Kulesh army. To the Day of the Great Victory. Rich kulesh: recipes for a Slavic dish! Cooking different types of kulesh according to recipes with millet, buckwheat, lard, vegetables, mushrooms Lenten kulesh: a recipe with buckwheat

Speaking about the price of the Great Victory, which we got 70 years ago with unimaginable efforts, it is customary to recall human lives cut short by the war, military equipment lost in bloody battles, numerous destroyed houses and structures. In honor of the anniversary of the Great Victory, we decided to recall the feat of Soviet soldiers, which usually remains in the shadows - the daily front-line life. We bring to your attention some recipes from the military field menu of 1941-1945.

Kulesh 1943

There is an opinion that this dish was especially popular in the tank troops in 1943, in addition, it was with kulesh that the morning of the front-line soldiers began before the famous tank battle - the Battle of Kursk, from which many of them, unfortunately, never returned. In the preparation of kulesh, as befits the recipes of the field kitchen, it is very simple, and the consistency resembles either liquid porridge or thick soup.

Ingredients

Meat on the bone (or stew) - 0.5 kg
Millet - 250-300 gr
Potatoes - 3-4 pieces
Bulb - 2-3 pieces
Water - 1.5-2 l

Cooking method

If meat is used to prepare the dish, then first it must be separated from the bones, and then boil them for 15 minutes in boiling water. Then we take out the bones from the pan, and add the millet to the resulting meat broth and cook it until tender, then add the diced potatoes. While the potatoes and millet are cooking, cut the onion into half rings and fry it in a pan with the meat removed from the bones for 15 minutes. After that, add the meat and onions to the pan and simmer everything together under the lid for 10 minutes.

Solyanka "Rear"

It was not easy not only on the front line: the hardships and hardships of the war were felt in the rear as well. But the enterprising housewives did not despair and did not even think of giving up: they invented new dishes, literally from improvised means. One of these dishes among the people was called the "Rear" hodgepodge.

Ingredients

Sauerkraut - 0.5 kg
Potato - 0.5 kg
Water
Onion - 2-3 pcs
Bay leaf - 2-3 pieces
Pepper, salt - to taste

Cooking method

Sauerkraut and diced potatoes should be put in a container with thick walls. The classic recipe used a cast iron that was placed in the oven, but we will use more modern utensils, such as a vat or a regular saucepan. Having put the main ingredients in a container, fill the contents with water so that it covers the cabbage-potato mixture, and put the pan on a small fire. Our dish will be stewed for 40 minutes, and 5 minutes before cooking, add to the vegetables sliced \u200b\u200bhalf rings and a little fried in a pan onion, a couple of bay leaves and spices to taste. When the dish is ready, you need to turn off the fire, cover it with a lid and a thick towel on top and leave for 15 minutes to sweat.

Porridge with garlic

At the front, for obvious reasons, affordable, easy-to-prepare and most healthy products were popular. This is why so many recipes were made using cereals and garlic.

Ingredients

Millet - 1 cup
Water - 3 glasses
Sunflower oil
Garlic - to taste
Onions - 0.5 bulbs
Salt, pepper - to taste

Cooking method

Fry the onion in vegetable oil. Pour the cereal with cold water and put on fire. As soon as the water boils, add the fry there, salt the porridge and cook for another five minutes. Peel and finely chop the garlic. Remove the porridge from the heat, add garlic to it and, closing the lid, wrap it in a “fur coat”, as in the previous recipe, so that the cereal is steamed. The porridge is fragrant, soft and tender.

"Makalovka"

Some front-line recipes are obviously dictated by the difficult living conditions of the soldiers, who often had to have lunch and dinner in severe frost or in the wind. Perhaps that is why frozen stew was taken as the basis for the next dish.

Ingredients

Frozen stew - 300 gr
Onion - 1 pc.
Carrot - 1 piece
Salo or sunflower oil - for frying
Bread

Cooking method

Frozen stew, which stood for a good few hours in the night frost, was carefully chopped with a knife. In a frying pan, vegetable oil or lard was heated, carrots and onions were finely chopped and fried all together for 5-7 minutes. Then stew was added to the vegetables and, if necessary, the mixture was poured with a small amount of water to better stew. After 7-10 minutes, the "makalovka" is ready. And it is called so because they used it by dipping bread into the mixture and putting it on top of a slice.

soldier's bread

During the war years, bread made up about 80% of a soldier's daily diet. There were several bread recipes, and the simplest included only two ingredients: bran and potatoes.

Ingredients

Bran - 0.5 kg
Potato - 0.5 kg
Salt - to taste

Cooking method

For starters, potatoes must be boiled in their skins, peeled, passed through a meat grinder to get the so-called dry mashed potatoes. Then put the resulting mass on a baking sheet, previously sprinkled with a small amount of bran. Within a few minutes, the potatoes will cool down, after which you need to add the remaining bran, salt and quickly knead the dough. Lubricate the baking dish with vegetable oil, put the mixture into it and bake in the oven until cooked for an hour at a not very high temperature.

