The Pantry / Buckwheat Flour
Buckwheat Flour
Fagopyrum esculentum · phapar ko pitho · kuttu ka atta
A crop for ground too high and too poor for wheat.
What it is
Buckwheat is not wheat and not a grass. It is the seed of a plant related to rhubarb, milled into a pale grey flour flecked darker where the hull has gone through. It has no gluten, so a dough made from it will not stretch, and it tears where a wheat dough would give. It smells faintly green and nutty, and stale buckwheat flour goes dusty and flat, so it is worth smelling before you buy.
Where it comes from
It grows fast on poor ground at altitude and tolerates a short season, and that has made it a mountain crop from the Himalaya to the Alps to Japan. In this zone it belongs to Bhutan's Bumthang valley and the higher Nepali hills, where wheat struggles.
What it's called
Phapar (Nepali) · kuttu (Hindi) · soba (Japanese, for the noodles). Botanically Fagopyrum esculentum. The bitter Tartary buckwheat, Fagopyrum tataricum, gives the sharper high-altitude version.
In the kitchen
Whisked thin with water and poured onto a griddle it makes phapar ko roti, which is closer to a crepe than a bread; rest the batter ten minutes first or it cooks gritty and tears when you turn it. Worked with boiling water it makes the dough for hoentay and kanchemba. Pressed through a die it makes puta, the Bumthang noodle, though pressing it at home takes a press and real strength.
What we know about the claims
Naturally gluten-free, provided it is milled in a gluten-free facility, and that is its most useful property for a modern kitchen. It is also a complete protein, unusually for a plant, and the rutin in it has a long reputation for circulation that the evidence treats cautiously.
Choosing and buying
Any health food shop, large supermarket or online mill in the UK, and any natural foods store in the US. Buy plain buckwheat flour, not a self-raising blend. Look for a pale grey colour and a nutty smell. For puta, Japanese soba with the highest buckwheat percentage you can find is the sensible route, since cheap soba is mostly wheat.