Buckwheat... Let's Talk About It!
This salad is made with buckwheat and delicious Valpalot goat cheese, produced by the Caseario consortium of the Valle Camonica (a valley in the central Alps located in the eastern part of the Italian region of Lombardy) and which I will tell you a bit about now.
The Caprino Valpalot owes its name to the milk of the Biond dell'Adamello goats. The Blond Adamellan breed of goats are native to the small but very characteristic Val Palot area, known for its environmental peculiarities, its farming tradition, and its cheese production. The characteristic of the cheese is that it is white with a classic grassy fragrance typical of goat milk cheese. It is made strictly with raw goat milk.
It is very easily digested and fresh; therefore, excellent when eaten with a typical summery diet; it can be paired with any of the many tasty salads that come to mind...
Buckwheat is not very well known and decidedly underestimated. It is generally associated with grains, but its very particular characteristics place it closer to the legume category. Actually it doesn't belong to either category: from a nutritional viewpoint, it occupies a place all its own specifically because of its unusual characteristics.
As you well know, since I started taking natural cooking courses, I support the incorporation of whole grain cereals as a component of a good diet. Buckwheat should always be present among these components to ensure a more complete nutritional value and also to vary the flavors of your diet.
Buckwheat is excellent in all cases of psycho-physical exhaustion, pregnancy, breastfeeding, and for an athlete's diet. Thanks to the rutin contained in buckwheat, it is also recommended in cases of venous microcirculation: in fact, it contributes to maintenance of the appropriate elasticity in capillaries and acts as a true antioxidant, making it perfect in the summer for heaviness in the legs.
Buckwheat & Caprino Valpalot
Serves four
Ingredients:
- 2 cups of organic hulled buckwheat
- 200 gr. (7 oz.) of Caprino Valpalot goat cheese
- 2 handfuls of green olives sliced into rounds (photograph 2)
- 4 cups of water
- 2 cm. (3/4 inch) of kombu kelp
- 2 generous handfuls of green celery leaves
- 1/2 clove of garlic
- 5 walnut halves
- extra virgin olive oil, as needed
- whole salt
- a few cherry tomatoes to give a touch of red
Directions:
1. Wash the buckwheat carefully and toast it in a pan with two tablespoons of oil; add the water, the kombu kelp (this helps to inhibit the intestinal fermentation given by the grains), and a pinch of salt.
2. Cook the buckwheat; this process will take approximately 20 minutes; if the water has not been completely absorbed by the buckwheat, drain it; if the buckwheat absorbs too much water, add some more. I have cooked buckwheat at least 200 times and it is never the same; it must really be true that much depends on the environmental humidity.
3. Place the celery leaves, the walnuts, and 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil in a food processor; add salt, and blend the ingredients until they are the consistency of a creamy pesto.
4. Cut the goat cheese first into slices - photograph 1 - and then into cubes - photograph 2.
5. Cut the cherry tomatoes into wedges.
6. Once the buckwheat has been drained, sauté it in a pan with the pesto and the olive rounds on high heat for a few minutes, so that all the flavors can blend well; next, set aside to cool - photograph 4.
7. As soon as the buckwheat mixture has cooled, the salad can be plated. Place the buckwheat, add the goat cheese cubes and some cherry tomato wedges.
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Every day at webflakes we feature a collection of recipes from around the world. This recipe was originally by a home cook from Italy, The Sugar Boat
Translated by: Gabriella Caruso Reviewed by: Alex Limpach
