Jewish Food: Kasha? Kasha Recipes? Kupecheskaya!

 Hi everyone! This week I am making Jewish food. That's right! Jewish food. I know this is a basic departure from the usual Asian or Italian cuisine that I love so much but I am doing it. I am making a traditional Jewish food called Kasha or Kasha Varniskes. I am actually going to make one of the more popular kasha recipes called "Kupecheskaya." This kasha version is the traditional Russian Jewish kasha. I have been taking requests on my Youtube channel for a long time and one of my viewer sent me an email and asked my to make some Jewish food.

I don't have much experience with Jewish food, I mean I have had chopped liver and matzo ball soup but I have never really delved into Jewish food. So to me this was more than just a request, this was a bit of a challenge. I sat on my kaboose for about a week doing research into Jewish food and I found kasha! There are a few kasha recipes out there and they are all basically the same as kasha is a basic type of dish of buckwheat or groats and either egg noodle bowtie pasta or semolina farfalle pasta and some other small variations to the ingredients of the dish.

Kasha recipes are a very basic dish to make and can be made as either a vegetarian or vegan dish if you like by using some form of cooking oil like vegetable or olive oil. The traditional kasha recipes call for either rendered chicken fat or cooking oil. I am going the traditional route today and I will be using rendered chicken fat in my kasha.

Kasha is as I said buckwheat groats and the word "Varnishkes" is the Yiddish/Jewish term for the bowtie pasta used in kasha recipes. The Russian also use ground up buckwheat in their blini pancakes which the Russians eat with caviar. Buckwheat groats are also used in Japan and other countries to make soba noodles for dishes like Korean japchea. In eastern Europe kasha  and kasha recipes are a crowd pleasing comfort food that is delicious and good for you.

So this week I picked my favorite of the kasha recipes that I found and I will be making Russian kasha varnishkes or "Kupecheskaya" which is the kasha made with sauteed onions, garlic, mushrooms and scrambled eggs. Sometimes the scrambled eggs are omitted and hard boiled eggs are used instead. Kasha is either served as a main course or as a side dish to beef brisket or anything else you would like to serve it with. Go ahead and make some kasha and various kasha recipes I know you will love it as much as I do now. Enjoy the video and I hope to hear some good comments.



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