Ukrainian dish banosh. Banosh: recipe in a slow cooker

Every Hutsul housewife knows how to cook banosh: graze a cow on an ecologically clean meadow, milk it, collect the cream, sift the corn grits and put it all in a cast iron pot on the stove, or even better, on the fire. If you don’t have all of the above at hand, don’t worry, banosh in the city, it works great at home too.

5 main rules of the Hutsul banosh

Banush, banosh, tokan - it is called differently in different parts of the Carpathians, it is by no means an everyday dish, but a Sunday or holiday dish. There is a simple explanation for this: it is cooked exclusively with cream, and not with milk, and to get 1 liter of cream (for 3-4 servings) you need 10 liters of fresh milk.

No flour! Only finely ground grains, since the total cooking time is no more than 30-35 minutes, and large fractions will not have time to cook during this time, and if you increase the cooking time, the dish will turn out too greasy and tough.

Metal tools inevitably spoil the taste of the food - during cooking, stir it vigorously with a wooden spoon or spatula.

You heard right, you need to stir Hutsul-style corn porridge for the entire 30 minutes while it is cooking, and this is necessary not only so that there are no lumps. The banosh recipe does not contain ready-made butter - it is formed during the heating of the cream and does not allow the cereal to stick to the walls of the cauldron.

You can cook tokan tasty, tender and with the right taste only in a cast iron cauldron over low heat. Of course, you can try to cook the Carpathian delicacy in modern technological dishes, but in this case it is impossible to guarantee a good result. Why? Because cast iron heats up slowly, but the heat in it is distributed evenly, it lasts a long time, and in order for the food to burn, you need to try hard.

3 main features of Banosh

It is called a ceremonial version of mamalyga - an everyday very cool corn brew popular in Western Ukraine and Moldova. In Georgia it is known as gomi, in Italy as polenta, in Serbia as kachamak, in Turkey as mukhlama. A similar dish exists in very exotic countries like Antigua and Barbuda and is called ku-ku there, but the Hutsul version cannot be confused with anything:

Tokan is eaten only hot and never served chilled, like mamaliga or kachamak;

This is still porridge, which is eaten with a spoon, and not cut into slices, like polenta;

The concept of "banosh" includes a set of several dishes - the hot cereal base itself, fresh homemade cheese and guslyanka - a fermented milk drink that in the Carpathian region is called "Hutsul beer" for its anti-hangover qualities. In some regions or houses, all this is supplemented with cracklings.

How to cook guslyanka with your own hands

In the Hutsul region, if you suddenly run out of your own guslyanka, you take the starter for it from your neighbors, although sometimes you have to walk a couple of kilometers and climb a mountain to do this, but you can do it on your own.

Ingredients:

milk – 1 l
sour cream – 1 tbsp. l.

Boil homemade fresh milk, pour into a thick bowl and leave to cool to 42 degrees Celsius. Next, add a spoonful of sour cream and, without stirring, leave in a warm place. Cover the neck with a clean cloth, not a lid, and wrap the vessel in something warm. After 12 hours put in the refrigerator, after 24 hours the drink is ready.

3 secrets of delicious banush

To get a real dish, the contents of the pot must be stirred in one direction.

In the Carpathians, it is also cooked with sour cream, but the taste will be much more sour and buttery, since cream is a whole milk product with a fat content of up to 35%, and sour cream is fermented milk, but higher in fat - up to 58%.

Previously, it was believed that the most delicious banush is obtained from men and only over an open fire, and this is the only statement, the veracity of which the author did not have time to verify personally.

Preparation:

time – 30-35 minutes

servings – 2-4

Ingredients:

cream – 500 ml

very finely ground corn flour - 1 tbsp.

salt – ½ tsp.

feta cheese - 200 g

Guslyanka (kefir, yogurt, Gerolact) – 500-700 ml

Sift the corn grits through a colander; set aside the remaining grains on the mesh. Repeat the operation. Pour the cream into the cauldron and bring almost to a boil. Add some salt. Pour the cereal into the cream in a thin stream and immediately stir with a wooden spoon. You remember, you should stir in one direction and quite intensively. Watch when droplets of oil appear on the surface and the mixture begins to lag behind the walls of the cauldron - from this moment on, stir, even grind, it must be especially carefully so as not to burn, but after 3-5-7 minutes it will be ready.

Place the finished banosh on ceramic plates (and if you warm them up a little in advance, it will only be better), serve the cheese on a separate dish or wooden board, pour guslyanka or other fermented milk drink into cups and, if you want to make the table even richer, add cracklings.

This is how the favorite dish of the Hutsuls is prepared in Verkhovyna, the highest mountainous region of the Ukrainian Carpathians on the border with Romania. Bon appetit!