Sandwich "Front"

But even such a simple pleasure as a camp kitchen did not always accompany the fighters: in some campaigns, they had to manage on their own. And then the soldiers prepared front-line sandwiches for themselves: not only healthy and nutritious, but also preventing colds.

Ingredients

Salo - 300-400 gr
Bulb - 0.5 pcs
Garlic - 0.5 heads
Black bread

Cooking method

And preparing such a sandwich is extremely simple: onions, garlic and lard, cut into small cubes, are laid out in a bowler hat and mixed with a spoon until smooth, which is then spread on black bread. The indicated proportions were enough for three or even four fighters to have a hearty breakfast, and at the same time replenish their daily supply of vitamins.

carrot tea

And finally, a few words about front-line drinks. Carrot tea was very popular among soldiers. For its preparation, dried carrots were used, prepared according to the following technology: the vegetable was peeled, grated, dried in the oven, after which the dried carrots could be used as tea leaves, pouring boiling water over it and insisting for 5-10 minutes. Carrots gave the tea a sweetish taste, and the soldiers - an additional charge of vivacity and benefit to the immune system.

military cocktail

And in the evening, resting after the battle, our great-grandfathers sometimes allowed themselves a little drink to relax and fall asleep soundly. And then 30 ml of alcohol was mixed with 70 ml of brine - such a cocktail relieved stress, and the next morning, they say, there was never a hangover.

Kulesh

Kulesh is a dish of non-Russian cuisine, but most often found in the southern Russian regions, on the border of Russia and Ukraine, in the Belgorod region, in the Voronezh region, in the western regions of the Rostov region and the Stavropol region, as well as in the border regions of the southeastern and eastern regions adjacent to Russia. parts of Ukrainian lands, that is, practically in Sloboda Ukraine and in some places on the border of Chernihiv and Bryansk regions. There is, however, one fairly accurate linguistic and phonetic way of establishing the distribution area of kulesh as a dish. It is prepared and eaten mainly by the population, which speaks “overturn”, that is, a mixture of Ukrainian and Russian, or distorted Russian with some Ukrainian words and with a common “bang” of all words. These people practically do not know the real Ukrainian language and do not even fully understand it.

The word "kulesh" itself is of Hungarian origin. Koles (Koles) in Hungarian - millet, millet. And millet groats are the main component of this dish, as indispensable as beets for borscht.

Kulesh came, or rather, only reached the borders of Russia, from Hungary through Poland and Ukraine. In Polish it is called kulesh (Kulesz), and in Ukrainian - kulish. Therefore, in the 19th century, when the word "kulesh" first appeared in Russian dictionaries, no one knew how to spell this word correctly. Either they wrote kulesh through “e”, then through “yat”, since there was a grammatical rule that in all Ukrainian words, where the letter “e” is softened through “i”, in Russian one should write “yat”. However, this applied to words borrowed from Greek and Latin, and to very ancient common Slavic ones, and the word "kulesh" was Hungarian and new to Slavic speech. That is why, until the revolution of 1917, it was written this way and that: they did not have time to establish a solid spelling for it. All this indirectly influenced the fact that kulesh, not only as a word, but also as a dish, was not common in Russia.

For the first time this word was recorded in Russian in 1629, which convincingly suggests that it was brought to Russia either by the Polish interventionists of the Time of Troubles, or by the Little Russian peasants who came from Ukraine and South Russia with the rebellious detachments of Ivan Bolotnikov. Kulesh as a dish was gruel, and porridge, gruel as simple, primitive and quick-cooked dishes always and in all countries constituted the main diet of armies. After all, they could be cooked in boilers, on fires, in the field, and it was this technology that condemned kulesh to becoming a traditional army, soldier, unpresentable and cheap dish, or, in other words, a dish of war and mass popular movements.

Due to the fact that cereals as dishes are primitive and the technology of their preparation consists of boiling one or another cereal (grain) in water, there is a huge risk of getting a monotonous, insipid, viscous, tasteless and malnutrition dish, which can cause an extremely dangerous effect - a quick tameness and, as a result, a decrease in the combat effectiveness of the troops and their indignation. Nevertheless, not a single army can refuse to use porridge, including kulesh, because only porridge can be a stable, hot food for large masses of people in the field. What to do in this case? How to find a way out of this contradiction?

A purely culinary solution was found: the grain base, remaining 90-95% unchanged, should be enriched with such components that, without changing the cooking technology, can significantly change the taste range, deceive the human sensation and thereby make the dish - porridge - not only acceptable, but also tasty, and perhaps even desirable. Everything depends on the individual skill of the cook, on his culinary talent and intuition, while maintaining the standard composition of this duty army dish, strictly defined by the quartermasters and layout.

What is this art? How is the taste mirage of cereals, including kulesh, achieved?

The first condition: to introduce a strong spicy-flavor component that can radically change the insipid nature of the grain base. In practice, this means that onions should be included first, and as much as possible, at least up to the limit of economic profitability.

