Kulesh front-line recipe. Soldier's food, kulesh. Kulesh on the fire

Kulesh

Kulesh is a dish not of Russian cuisine, but found most often 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 Stavropol region, as well as in the border regions adjacent to Russia in the southeastern and eastern parts of the Ukrainian lands, that is, practically in Sloboda Ukraine and here and there on the border of the Chernigov and Bryansk regions. There is, however, one fairly accurate linguistic-phonetic way to establish the distribution area of kulesh as a dish. It is prepared and eaten mainly by the population who speak “inverted”, that is, a mixture of Ukrainian and Russian, or distorted Russian with some Ukrainian words and a general “woof” 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. Köles (Koles) in Hungarian - millet, millet. And millet cereal is 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 it is called kulish. Therefore, in the 19th century, when the word “kulesh” first appeared in Russian dictionaries, no one knew how to spell this word correctly. Sometimes they wrote kulesh through “e”, sometimes 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, right up to the 1917 revolution, it was written this way and that way: they never managed to establish a firm spelling for it. All this indirectly influenced the fact that kulesh, not only as a word, but also as a dish, was not widespread in Russia.

This word was first recorded in the Russian language in 1629, which convincingly suggests that it was brought to Russia either by Polish invaders of the Time of Troubles, or by Little Russian peasants who came from Ukraine and Southern Russia with the rebel troops of Ivan Bolotnikov. Kulesh as a dish was a mush, and porridges and mush as simple, primitive and quick-cooking dishes have always and in all countries constituted the main diet of armies. After all, they could be cooked in cauldrons, on fires, in field conditions, and it was this technology that doomed kulesh to the fact that it became 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 porridges as dishes are primitive and the technology for 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 low-nutritive dish, which can cause an extremely dangerous effect - rapid boring and, as a consequence, a decrease in the combat effectiveness of troops and their indignation. Nevertheless, no army can refuse to use porridges, including kulesh, because only porridges can provide 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, while remaining 90-95% unchanged, should be enriched with components that, without changing the cooking technology, can significantly change the taste range, deceive the human senses 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 the layout.

What does this art consist of? How is the taste mirage of porridges, including kulesh, achieved?

The first condition: introduce a strong spicy-flavoring component that can radically change the bland nature of the grain base. In practice, this means that you need to include onions first, and as much as possible, at least to the limit of economic profitability.

The second condition: if possible and due to the talent of this or that cook, you can add to the onion those spicy-flavoring herbs that can be found at hand and which will complement, highlight, and not conflict with the onion. These are parsley, angelica (angelica), lovage, hyssop, leek, bulb, wild garlic. The choice, as we see, is quite wide. And all these herbs, as a rule, grow in a wild or cultivated state in 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 oil. Therefore, in quantitative terms, no prescription restrictions are provided in this case. But what is usually added to kulesh is not butter, but lard - in any form: melted, lard, salted, smoked, deep-fried. Usually cracklings are made from salted lard and added to the almost finished kulesh along with the melted, liquid part of the lard, always hot.

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

It’s also a good idea 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 to change its characteristic millet taste.

If all these various additions are made in moderation, with good culinary tact, then kulesh can really be turned into a very attractive and original-tasting dish, especially if you prepare it occasionally and to the point, that is, in accordance with the time of year, the weather, the mood of the person for whom it is intended. Kulesh is especially good in winter, early spring and damp, chilly autumn, in rainy inclement weather. As for the time of day, it is best suited for breakfast, before a long journey or hard work. Eating kulesh at night is a bit difficult.

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

And now, for those who would like to repeat Oborinsky kulesh, we include, 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 when preparing them for cooking, cooking, and especially when flavoring.

During all these three main operations, thoroughness, attentiveness and significant labor costs are required; sloppiness and laziness are contraindicated. Of course, the old woman who prepared kulesh for Oborin and his friends had all the necessary qualities due to her age, experience as a cook and the responsibility that only people of the pre-war era possessed.

Preparation

Rinse the 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 any remaining clogs.

Boil water, lightly salt it.

Preparation

Pour the cleaned 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 making sure that the cereal does not boil and the water becomes cloudy, then drain the water.

After draining the first water, add a little boiling water, finely chopped onion, a little finely chopped carrots or pumpkin (you can also use any vegetable with a neutral, bland taste - rutabaga, turnips, kohlrabi) and cook (boil, simmer) over moderate heat until the water has completely boiled and boiling grain.

