Buckwheat tabouleh from Salt and Time

Many popular Soviet dishes have their roots in pre-Revolutionary French-inspired cuisine. Vinegret is one of them. Born in the 18th century as a dish of diced game, boiled vegetables and a classic French vinaigrette, this salad takes its title from a transliterated name of its dressing. As many other pre-Revolutionary dishes, vinegret in the Soviet days got simplified and turned into a salad of boiled root vegetables dressed in sunflower oil. The acidity of the original French dressing was replaced (rather successfully in my view) with the sharpness of fermented cucumbers and cabbage. Et voila, not all Soviet-era food alterations were so bad. While I do love the dish in its original Soviet form, I find that it is a bit too similar to the rest of the usual suspects in the Soviet salads family that contains boiled carrots, potatoes and carrots. So I’ve decided to create my own version, which loses some of the ingredients and replace them with soft herbs and buckwheat, to give the good old vinegret a bit of vibrancy, body and texture.

Makes 4

200g of toasted buckwheat

200g of boiling water

2 raw beetroots

1 cup of defrosted green peas

2 fermented cucumbers (see recipe on p.X)

4 tbsp of red kraut brine (see recipe on p.X)

4 tbsp of high quality unrefined sunflower oil

1-2 cloves of garlic, minced

1 small bunch of dill, finely chopped

1 tbsp of chopped tarragon leaves

Salt and pepper to taste

A squeeze of lemon juice

While I know that toasted buckwheat, common in the former Soviet Union, is missing the nutrients of the raw one, I simply can’t bring myself to enjoy cooking with green buckwheat. When boiled, green buckwheat lacks the rich nutty flavour of the toasted equivalent and don’t get me started on the gloopy texture. So please use toasted buckwheat here, available from most Eastern European shops in the UK. To cook the buckwheat simply top with the same amount of boiling salted water and leave overnight, or simmer on gentle heat until all liquid is absorbed. Stir through a bit of oil and set aside.

Roast your beetroots whole and unpeeled at 200C with a drizzle of sunflower oil and wrapped in tin foil. You want them to loose their intense earthy bitterness but they still need to retain a bit of a crunch. So 30-40 mins will suffice, depending on the size of your root vegetable. While the beetroots and the buckwheat are cooking defrost your peas, by submerging them in boiling water for a few minutes, and finely dice the fermented cucumbers.

To make the dressing you will need to extract the brining liquor from the jar of fermented red kraut, mix it with the sunflower oil and the minced garlic. Mix well for the garlic to dissolve as much as possible. Taste and add some salt to taste if you feel it needs more.

Once the beetroot is ready (pierce the middle with a knife to check), let it cool down before peeling and cutting into wedges. I like mine quite chunky, as you really get to taste the meaty earthiness of the beetroot that way.

Mix all the ingredients together, adding finely chopped dill and tarragon, a squeeze of lemon as well as the dressing to complete the dish.