The second condition: to the onion, if possible and due to the talent of one or another cook, you can add those spicy-flavoring herbs that you can find at hand and which will complement, shade, and not conflict with the onion. These are parsley, angelica (angelica), lovage, hyssop, leek, flask, wild garlic. The choice, as you can see, is quite wide. And all these herbs, as a rule, grow in a wild or cultivated state on the territory of Ukraine and southern Russia.

The third condition: in order to reduce the unpleasant stickiness, viscosity and increase the nutritional value and nutritional value of any porridge, it is necessary to add fats. As you know, you can’t spoil porridge with butter. Therefore, in quantitative terms, no prescription restrictions are provided in this case. But it is usually not oil that is brought into kulesh, but pork fat - in any form: melted, interior, salted, smoked, deep-fried. Usually cracklings are made from salted lard and brought into an almost ready kulesh along with the melted, liquid part of the lard, always hot.

The fourth condition: for even greater taste variety, a small amount of finely chopped fried meat or minced meat or corned beef can be added to kulesh. These additives can be negligible in weight, almost invisible visually, but they, as a rule, affect the change and enrichment of the taste of kulesh. To diversify the taste of kulesh, it is recommended to add either finely diced potatoes or mashed potatoes cooked separately to millet during its cooking.

It is not bad to add pea flour or boiled, grated peas. These additives should not exceed 10-15% of the total mass of kulesh in order to give it only a special accent, but not change its characteristic millet taste.

If all these various additives are made in moderation, with good culinary tact, then kulesh can really be turned into a very attractive and original dish in taste, especially if you cook it occasionally and to the point, that is, in accordance with the season, weather, mood of the one to whom it is intended. Kulesh is especially good in winter, early spring and damp dank autumn, in rainy inclement weather. As for the time of day, it is best suited for breakfast, before a long journey or hard work. At night there is kulesh - it's hard.

The old woman, whom Oborin recalled, apparently knew all this well and took it into account. That is why the kulesh remained in the memory of the soldier.

And now, for those who would like to repeat the Oborinsky kulesh, we place, in addition to the above instructions, its recipe.

Kulesh recipe

Millet (millet) is considered a low-value grain, and therefore millet (millet) porridges require extreme attention in their preparation for cooking, cooking, and especially when flavored.

During all these three basic operations, thoroughness, attentiveness and significant labor costs are necessary, slovenliness and laziness are contraindicated. Of course, the old woman who prepared kulesh for Oborin and his friends possessed all the necessary qualities due to her age, her cooking experience and the responsibility that only people of the pre-war period had.

Training

Rinse millet 5-7 times in cold water until it is completely transparent, then scald with boiling water, rinse again with running cold water. Sort out the remaining debris.

Boil water, lightly salt.

Cooking

Pour the peeled cereal into boiling water, cook over high heat in “big water” (twice or three times the volume of the cereal!) for 15-20 minutes, carefully watching so that the cereal does not boil soft and the water becomes cloudy, then drain the water.

Having drained the first water, add a little boiling water, finely chopped onion, a little finely chopped carrot or pumpkin (you can also have any vegetable with a neutral, unleavened taste - swede, turnip, kohlrabi) and cook (boil, boil) over moderate heat until the water boils completely and grain digestion.

Then add more finely chopped onion, mix well, pour half a glass of boiled hot milk into each glass of grits and continue to boil the grits over moderate heat, making sure that it does not stick to the walls of the dishes, does not burn, for this all the time stir with a spoon.

When the porridge is boiled enough and the liquid boils away, add lard cut into small cubes or pork belly (smoked) into the kulesh and continue to boil and stir over low heat, adding salt while stirring and tasting several times. But a spoonful of kulesh taken for testing should be allowed to cool and try not hot, but warm. If the taste does not satisfy, then you can add bay leaf, parsley, finally, a little garlic, and then let the kulesh stand under the lid for about 15 minutes, pouring half a glass of curdled milk into it beforehand, and move it to the edge of the stove or wrap it in a padded jacket.

They eat kulesh with gray bread, that is, from bran or from wheat flour of the coarsest grinding.

If there is no fat, then in extreme cases sunflower oil can be used, but only after it has been thoroughly reheated and at least a small amount (50-100 g) of some fatty pork sausage has been fried in it. In this case, the kulesh will receive both the necessary impregnation with fat and the smell of lard, which is so characteristic and necessary for the real taste of this dish.

If all these conditions are met carefully, then kulesh should come out very tasty and pleasant, memorable.

Products

Millet - 1 cup

3 onions

Milk (and curdled milk): 0.5-1 cup

Fats: 50-150 g of fat or brisket (loin). Option - 0.25-0.5 cups of sunflower oil and 50-150 g of any sausage

Bay leaf, parsley, carrot, garlic (respectively, one root, leaf, head)

Kulesh can also be cooked in Polish - in bone broth instead of water. And add potatoes to millet, not root crops. It is important not to forget the parsley - root and leaf, heavily chopped.

Add the broth after pre-cooking porridge in large water.

Potatoes are best boiled separately and put into porridge in the form of mashed potatoes. The rest is the same.