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

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

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

If there is no lard, then as a last resort you can use sunflower oil, but only after thoroughly heating it and frying at least a small amount (50-100 g) of some fatty pork sausage in it. In this case, the kulesh will receive both the necessary impregnation with fat and the smell of lard, so characteristic and necessary for the real taste of this dish.

If all the specified conditions are met carefully, then the kulesh should turn out very tasty, pleasant, and memorable.

Products

Millet - 1 glass

3 onions

Milk (and curdled milk): 0.5-1 cup

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

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

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

Add the broth after pre-cooking the porridge in plenty of water.

It is better to boil the potatoes separately and add them to the porridge as a puree. 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 desired: they can add duck, goose or chicken offal (very finely chopped, boiled with broth), sometimes mushrooms, raw yolks (in mashed potatoes) , boiled grated yolks. Fats are also varied: everything that is available goes into the krupnik little by little - one or two spoons of sour cream, a spoonful of melted butter, a piece of lard or sausage (Krakow or Poltava, homemade, fatty).

In a word, kulesh is not a dish with a rigid recipe, a dish that is open to culinary imagination, a dish that is convenient for using all the “waste” or “surplus”, “residues” of fats, meat, vegetables, which can always be put to good use in the kulesh, benefit and with improved taste of this composite, combined dish.

That is why kulesh was generally considered to be a dish of the poor people, commoners, and if you have culinary imagination and knowledge of technology, you can turn this simple dish into a satisfying, excellent-tasting, memorable dish.

And here are the memories of the 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 Karelo-Finnish SSR G. N. Kupriyanov:

“In the early morning of June 29, 1944, halfway between Suna and Shuya, a halt was made near a stream. The soldiers took out crackers and canned food from 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 have a snack, everyone smiled guiltily and answered that they didn’t feel like eating at all.

Then the soldier sitting next to me handed me a large cracker. Others followed him, offering to try their crackers. I ate the crackers with pleasure and 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. It also brought four correspondents from different newspapers and a newsreel cameraman.

My driver Dima Makeev turned out to be smarter than the adjutants. While they were waiting to cross the Suna, he found a dented aluminum pan abandoned by someone in the village, quickly fixed it on a stump of a log, then got several kilograms of potatoes and two loaves of white bread from the sappers' supplies and cooked the potatoes with canned meat, which he always had lying around. us under the seat in the jeep like NZ. Dima fed me and the correspondents excellently.

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

They brought out several jugs of milk and a stack of thin Karelian pies, spread with mashed potatoes with milk and eggs. Locally they are called “wickets”. We didn’t feel like eating anymore, but we drank a glass of milk with pleasure and, so as not to offend the hospitable hosts, we tried the gates.”

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

Field porridge over a fire does not lose its significance in our time. This universal dish, in which almost anything is put, is very popular among tourists, hunters and fishermen. It is very convenient to cook it on a camping trip in a pot: you don’t need to prepare different dishes, all the products feel great in one dish, which combines both the soup and the second dish.

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

Classic version

For field porridge you need a lot of products:

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

Preparation:

Wash and soak the millet in advance so that it cooks faster. When soaked, its cooking time will be the same as that of potatoes.
, install a tripod over it and hang the pot.
Cut the lard into pieces and place in a pot to melt and form cracklings.
Add finely chopped onion, sweet pepper, spices to the pot with lard and fry.
Pour in water and add 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. If necessary, add water to cover the contents of the pot. Cover the dish with a lid and cook until the potatoes and millet are completely cooked. Periodically lift the lid and stir.

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

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

Soldatskaya

Ingredients:

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

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

Soldier's porridge over a campfire is often prepared using buckwheat.

From buckwheat

Ingredients:

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

Preparation procedure:

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

Cossack kulesh

Ingredients:

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

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

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

Pearl barley

This porridge perfectly restores strength, so it is ideal as a hiking meal.

Ingredients:

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

Preparation:

Wash the pearl barley and pour it into a dry frying pan, fry until golden brown. This will speed up the cooking of the porridge.
When the cereal is ready, pour it into a kettle or cauldron and fill it with water. Cook covered until boiling.
In a frying pan, fry chopped onions, carrots, garlic along with stew and spices. When the porridge boils, add the frying mixture to it, stir and cook until the liquid has completely evaporated.

Remove from heat, let sit and spread with butter.

From rice with meat

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

Another version of field porridge is rice with pork. Pork can be replaced with 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.

