Banosh in Hutsul style

Hutsul cuisine is rich in various interesting and delicious dishes. Today I want to present to your attention one very hearty, incredibly fragrant and very simple dish - banosh in Hutsul style. This dish is an everyday food in every Hutsul family, this dish is cooked very often 3-4 times a week. Until recently, Banosh was considered the food of the poor, which saved the Hutsuls from starvation. Now this dish of corn flour and sour cream has become a traditional dish of Hutsuls and is considered a delicacy.

Ingredients

• Coarse corn flour - 1 cup
• Sour cream 25 - 45% fat - 500 grams
• Whole pasteurized milk 3 - 5% fat - 1 cup
• Lard (neck, cheek or brisket) - 400 g
• Lard pork - 2 tablespoons
• Onions - 1 head
• Sheep cheese - 200 grams
• Salt - 1 teaspoon
• Sugar - 1 teaspoon
• Ground black pepper

Directions

1. For the preparation of this dish did not play a role in the correct choice of products. First, the lard, it should be fresh better than home, the skin should be soft, lard with small layers of meat, roasted with straw. Pork neck, cheek or brisket is most suitable for cooking this dish. Put 400 grams of lard on a cutting board, cut into small pieces with a knife and transfer to a plate. The diameter of the pieces is arbitrary, about 4 by 2 or 5 by 3 centimeters. Now sour cream, stock up on this product should be in advance, three days before cooking banosh, put it in the refrigerator and let it rest there. Just before cooking banosh, take 500 grams of sour cream from the refrigerator and pour into a bowl. Then choose the most important ingredient - corn flour. It should not be large, medium grinding. Pour 1 cup of corn flour into a bowl. One head of onion is cleaned from the skin with a knife, washed under running water and cut on a cutting board into half rings or a large cube. The floor thickness of the rings is up to 5 millimeters, and the diameter of the onion cubes is 1 by 1 centimeter. Transfer the chopped onion to a plate, using a knife. Cheese - of course, for this banosha, it should be sheep, to taste salty, elastic consistency. Two hundred grams of cheese break into small pieces with your hands and put on a plate. We also need 1 cup of whole pasteurized milk to dilute sour cream and 2 tablespoons of lard to fry lard and onions.
2. Turn on the stove to the middle level and put a cast iron deep bowl on it. Put in a cast iron giant 500 grams of sour cream and so that it was not too thick, dilute it with 1 cup of whole distilled milk. Bring the ingredients to a boil and season with 1 teaspoon of salt and 1 teaspoon of sugar without slides. The amount of salt and sugar is not essential, you can put these ingredients to taste, but do not forget that salty cheese. Then take a bowl of cereal and gently, a thin stream pour it into a pot with diluted boiling sour cream, stirring vigorously and without stopping with a wooden spatula.
3. Stir the banosh, non-stop, clockwise until thickened, until drops of fat appear on the surface.
4. Stirring constantly with a wooden spatula, bring the corn flour to full thickening. Banosh is cooked for about 25 to 30 minutes, although it all depends on the quality of flour and sour cream. The finished banosh should lag freely behind the walls of the bowl. Then cover the bowl with a lid, put it in the oven, preheated to 100 degrees, and let the cornmeal swell even more for 5 - 10 minutes. Leave the finished banosh in the switched off oven so that it does not cool down.
5. While the banosh is fully cooked in the stove, cook the lard and onions. On a plate included, on a strong level we put a frying pan, we warm up and we put in it 2 table spoons of lard. When the fat melts, add pieces of pre-chopped lard to the pan and fry them until golden brown. After frying lard fat will be 2 times more, and it should be, because onions have the ability to absorb fat.
6. Add chopped onion to the fried lard, and ground black pepper to taste.
7. Mix the ingredients with a pre-washed wooden spatula, frying the onions on all sides until pink, blue. All ingredients are ready. Take a large flat plate, pour on it cornmeal porridge, put fried pork greaves with onions on top, sprinkle with pieces of cheese and pour the remnants of lard.
8. Banosh in Hutsul style is served only hot in a flat large plate, in layers. The first layer of cornmeal porridge, the second layer of pork greaves fried with onions, the third layer of cheese and the fourth layer of melted lard. Traditionally, this dish is tasted with a glass of whey or sour cream, which perfectly complement the taste of this dish. I hope you enjoyed Hutsul cuisine, and you enjoyed cooking and tasting Hutsul banosh.
10. Bon Appetit!