The Poles call kulesh krupnik and make it thinner than Ukrainian or South Russian kulesh, and vary its meat part as you like: they can add duck, goose or chicken giblets (very finely chopped, boiled with broth), sometimes mushrooms, raw yolks (in mashed potatoes) , boiled grated yolks. Fats are also diverse: everything that is, goes to krupnik little by little - one or two tablespoons of sour cream, a spoonful of melted butter, a piece of bacon or sausage (Krakow or Poltava, homemade, fatty).

In a word, kulesh is by no means a dish with a rigid recipe, a dish open to culinary imagination, a dish convenient for using all the “waste” or “surplus”, “remains” of fats, meat, vegetables, which can always be utilized in a kulesh with benefit, benefit and with the improvement of the taste of this composite, combined dish.

That is why kulesh was generally considered to be a dish of poor people, commoners, and with culinary imagination and knowledge of technology, you can turn this simple dish into a hearty and excellent in taste, memorable meal.

And here are the memoirs of G. N. Kupriyanov, General, member of the Military Council of the Karelian Front, Secretary of the Republican Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of the Karelian-Finnish SSR:

“In the early morning of June 29, 1944, halfway between Suna and Shuya, a halt was arranged at the stream. The soldiers took crackers and canned food out of their duffel bags and ate with great appetite. I lay down on the grass with a group of soldiers from the 8th company. I also wanted to eat, but the adjutants did not take anything with them. When I asked them if they wanted to eat, they all smiled guiltily and replied that they didn't feel like eating at all.

Then a soldier sitting next to me handed me a large cracker. Others followed him, offering to try their crackers. I ate crackers with pleasure, washed them down with cold spring water. And it seemed that he had not eaten anything more delicious during the entire war. When there were 5-6 kilometers left to Shuya, my car, sent from the front headquarters, finally caught up with us. Four correspondents from different newspapers and a newsreel cameraman also came to it.

My driver Dima Makeev turned out to be smarter than the adjutants. While they were waiting for the crossing over the Suna, he found an abandoned, dented aluminum pan in the village, quickly fixed it on a stump of a log, then obtained several kilograms of potatoes and two loaves of white bread from the sappers' stocks and boiled potatoes with canned meat, which always lay at us under the seat in the jeep as NZ. Dima excellently fed me and the correspondents.

When, finally, our troops entered the liberated Shuya, we were met at the outskirts by local residents who crawled out of the dugouts.

They brought out several jugs of milk and a pile of thin Karelian pies smeared with mashed potatoes with milk and eggs. Locally they are called "gates". We no longer wanted to eat, but we drank a glass of milk with pleasure and, in order not to offend the hospitable hosts, we tried the gates.

Kulesh is a traditional Slavic dish. It is something between soup and porridge, quite soft and tender, satisfying, has many variations that change the taste. Kulesh was prepared by soldiers, Cossacks, and just villagers. Various products were used, but the main ingredient was cereals.

Kulesh - general principles of cooking

Traditional kulesh is always cooked with cereals, initially millet was used, later the dish was cooked with buckwheat, now there are recipes with rice, peas and even beans. The base has also changed. If earlier they used mainly lard and water, now there are interesting recipes for meat, fish, chicken and even mushroom broth. This means that you will never get bored with kulesh, you can cook rich soup (or liquid porridge?) at least every day.

What is put in the dish:

Potato;

Onions, carrots;

Fats, oils.

The enrichment of kulesh with herbs, various spices, garlic and seasonal vegetables is welcome. There are several options for a tomato dish with tomatoes, bell peppers or just pasta. In the spicy version, kulesh also turns out to be quite interesting. In general, the recipe does not change, you just need to add a chopped chili pod to the pan.

Partisan kulesh: a recipe with lard and millet

Once it was a soldier's dish. It was distinguished by its cheapness, ease of preparation, according to the recipe, kulesh is prepared with millet and ordinary lard. Of course, if there are a lot of meat layers in it, it will turn out much tastier.

Ingredients

100 grams of fat;

150 grams of millet;

2 potatoes;

Large bulb;

Big carrot;

Dill, laurel, parsley.

Cooking method

1. Rinse the millet simply under the tap in cold water. Then drain this liquid, pour boiling water. Leave for 20-30 minutes to release the bitterness.

2. We cut the potatoes into large cubes, throw them into a saucepan, pour a little more than a liter of water, about 1.2-1.3, put on the stove, boil for ten minutes.

3. Drain the water from the millet, send it to the potatoes and cook until good softness, it is allowed to overexpose.

4. Cut the fat into small cubes. Transfer to a frying pan, fry until golden brown.

5. As soon as enough fat is rendered from the fat, add the chopped onion, followed by the grated carrot. Fry vegetables until golden brown.

6. We shift the fat with vegetables from the pan into the pan, salt, pepper, stir. Let it cook for another ten minutes.

7. Done! We fill the kulesh with herbs, serve immediately or let the dish brew.

Village kulesh: the recipe for the cheapest dish

This rustic kulesh recipe uses the simplest ingredients. This porridge-soup was cooked in the oven. Despite the scarcity of ingredients, it turned out to be very tasty, rich. To prepare the broth, you will need a few beef or any other bones.