Preparation:

Wash 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. Rinse the rice thoroughly.
Heat a pot or cauldron, pour vegetable oil into it and add onions. Fry over moderate heat for about 2 minutes, stirring constantly. After this, place the pieces of meat into the pot, add salt and pepper and add 1.5 liters of boiling water. Bring to a boil and cook covered over low heat for about 2 hours. If necessary, add another liter of water.
Place the carrots and bay onions in the pot and cook for an hour and a half, adding water if necessary. Take out the bay leaf, take a sample, add salt and pepper if necessary.
Place the rice in the 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 completely boil away; it should cover the grounds by 1 centimeter.
Wrap the pot and leave for two hours.

Hot stewed porridge can be placed in bowls

Secrets of field porridge

Cooking camp food is different from cooking at home.

A few secrets of delicious porridge over an open fire:

To speed up the process, before heading out into nature, pour boiling water over the cereal in a thermos so that it steams. Upon arrival, you only need to cook it for 10 minutes. If you are planning an overnight trip, you can pour the cereal in a pot overnight and wrap it in something warm.
Cooking outdoors over a fire will require more water than at home on a stove. You can take 3-4 glasses of water per glass of cereal. Pre-steamed porridge requires less water.
The cereal should be placed in already boiled water and cooked, stirring constantly. If the cereal has been steamed, there is no need to stir it, but just wait until it boils.
The water must be salted in advance.
The pot must be hung strictly above the flame so that the porridge cooks evenly.

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 soul.

Speaking about the cost of the Great Victory, which we achieved 70 years ago through unimaginable efforts, it is customary to remember human lives cut short by the war, military equipment lost in bloody battles, numerous destroyed houses and buildings. In honor of the anniversary of the Great Victory, we decided to recall the feat of Soviet soldiers, which usually remains in the shadows - daily life at the front. 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 among 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. Kulesh, as befits field kitchen recipes, is very simple to prepare, and its consistency resembles either thin porridge or thick soup.

Ingredients

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

Cooking method

If meat is used to prepare a dish, then first you need to separate it from the bones, then boil them for 15 minutes in boiling water. Then remove the bones from the pan, and add 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 frying pan along with the meat removed from the bones for 15 minutes. After this, 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 deprivations of the war were also felt in the rear. But 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 is popularly called Solyanka “Rear”.

Ingredients

Sauerkraut - 0.5 kg
Potatoes - 0.5 kg
Water
Onions - 2-3 pcs.
Bay leaf - 2-3 pcs
Pepper, salt - to taste

Cooking method

Place sauerkraut and diced potatoes in a container with thick walls. The classic recipe used a cast iron pot that was placed in the oven, but we will use more modern utensils, such as a vat or a regular saucepan. Having placed the main ingredients in a container, fill the contents with water so that it covers the cabbage-potato mixture, and put the pan on low heat. Our dish will be stewed for 40 minutes, and 5 minutes before it’s ready, add onions cut into half rings and lightly fried in a frying pan, a couple of bay leaves and spices to taste. When the dish is ready, you need to turn off the heat, cover it with a lid and a thick towel and leave to simmer for 15 minutes.

Porridge with garlic

At the front, for obvious reasons, affordable, easy-to-prepare, and maximally healthy products were popular. This is why recipes using grains and garlic were so often prepared.

Ingredients

Millet - 1 glass
Water - 3 glasses
Sunflower oil
Garlic - to taste
Onion - 0.5 onions
Salt, pepper - to taste

Cooking method

Fry the onion in vegetable oil. Fill the cereal with cold water and put it on the fire. As soon as the water boils, add the frying agent, 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 steams. The porridge turns out aromatic, soft and tender.

"Makalovka"

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

Ingredients

Frozen stew - 300 gr
Onions - 1 pc.
Carrots - 1 pc.
Lard or sunflower oil - for frying
Bread

Cooking method

The frozen stew, which had stood for a good few hours in the night frost, was carefully chopped with a knife. Heat vegetable oil or lard in a frying pan, finely chop carrots and onions and fry everything together for 5-7 minutes. Then the stew was added to the vegetables and, if necessary, the mixture was filled with a small amount of water to make it stew better. After 7-10 minutes, the “dipping” is ready. And it is called that because they used it by dipping bread into the mixture and placing it on top of a slice.

Soldier's bread

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

Ingredients

Bran - 0.5 kg
Potatoes - 0.5 kg
Salt - to taste

Cooking method

First, you need to boil the potatoes in their skins, peel them, and pass them through a meat grinder to get the so-called dry mashed potatoes. Then place the resulting mass on a baking sheet, previously sprinkled with a small amount of bran. The potatoes will cool for a few minutes, after which you need to add the remaining bran, add salt and quickly knead the dough. Grease a baking dish with vegetable oil, put the mixture in it and bake in the oven until done for an hour at a not very high temperature.