Hutsul banush (banosh) is an everyday dish in the mountainous regions of the Ukrainian Carpathians; 3-4 times a week it is sure to be on the tables of local residents. Once upon a time banosh was considered the food of the poor, but now tourists are treated to this national dish in the best Hutsul restaurants.
However, indigenous Carpathian residents claim that Hutsul banush cannot be prepared at home or in restaurant kitchens. True Transcarpathian banosh is cooked only over a fire in large cauldrons, due to which it acquires a unique taste, saturated with the aroma of smoke.
What then should those who don’t have a fire and a cauldron do, but would like to try banosh? Step back a little from the Carpathian traditions and still make it in your kitchen. The recipe below with photos will help you cope with this wonderful Ukrainian dish. In addition to corn flour, the list of ingredients must include soft goat or sheep cheese, as well as cracklings - fried lard, preferably cracklings with a slot. Porcini mushrooms are often added, which make the taste even richer.
The Hutsul recipe for banush involves the use of corn flour, which is used for baking bread and flatbreads. In urban environments, it can be replaced with the finest grains, which will have virtually no effect on the taste of the finished dish. To give it a characteristic smoky aroma, it is recommended to use smoked lard or bacon for cooking.

Taste Info Second: cereals

Ingredients

• corn flour or finely ground grits - 100 g;
• sour cream (20% fat) – 1 tbsp.;
• water – 1.5 tbsp.;
• salt – 0.5 tsp;
• feta cheese – 30 g;
• bacon – 50 g.

How to cook Transcarpathian-style banosh with sour cream, cheese and cracklings

Pour sour cream into a cauldron or deep frying pan and dilute it with water. If the sour cream is liquid, you can use it in its pure form, undiluted, increasing the amount to 2.5 cups.


Put the sour cream on the fire, bring to a boil and gradually add corn flour or grits.


Add corn flour in a thin stream, stir quickly with a wooden spoon so that no lumps form.


Add salt and continue cooking over low heat, stirring continuously so that the corn porridge does not burn.


After 15-20 minutes, the porridge will thicken, it will be easy to separate from the walls of the cauldron or frying pan, and small droplets of fat from sour cream will appear on its surface. This means that it is ready, remove it from the heat, close the lid tightly and let it simmer for 10-15 minutes.

Meanwhile, cut the lard into small oblong pieces or small cubes, then fry in a hot frying pan until golden brown. If desired, you can add diced onions to the melted greaves, which will make the banosh dressing more flavorful.


Place the corn porridge on plates, pour fat and cracklings over it and sprinkle with cheese, crumbled or grated on a coarse grater.


Serve the finished banouche hot without stirring.

Adviсe:

• The Hutsuls themselves recommend serving lightly salted cucumbers with banush;
• Do not use metal utensils to stir the banush, only a wooden spatula or spoon, the metal oxidizes and as a result the sour cream (cream) may curdle;
• banush with sour cream has a slightly noticeable sourness; if someone does not like this taste, you can use cream instead of sour cream.

Oh, here I am writing" banosh“- and everything inside me freezes: now a crowd of experts will definitely come and begin to convince me that a real banosh is prepared completely, well, completely, completely differently! I’m writing in advance - I won’t argue, because I’m sincerely convinced that There are so many recipes for preparing such “folk” dishes that there is not and cannot be one single authentic option, that banosh can be realized in completely different ways. I was taught by a friend who has lived in Transcarpathia for many years. I don’t know and don’t want to know. how much this banosh recipe classic or innovative - I like it, my family likes it, and that’s why we will cook it this way.

Banosh is the national dish of the Hutsuls, which is a thick corn porridge cooked with sour cream or cream, seasoned with feta cheese, cracklings, fried onions, and mushrooms. The closest “relative” of hominy and polenta.

Ingredients:

500 ml sour cream;

50-100 ml cream or water;

3/4 cup corn grits;

50-80 g butter;

salt, cheese, butter to taste.

Pour the required amount of sour cream into a saucepan with a thick bottom (I have a ceramic one, it’s very convenient!).

Add cream (water or milk or nothing at all, but just make do with sour cream), put it on the fire, bring to a boil.

Add corn grits in a thin stream. By the way, it is better to take not the largest grain, but not the smallest one either - medium grinding is ideal in this case.

Stirring, cook until the porridge is ready - the process is quite long, it takes me about half an hour. I pick up a book and time flies by very quickly. The only thing is that the banush, if you don’t stir it often enough, starts to “swear” and “shoot”, so take care of your books and hands. Well, don’t read so much that you forget that you have porridge on the stove.

Of course, there is no need to stand over the stove continuously - sometimes I have time to wash the dishes, for example, or cut Olivier. I just keep in mind that you need to regularly break away and approach the pan, and nothing more.

When the banouche is ready, add butter to the pan. Wow, how great this is! Unrealistically appetizing, don't you agree?

Stir and cover with a lid - let it sit for 5-10 minutes. During this time, I set the table, grate the cheese - for those who like it with cheese (by the way, I long ago learned to replace feta cheese, which I don’t understand, with Parmesan, which I respect), put on a sugar bowl - the youngest loves banosh with sugar and cinnamon, I quickly fry lard - my husband is partial to cracklings, take out a jar of sun-dried tomatoes - for the Elder, such a dish seems almost a masterpiece to her, I additionally put salt on the table - my son always demands to add more salt to the food, no matter how thoroughly I salt it before.