Ingredients

4 potatoes;

A glass of millet;

2 onion heads;

2 carrots;

1.5 liters of water;

500 grams of bones.

Cooking method

1. Rinse the bones, pour 1.5 liters of water, boil for a couple of hours, strain the broth.

2. Cut potatoes and other vegetables. Rinse the millet.

3. Put potatoes in a saucepan, boil for a couple of minutes, throw in onions with carrots, salt.

4. After another two minutes, add a full glass of washed millet. Stir, salt.

5. After boiling, remove the fire, cover, cook for 30 minutes. You can transfer to a pot, put in the oven. The temperature in this case is 180 degrees.

Lean kulesh: a recipe with buckwheat

Recipe for lean kulesh without millet, here it is replaced by buckwheat. Naturally, the taste, appearance and aroma of the dish will change.

Ingredients

4 potatoes;

180 grams of buckwheat;

4 cloves of garlic;

1300 ml of water;

1 head of onion;

1 carrot;

30 ml vegetable oil;

Any condiments.

Cooking method

1. Pour buckwheat into a cauldron, add 300 ml of water, cook ordinary porridge, add salt.

2. Boil a liter of water, add chopped potatoes, cook until soft.

3. Fry carrots and onions in vegetable oil until golden brown, transfer to potatoes.

4. Mix vegetables, salt and pepper. We shift all this into a cauldron for buckwheat porridge.

5. Rub or just chop the garlic, add to the total mass, you can pepper.

6. Cover the cauldron, put in the oven preheated to 180 degrees for 15 minutes.

Rich kulesh: recipe with meat (pork)

The recipe for kulesh with meat uses pork, you can use any piece: pulp, ribs, corn, but in the latter case, the broth will cook for a very long time. Rice is used instead of millet. You can even take a cut.

Ingredients

500 grams of pork;

50 grams of fat;

1 carrot;

1 sweet pepper;

200 grams of rice;

1 hot pepper;

2 potatoes;

onion head;

Spices, herbs.

Cooking method

1. Cut the pork into pieces, pour 1.8 liters of water into the meat, prepare a regular broth. If a piece with a bone is used, then after cooking, cut off, return the meat to the pan.

2. Cut the potatoes into large pieces, send them to the kulesh, add a little salt, boil for ten minutes.

3. We cut the lard finely, fry in a pan until golden brown cracklings. We shift them into a bowl. Put chopped onion in fat, fry for a couple of minutes.

4. Add grated carrots to the onion, and after a couple of minutes chopped sweet pepper. We continue to cook vegetables together.

5. As soon as the potatoes boil for ten minutes, add the washed rice to it. We cook until ready.

6. We shift the vegetables from their pans, add a whole hot pepper pod to the kulesh, making several punctures in it. Salt additionally, add fried cracklings if desired.

7. Cover the pan, set the minimum fire and simmer for 15 minutes. At the end, you can throw greens, season the dish with laurel.

Fish kulesh: a recipe with millet and crucians

For such a kulesh, it is best to use river fish, for example, carp, carp, perch. With sea fish it turns out not so tasty.

Ingredients

4 medium-sized crucians;

4 tbsp. l. millet;

1 head of onion;

1 carrot;

20 ml of oil;

Greens, salt;

4 potatoes.

Cooking method

1. Clean, gut the carp, cut each in half.

2. Cut the peeled potatoes into large pieces, you can make quarters, throw into a pot of water, boil for 10 minutes.

3. Throw millet next to the potatoes, boil for another five minutes.

4. While all this is being prepared, chop the onion and carrot, fry in a small amount of vegetable oil. But you can take any fat.

5. Put crucian carp in a saucepan, bring to a boil, salt the kulesh and after a couple of minutes put the vegetables out of the pan.

6. Cover, cook everything together for a quarter of an hour. For fish this time is enough.

7. Supplement the prepared dish with herbs, laurel, you can pour ground black pepper.

Fragrant kulesh: a recipe with millet and dried mushrooms

This dish can be cooked with water as directed in the recipe, or with chicken or beef broth. Mushrooms are used dried, as they give an incomparable aroma.

Ingredients

A glass of millet;

300 grams of potatoes;

3 cloves of garlic;

2 onion heads;

150 grams of fat;

50 grams of mushrooms;

Basil, pepper, spices.

Cooking method

1. Soak the mushrooms for 2-3 hours in cold water. After a good swelling, boil for 15 minutes.

2. Rinse the millet, add to the pot with the stew. Boil it for at least 20 minutes. Millet should be completely boiled soft, become soft flakes.

