This recipe will make my mum happy. She is a big buckwheat fan and she keeps on telling me how healthy it is (she is right) and that I should come up with a buckwheat recipe.

Relatively unknown in certain countries, buckwheat has always been a very popular thing to eat in Poland. In fact, its widespread popularity predates the popularity of potatoes, which most Poles consider to be traditional fare despite the fact that they were completely unknown in Poland until the seventeenth century.

One of our classic buckwheat dishes is a cooked, toasted buckwheat (which has an earthy, slightly nutty flavour), topped with fried egg, wilted spinach and accompanied by a ‘refreshing’ mug of sour milk drink, which is valued for its probiotic quality. I put ‘refreshing’ in brackets as I used to absolutely hate this dish (and the drink in particular) as a child (which did not mean I was allowed not to eat it…) and because of this negative connotation I was not drawn to buckwheat for a very long time.

Now that I’ve finally put that hated dish behind me, my taste buds must have matured a little and I enjoy having buckwheat quite often actually. Especially in winter as it goes so well with the earthy flavours of mushrooms and beetroots, the sweetness of caramelised leeks and a touch of balsamic vinegar.

This buckwheat and beetroot salad is light, high in protein and low in calories, filling and naturally gluten-free too, so it is perfect if you happen to have made any diet-related New Year’s resolutions 😉 . I know I have…