Well, let's serve it. And we enjoy it - the porridge turns out to be very rich in taste, very bright, unusual and, I would even say, luxurious. Try it at least once - and after that, I’m sure you’ll cook banosh regularly.

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.

Every Hutsul housewife knows how to cook banosh: graze a cow on an ecologically clean meadow, milk it, collect the cream, sift the corn grits and put it all in a cast iron pot on the stove, or even better, on the fire. If you don’t have all of the above at hand, don’t worry, banosh in the city, it works great at home too.

5 main rules of the Hutsul banosh

Banush, banosh, tokan - it is called differently in different parts of the Carpathians, it is by no means an everyday dish, but a Sunday or holiday dish. There is a simple explanation for this: it is cooked exclusively with cream, and not with milk, and to get 1 liter of cream (for 3-4 servings) you need 10 liters of fresh milk.

No flour! Only finely ground grains, since the total cooking time is no more than 30-35 minutes, and large fractions will not have time to cook during this time, and if you increase the cooking time, the dish will turn out too greasy and tough.

Metal tools inevitably spoil the taste of the food - during cooking, stir it vigorously with a wooden spoon or spatula.

You heard right, you need to stir Hutsul-style corn porridge for the entire 30 minutes while it is cooking, and this is necessary not only so that there are no lumps. The banosh recipe does not contain ready-made butter - it is formed during the heating of the cream and does not allow the cereal to stick to the walls of the cauldron.

You can cook tokan tasty, tender and with the right taste only in a cast iron cauldron over low heat. Of course, you can try to cook the Carpathian delicacy in modern technological dishes, but in this case it is impossible to guarantee a good result. Why? Because cast iron heats up slowly, but the heat in it is distributed evenly, it lasts a long time, and in order for the food to burn, you need to try hard.

3 main features of Banosh

It is called a ceremonial version of mamalyga - an everyday very cool corn brew popular in Western Ukraine and Moldova. In Georgia it is known as gomi, in Italy as polenta, in Serbia as kachamak, in Turkey as mukhlama. A similar dish exists in very exotic countries like Antigua and Barbuda and is called ku-ku there, but the Hutsul version cannot be confused with anything:

Tokan is eaten only hot and never served chilled, like mamaliga or kachamak;

This is still porridge, which is eaten with a spoon, and not cut into slices, like polenta;

The concept of "banosh" includes a set of several dishes - the hot cereal base itself, fresh homemade cheese and guslyanka - a fermented milk drink that in the Carpathian region is called "Hutsul beer" for its anti-hangover qualities. In some regions or houses, all this is supplemented with cracklings.

How to cook guslyanka with your own hands

In the Hutsul region, if you suddenly run out of your own guslyanka, you take the starter for it from your neighbors, although sometimes you have to walk a couple of kilometers and climb a mountain to do this, but you can do it on your own.

Ingredients:

milk – 1 l
sour cream – 1 tbsp. l.

Boil homemade fresh milk, pour into a thick ceramic pot and leave to cool to 42 degrees Celsius. Next, add a spoonful of sour cream and, without stirring, leave in a warm place. Cover the neck with a clean cloth, not a lid, and wrap the vessel in something warm. After 12 hours put in the refrigerator, after 24 hours the drink is ready.

3 secrets of delicious banush

To get a real dish, the contents of the pot must be stirred in one direction.

In the Carpathians, it is also cooked with sour cream, but the taste will be much more sour and buttery, since cream is a whole milk product with a fat content of up to 35%, and sour cream is fermented milk, but higher in fat - up to 58%.

Previously, it was believed that the most delicious banush is obtained from men and only over an open fire, and this is the only statement, the veracity of which the author did not have time to verify personally.

Preparation:

time – 30-35 minutes

servings – 2-4

Ingredients:

cream – 500 ml

very finely ground corn flour - 1 tbsp.

salt – ½ tsp.

feta cheese - 200 g

Guslyanka (kefir, yogurt, Gerolact) – 500-700 ml

Sift the corn grits through a colander; set aside the remaining grains on the mesh. Repeat the operation. Pour the cream into the cauldron and bring almost to a boil. Add some salt. Pour the cereal into the cream in a thin stream and immediately stir with a wooden spoon. You remember, you should stir in one direction and quite intensively. Watch when droplets of oil appear on the surface and the mixture begins to lag behind the walls of the cauldron - from this moment on, stir, even grind, it must be especially carefully so as not to burn, but after 3-5-7 minutes it will be ready.

Place the finished banosh on ceramic plates (and if you warm them up a little in advance, it will only be better), serve the cheese on a separate dish or wooden board, pour guslyanka or other fermented milk drink into cups and, if you want to make the table even richer, add cracklings.

This is how the favorite dish of the Hutsuls is prepared in Verkhovyna, the highest mountainous region of the Ukrainian Carpathians on the border with Romania. Bon appetit!