3. While the kulesh is cooking, we make the dressing. We cut the fat into cubes, fry. We remove the cracklings.

4. Cut onions with carrots, cook in melted fat until golden brown. In the end, we return to the vegetables cracklings.

5. We shift the vegetables into the kulesh, salt, boil for five minutes.

6. Add chopped garlic, pepper, be sure to put a little fresh or dry basil, you can add other herbs. Quickly bring to a boil, cover and turn off immediately so as not to lose the aroma. Let the kulesh stand for 10 minutes.

Kulesh: a recipe with pearl barley and stew

It turns out that not only porridge can be prepared from barley and stew. Kulesh according to this recipe with them turns out just wonderful. We wash the barley, soak it the day before so that it cooks quickly.

Ingredients

A glass of pearl barley;

1 carrot;

1 can of stew;

1-2 onion heads;

Greens to taste.

Cooking method

1. Soak barley, rinse, fill with fresh water (not less than a liter), boil until soft. Optionally, you can add one potato cut into small cubes.

2. Open a jar of stew, remove a layer of fat into the pan. If suddenly it is not enough, but this happens extremely rarely, then add a little oil or lard, warm it up.

3. Add chopped onions and grated carrots, fry vegetables.

4. After about three minutes, put the stew in the pan, heat everything together.

5. We shift the meat with vegetables from the pan into the pan to the pearl barley, stir, salt, pepper.

6. Boil the kulesh for another 20 minutes, throw greens, turn it off.

Kulesh turned out watery? It's OK! The dish will stand for a while, the cereal will swell and become sour, the broth will become smaller. If there is no time for this, then you can carefully collect the excess broth from above with a ladle.

Don't be afraid to add all kinds of spices. Slavic kulesh goes well not only with black pepper, but also with oriental, Caucasian spices, Italian herbs, aromatic roots.

If you need to cook a low-calorie version of kulesh, then the easiest way is to replace the lard with olive oil, reducing the amount. Boiled potatoes and cereals with broth will have little energy value.

Field porridge is a hearty meal cooked in the field over an open fire, a cross between a thick stew and thin porridge. Its other name is kulesh. It was common in the southern Russian regions, known as the porridge of the Cossacks. In addition to cereals, usually millet, it included onions and lard.

Field porridge on a fire does not lose its significance in our time. This versatile dish, which is used for almost everything, is very popular with tourists, hunters and fishermen. It is very convenient to cook it on a camping trip in a pot: you do not need to cook different dishes, all products feel great in one dish, which combines both soup and the second.

There is no single recipe for porridge on the fire, although the main ingredients remain unchanged - cereals (usually millet), lard and onions. It is also customary to add potatoes to field porridge.

Classic variant

For field porridge you need a lot of products:

potatoes - 0.5 kg;
water - one liter;
millet - 1.5 cups;
pork fat - 200 grams;
onion - 300 grams;
dried herbs;
sweet bell pepper - 1 piece;
Bay leaf;
bitter red pepper - to taste;
suneli hops - ½ teaspoon;
salt.

Cooking:

Rinse and soak the millet in advance so that it cooks faster. When soaking, its cooking time will be the same as for potatoes.
, set a tripod over it and hang the bowler hat.
Cut the fat into pieces, put in a pot so that they melt and form cracklings.
Add finely chopped onion, sweet pepper, spices to the pot with lard and fry.
Pour in water and lay out the millet so that the water completely covers the contents of the pot. Cook with constant stirring until boiling.
Once it boils, add the diced potatoes. Add water, if necessary, to cover the contents of the pot. Cover the dishes with a lid and cook until potatoes and millet are fully cooked. Raise the lid occasionally and stir.

As soon as potatoes and millet are ready, you can remove from heat

Readiness is determined by sampling. It is impossible to say the exact cooking time, it depends on the heat of the fire and the volume of the pot.

Soldier's

Ingredients:

millet - 2 cups;
onions - 3 pieces;
fat - 150 grams;
potatoes - 0.5 kg;
chicken eggs - 5 pieces;
salt.

Put the pieces of lard on the pan. When it melts, add finely chopped onion and fry until golden brown. Remove the pan from the heat to let the fry cool down. Hang a cauldron over the fire, pour water into it, salt it. When the water boils, put the diced potatoes and washed millet and cook until tender. In the cooled frying, break the raw eggs and mix. Combine with porridge when it is almost ready, and hold on fire for another 5 minutes.

Soldier's porridge at the stake is often cooked on the basis of buckwheat

From buckwheat

Ingredients:

stew - 1 can;
buckwheat - a glass;
carrots - 1 piece;
onion - 1 onion;
boiling water - 2 cups;
salt.

Cooking order:

Open the can of stew and skim the fat off the top.
Cut carrots into strips, onions into quarters of rings.
Heat the pot, put the fat from the stew into it and fry the onion on it until translucent. Then add carrots and fry until it becomes soft.
Put the stew in the pot and fry until all the moisture has evaporated.
Pour buckwheat, then pour in boiling water and mix. Add salt and cook over low heat until tender.

Cossack kulesh

Ingredients:

millet - 200 grams;
potatoes - 10 tubers;
pork fat - 150 grams;
pork stew - 1 can;
onion - 5 small onions;
salt;
greens;
spices.

