bottom is not burnt, but exceptionally delicious!!!
What can I say about the finished dish? UNIMAGINABLE YUMMY!!! One of those dishes when you overeat to the point that you can’t eat anymore, but it’s also impossible not to eat to the very last crumb. This is incomparably tastier than polenta or hominy, and I have no idea why there would be any other cracklings and cheese in there? And so you can swallow your tongue! I don’t know, maybe the fact is that I had thirty percent cream, and the Carpathian peasants took some kind of less fat? In any case, tomorrow I'm making banosh again for an encore!
Preparation
Let's start cooking by preparing the required ingredients. You will need: corn grits (take finely ground), milk, sour cream, mushrooms (frozen ones, such as champignons, are perfect, but others are also acceptable), onions.
Now you can start cooking directly. Arm yourself with a cast iron cauldron or stewpan. Also have a large wooden spoon ready. Now you need to pour the milk into the saucepan and add a little water. Add salt and place the vessel on the stove. Bring to a boil. When this happens, you need to add corn grits in a thin stream, stirring continuously. Reduce heat to low and continue cooking. In this case, you need to constantly stir the food. Then you can add either cream or sour cream. The total cooking time for the cereal is 25-30 minutes. This directly depends on the grind.
At this time, you can prepare the remaining ingredients. Take ground black pepper, salt and cheese. The greens should be immediately washed, dried and chopped.
Now take the pork, wash it and dry it. Cut the meat lard into small pieces. Place the frying pan or saucepan on the stove, add a little vegetable oil. When it's hot, fry the lard. You can add a little salt and pepper.
When ready, the cracklings can be removed and transferred to a separate container.
Now take the onion, peel it, wash and dry it. Then cut the onion into half rings.
Then add the onion to the pan where the cracklings were just fried. Fry the onion until lightly golden and add the mushrooms (if necessary, peel them, wash them, dry them and chop them if you are using fresh ones). The mushrooms also need to be lightly fried. You need to grate the cheese into a separate bowl. You won't need very much of it.
Now everything is ready for Transcarpathian-style banush: both the base and the dressing. Take a serving plate and put some corn porridge in it, which is prepared with milk and sour cream.
Then you need to place onions, cracklings and mushrooms around the perimeter of the plate. Sprinkle the Hutsul dish with grated cheese and chopped herbs on top. You can serve the dish on the table. No additional additives are required. This is an independent dish that will delight everyone with its taste. Bon appetit!
Many people are interested in the cuisine of which country the food belongs to. Banosh is a dish of Ukrainian cuisine, which has Hutsul and Transcarpathian varieties. The differences in the recipes are insignificant and lie in the addition of additional ingredients, for example, sour cream or cream.
Banosh (banush) is a traditional and very tasty dish of Ukrainian Hutsul cuisine. This is not hominy, polenta, gomi, or simple corn porridge. At first glance, a simple and unpretentious dish represents a whole ritual in preparation.
Firstly, according to the rules, only men can cook banosh. The best option for preparing the most delicious banosh is over a real fire in a cauldron high in the mountains. They say that a banosh should be saturated with smoke and gain fire. Of course, in our conditions this is not available to many people.
Secondly, a delicious banosh is prepared preferably with homemade sour cream, which has been left for 3 days in a cold place. Banosh should be a little sour - this is its highlight. Do not replace homemade sour cream with cream - it will turn out completely different. Sour cream can be diluted quite a bit with milk or water.
Thirdly, banosh is a simply magical dish. According to legend, banosh should be stirred in one direction only with a wooden spoon. An iron spoon will not give the desired taste. Banosh himself will tell you when he is ready. You must stir the dish until droplets of oil appear on the walls of the cauldron or pan, as well as on the surface of the banosh. It is at this moment that the banosh changes dramatically and turns from a sticky and liquid porridge into a smooth, tender deliciousness sliding along the walls, which follows the wooden spoon in the pan, repeating all its movements. At this moment they say that “the banosh is dancing.”
Banosh is often prepared in Hutsul families, since each family consists mainly of 6 or more people. Every day they all have to do everyday hard work: mowing, plowing, hauling hay, chopping wood, herding sheep, picking mushrooms and berries. And all this in the mountains, when your closest neighbor can live 800 meters above you and getting to any point in the village is not so easy.
And banosh is easy and simple to prepare. It is filling, nutritious and delicious. Banosh is served with sheep cheese, cracklings, and sometimes with fried mushrooms. There are many banosh recipes. It may be thicker or more liquid. If you like a more liquid banosh, add less corn grits per suggested amount of liquid. Bon Appetit everyone!