Sandwich “Frontline”

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

Ingredients

Lard - 300-400 gr
Onion - 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 placed in a pot 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. To prepare it, dried carrots were used, prepared using 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 infusing for 5-10 minutes. Carrots gave the tea a sweetish taste, and gave the soldiers an additional boost of energy and benefit to the immune system.

Military cocktail

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

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

The Cossacks were the first to start preparing kulesh on their long campaigns. Due to the monotony of the provisions, it was necessary to come up with a tasty, satisfying and nutritious dish “in a hurry.” This is how the recipe for kulesh appeared, which does not require time, culinary skills or 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 prepare a dish that will be no different from the “camping” version. Today we will look at both cooking methods: on the stove and over the fire.

Kulesh. Homemade recipe

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.

Necessary ingredients for the classic recipe

You need to prepare:

100 g millet.
A couple of small onions.
200 g salted lard.
5 potatoes.
Carrots - 1 pc.
Spices.
Fresh greens.

You also need water - 2 liters.

How to cook

Place a saucepan with two liters of water over high heat and wait for the liquid to boil. At this time, it is necessary to rinse the cereal. Pour the millet into a deep plate and place it under the tap. Pour in half the volume of water and begin to drain it little by little from one edge so that the millet does not float away with the water. Pour water again, rinsing the millet. In two or three washes, the cereal is completely rid of excess and unnecessary impurities and dust.

It is important to remember that any recipe for making kulesh requires adding cereal only to boiling water. At the same time as the cereal, add a pinch of salt and a bay leaf. The cooking time for the cereal is about 20 minutes.

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

While the potatoes are simmering, you can start preparing the frying. For the kulesh recipe you will need one onion and one small carrot. Vegetables are cut into small cubes. Place lard, cut into long pieces, into a frying pan. Fry it until a crispy dark brown crust appears. Now you can add vegetables to the lard. As soon as they turn golden, transfer the contents of the frying pan into a pan with millet and potatoes.

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

Kulesh with mushrooms and meat

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

We offer a second recipe for kulesh. Even a novice housewife can prepare it at home. The classic recipe is complemented by aromatic wild 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 millet.
Pork - 250 g.
One onion.
A handful of fresh chopped parsley.
Two liters of water.
Salt.
Spices for meat.
A pinch of ground black pepper.

And also bay leaf.

Cooking method

The ancient recipe for kulesh required that cereals and roots be boiled 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. Send the cereal and vegetables to cook over high heat for ten minutes. Don't forget to throw a couple of bay leaves, peppercorns and a pinch of salt into the pan. Then turn down the heat on the stove and simmer the kulesh for another fifteen minutes.

While the potatoes and millet are cooking on one burner, put a frying pan on another and fry the onions, meat and mushrooms on it. If store-bought frozen or fresh champignons were used for the dish, then no cooking is required. If you bought or personally picked aromatic wild mushrooms for cooking, then it is recommended to boil them for 40-60 minutes before frying.

Place the fried meat, onions and mushrooms in a pan where the millet has already been cooked and the potatoes have become soft and crumbly. All that remains is to turn off the heat, cover the container with a lid and let the dish brew for a while. The last stage is submission. We put thick kulesh into portioned plates, flavoring it with a couple of sprigs of fresh parsley and a spoonful of thick homemade sour cream.

Kulesh on the fire

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

Necessary products for a hiking kulesh

Take with you:

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

You will also need a bay leaf.

Description of the cooking process

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

So, since we do not have several burners on hand on which we could simultaneously cook and fry food, we slightly change the recipe for kulesh. We begin the cooking process not by cooking the cereal, but by frying the lard. Cut the lard into small cubes and place them on the bottom of the pot. As soon as the lard produces fat, add finely chopped onions and carrots to it. At this moment, do not move far from the fire, as the strong, almost uncontrollable fire under the pot fries everything very quickly. Stir the cracklings and vegetables constantly.

As soon as the frying is ready, pour water into the pot and pour in the millet. Mix thoroughly and cover with a lid. Cook the cereal for about fifteen minutes. During this time, you can peel and cut the potatoes into cubes. Make the fire under the pot a little smaller (by removing or simply pushing some of the burning coals to the side) and put the potatoes in the bowl. Simmer the dish over low heat 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 for a while.