Pour water into the pot, put the onions and chopped potatoes (if the potatoes are small - whole), hang over the fire and bring to a boil. As it boils, put the washed millet, salt and continue to cook. When the potatoes and onions are soft, take out a few potatoes and onions, mash them and send them back to the pot.

At the end put the stew, mix everything and add spices and herbs

Barley

This porridge perfectly restores strength, so it is ideal for hiking.

Ingredients:

pearl barley - 0.8 kg;
onions - 2 medium onions;
stew - 2 cans;
garlic - 3 cloves;
carrots - 2 pieces;
cold water - 3 liters;
butter - by eye.

Cooking:

Rinse barley and pour into a dry frying pan, fry until golden brown. This will speed up the cooking of porridge.
When the cereal is ready, pour it into a pot or cauldron and pour water over it. Cook covered until boiling.
In a frying pan, fry chopped onions, carrots, garlic along with stew and spices. When the porridge boils, put the frying into it, mix and cook so that the liquid is completely evaporated.

Remove from heat, let rise and brush with butter

Rice with meat

Proper field porridge - cooked on a fire. This is exactly the most delicious, thanks to the smoke of a fire and an excellent appetite in the fresh air. If desired, you can cook it at home.

Another option for field porridge is rice with pork. Pork can be substituted for beef if desired.

Ingredients:

round rice - 0.8 kg;
boiling water - 4 liters;
vegetable oil - 1 tablespoon;
carrots - 3 pieces;
pork - 1 kilogram;
bay leaf - 3 pieces;
ground black pepper;
salt.

Cooking:

Rinse the meat thoroughly, wipe it with a napkin and cut into small pieces of arbitrary shape.
Cut the onion into half rings, carrots into strips. Wash the rice properly.
Heat a pot or cauldron, pour vegetable oil into it and put onions. Fry over moderate heat for about 2 minutes with constant stirring. After that, put pieces of meat in a pot, add salt and pepper and pour boiling water in an amount of 1.5 liters. Bring to a boil and cook covered over low heat for about 2 hours. If necessary, add another liter of water.
Put carrots and bay onions in a pot and cook for an hour and a half, adding water if necessary. Take out the bay leaf, take a sample, add salt if necessary and add pepper.
Put rice in a pot, add boiling water so that it is 5 cm higher than the food. Now cook over low heat for about 40 minutes, remembering to stir.
Remove the pot from the fire. The liquid should not boil away completely, it should cover the thick by 1 centimeter.
Wrap the bowler and leave for two hours.

Hot stewed porridge can be laid out in bowls

Secrets of field porridge

Camping food is different from home cooking.

A few secrets of delicious kashma on an open fire:

To speed up the process, before going to nature, pour boiling water over the cereal in a thermos to steam it out. Upon arrival, it will only take 10 minutes to cook it. If you are planning a trip with an overnight stay, you can pour the cereal in a bowler hat for the night, wrap it with something warm.
Water for cooking outdoors on a fire will require more water than at home on the stove. For a glass of cereal, you can take 3-4 glasses of water. Less water is needed for pre-steamed porridge.
Grains should be put in already boiled water and boiled, stirring constantly. If the cereal was steamed, you do not need to interfere with it, but simply wait until it boils.
Water must be salted in advance.
The pot must be hung strictly above the flame so that the porridge is evenly boiled.

Field porridge is not as difficult to prepare as it might seem at first glance. The main thing is to follow the basic rules and treat the matter with a soul.

One of the surprisingly tasty and quick-to-cook dishes that “came” to us from Ukrainian cuisine is millet kulesh. Its recipe is so popular that it is ahead of him in terms of popular love, perhaps, only Ukrainian borscht.

The Cossacks were the first to prepare kulesh in their long-distance campaigns. Due to the monotony of provisions, it was necessary to come up with a tasty, satisfying and nutritious dish "in haste". This is how the recipe for kulesh appeared, which does not require time, culinary skills and any special conditions for preparing the dish.

Currently, kulesh is an obligatory attribute of any hike or friendly gatherings around the fire. But even in your own kitchen you can cook a dish that will not differ in any way from the “camping” option. Today we will look at both methods of cooking: on the stove and on the fire.

Kulesh. Recipe for cooking at home

The classic recipe includes only two main ingredients: millet and lard. But if you wish, you can diversify the recipe with other products: potatoes, meat, mushrooms, vegetables, fresh herbs, etc.

Essential Ingredients for a Classic Recipe

Need to prepare:

100 g of millet.
A couple of small bulbs.
200 g of salted fat.
5 potatoes.
Carrot - 1 pc.
Spices.
Fresh greens.

Still need water - 2 liters.

How to cook

We set a pot with two liters of water on a strong fire and wait for the liquid to boil. At this time, it is necessary to rinse the cereal. Pour millet into a deep plate and substitute it under the tap. Pour half the volume of water and begin to drain it little by little from one end so that the millet does not float away with the water. Pour water again, washing millet. For two or three washings, the croup completely gets rid of unnecessary and unnecessary impurities and dust.