"Tasty" facts

In some traditional families, vegetables and meat ingredients are cooked 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. A tasty and satisfying kulesh can replace the second and first courses.
Traditionally, the recipe for millet kulesh must contain lard, but recently chefs have been replacing 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 prepare a lean dish, then instead of lard, mushrooms are placed in the kulesh, and frying is done without adding oil.

Information found on the Internet: Historical background: Kulesh is not a dish of Russian cuisine, but is found most often in the southern Russian regions, on the border of Russia and Ukraine. There is one fairly accurate linguistic-phonetic way to establish the distribution area of kulesh as a dish. It is prepared and eaten mainly by the population who speak inverted, i.e. in a mixture of Ukrainian and Russian. The word “kulesh” itself is of Hungarian origin. Köles (Koeles) in Hungarian - millet, millet. This dish was first recorded in the Russian language (and everyday life) in 1629, which convincingly suggests that it was brought to Russia either by Polish invaders of the Time of Troubles, or by Little Russian peasants who came from Ukraine and Southern Russia with the rebel troops of Ivan Bolotnikov . Kulesh as a dish was a mush, and porridges and mush as simple, primitive and quick-cooking dishes have always and in all countries constituted the main diet of armies. After all, they could be cooked in cauldrons, on fires, in field conditions - and it was this technology that doomed kulesh to the fact that it became a traditional army, soldier, unpresentable and cheap dish, or in other words - a dish of war and mass popular movements.

Porridges as dishes are primitive. This means that there is a huge risk of getting a monotonous, bland, viscous, tasteless and poorly nutritious dish, which, when supplied to the troops, can quickly become boring. And as a consequence - a decrease in the combat effectiveness of the troops and their indignation.

A purely culinary way out of this contradiction was found: the grain base, while remaining 90-95% unchanged, should be enriched with components that are capable of deceiving human senses and thereby making the porridge dish not only acceptable, but also tasty, and perhaps even desired. Everything depends not only on the individual skill of the cook, but also on his culinary talent and intuition. How is the “taste mirage” of porridges, including kulesh, achieved?

The first condition: add a strong spicy-flavoring component. In practice, this means that you need to include onions in the dish first of all, and as much as possible, at least to the limit of economic profitability.

The second condition: if possible and due to the talent of this or that cook, you can add to the onion those spicy-flavoring herbs that can be found at hand and which will complement and highlight the onion, and will not conflict with it. These are parsley, angelica (angelica), lovage, hyssop, leek, bulb, wild garlic. The choice, as we see, is quite wide.

The third condition: in order to reduce the unpleasant stickiness and viscosity and increase the nutritional value of the porridge, fats must be added to it. As you know, you can’t spoil porridge with oil. But what is usually added to kulesh is not butter, but lard - in any form: melted, lard, salted, smoked, deep-fried. Usually cracklings are made from salted lard and added to the almost finished kulesh along with the melted, liquid part of the lard, always very hot.

Fourthly, you can add to the kulesh, for even greater variety in taste, a small amount of finely chopped fried meat or minced meat, either fresh meat or corned beef. These additives may be tiny in weight, almost invisible to the eye, but they, as a rule, greatly influence the change and enrichment of the taste of kulesh.

Fifthly, to diversify the taste of kulesh, it is recommended to add either finely diced potatoes to the millet during cooking, or immediately mashed potatoes prepared separately.

Sixth, it’s a good idea to add pea flour or boiled, grated peas.

If all these various additions do not exceed 10 - 15% of the total mass of kulesh, and are done in moderation, with good culinary tact, then kulesh can really be turned into a very attractive and original-tasting dish, especially if you cook it occasionally and to the point, in accordance with the time of year, the weather and the mood of the eaters.

As for the time of year, kulesh is good in winter, early spring and especially in damp, chilly autumn. As for the time of day, it is best suited for breakfast, before a long journey or hard work.

It’s hard to eat kulesh at night.

Millet (millet) is considered a low-value grain, and therefore millet (millet) porridges require extreme attention when preparing them for cooking, cooking, and especially when flavoring.

During all these three main operations, thoroughness, attentiveness and significant labor costs are required, sloppiness and laziness are STRICTLY contraindicated.

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

If there is no lard, then as a last resort you can use sunflower oil, but only after thoroughly heating it and frying at least a small amount (50 - 100 g) of some fatty pork sausage in it. In this case, the kulesh will receive both the necessary impregnation with fat and the smell of lard, so characteristic and necessary for the real taste of this dish.

If all the specified conditions are met carefully, then the kulesh should turn out very tasty.