It is important to remember that any recipe for making kulesh requires adding grits only to boiling water. Simultaneously with the cereal, a pinch of salt and bay leaf are added. Cooking time for cereals is about 20 minutes.

Before the end of the cooking time, add the potato cubes to the pan. Now you can reduce the fire and simmer the dish until cooked.

While the potatoes are languishing, you can start cooking frying. For the kulesh recipe, you will need one onion and one small carrot. Vegetables are cut into small cubes. Put the pork fat cut into long sticks in a frying pan. Fry it until a crispy dark brown crust appears. Now you can add vegetables to the fat. As soon as they are golden, we shift the contents of the pan into a pan with millet and potatoes.

A couple more minutes, and the fire can be turned off. Serving the dish, you can add one spoonful of sour cream and fresh herbs.

Kulesh with mushrooms and meat

Of course, kulesh is considered real, consisting of a handful of millet, roots and spring water. However, modern chefs have learned how to correctly add other ingredients to this dish that do not spoil it, but only make it more satisfying and tastier.

We offer the second recipe for kulesh. At home, even a novice hostess can cook it. The classic recipe is complemented by fragrant forest mushrooms and hearty pork. And herbs and spices can be added at your discretion and desire.

Ingredients for the dish

Three large potatoes.
240 g mushrooms.
150 g of millet.
Pork - 250 g.
One bulb.
A handful of fresh chopped parsley.
Two liters of water.
Salt.
Spices for meat.
A pinch of ground black pepper.

Also bay leaf.

Cooking method

An old recipe for kulesh required that cereals and roots be cooked in different containers. Today, you can not adapt to traditions and significantly save time on cooking by boiling cereals and potatoes together.

Peel the potatoes and cut them into small cubes. We wash the millet several times in a plate filled with running water. We send cereals and vegetables to cook over high heat for ten minutes. Do not forget to throw a couple of bay leaves, peppercorns and a pinch of salt into the pan. After we reduce the fire on the stove and simmer the kulesh for another fifteen minutes.

While potatoes and millet will be cooked on one burner, put a frying pan on the other and fry onion with meat and mushrooms on it. If store-bought frozen or fresh champignons were taken for the dish, then no cooking is required. If you bought or picked fragrant wild mushrooms for cooking, then it is recommended to boil them for 40-60 minutes before frying.

We send the fried meat, onions and mushrooms to the pan, where the millet has already been cooked and the potatoes have become soft and crumbly. It remains only to turn off the fire, cover the container with a lid and let the dish brew a little. The last step is submission. We put a thick kulesh in portioned plates, flavoring it with a couple of sprigs of fresh parsley and a spoonful of thick homemade sour cream.

Kulesh at the stake

A separate topic is a real camping kulesh cooked in a pot on a fire. A recipe with a photo will help novice housewives cook the dish correctly. It should be noted that the cooking process will be slightly different from the home version. Since there is no way to place several containers of brew at once on a fire, you have to adapt to the situation.

Necessary products for a camping bag

Take with you:

220 g of millet.
2 pcs. Luke.
1 PC. - carrot.
4 things. - potato.
Pork fat - 200 g.
Green onions with feathers, parsley, dill - any greens that are at hand.
Salt.
Spices.

You will also need a bay leaf.

Description of the cooking process

Perhaps, you should not focus on the process of collecting firewood, laying out a fire, starting a fire and forming an impromptu stove. Let's just say that the heat under the pot should be strong enough in the first stages of cooking.

So, since we don’t have several burners on hand, on which we could cook and fry food at the same time, we slightly change the recipe for kulesh. We begin the cooking process not with cooking cereals, but with frying lard. Cut the lard into small cubes and put them on the bottom of the pot. As soon as the fat gives fat, add finely chopped onions and carrots to it. At this point, do not go far from the fire, as a strong, almost uncontrollable fire under the pot roasts everything very quickly. Stir the cracklings and vegetables constantly.

As soon as the frying is ready, pour water into the pot and pour out the millet. Mix thoroughly and close the lid. Cook the cereal for about fifteen minutes. During this time, it will be possible to peel and cut into cubes potatoes. We make the fire under the pot a little less (removing or simply pushing some of the burning coals to the side) and put the potatoes in the dishes. In a small heat, we simmer the dish for about 10-15 minutes, remove the pot from the fire, pour a large amount of fresh herbs into the container and, closing the lid again, let it rest and brew a little.

"Delicious" facts

In some traditional families, vegetables and meat ingredients are boiled separately and millet is cooked separately. At the last moment, the ingredients are combined, and the fire is immediately turned off.
The dish is a fairly thick and rich soup. Tasty and satisfying kulesh can replace the second and first course.
According to tradition, lard must be present in the recipe for millet kulesh, but recently culinary specialists have replaced it with sausages, beef fat or chicken fillet.
Chilled kulesh can be stored in the refrigerator for more than two days.
If you want to cook a lean dish, then instead of bacon, mushrooms are put in the kulesh, and frying is done without adding oil.