Breakfast Machanka: Traditional Recipe

I've been wanting to make this recipe for a long time, namely because it sounds so unappealing. For me, its simple and cheap ingredients that lack spice or color conjure up images of poor Slavs living in clapboard homes in company towns in Western Pennsylvania preparing to be lowered into the coal mines. Of course, that's a pretty accurate picture, cause those are the people who actually ate this stuff.

Before I can experiment with "Breakfast Machanka," I had to make it in its original form. Here's the recipe, which comes from my mother's "Dobra Cookbook," a collection of recipes put together in 1977 by the members of the Federated Russian Orthodox Club.

2 cups boiled milk
2 Tbsp. flour
1 egg
1 tsp salt
1 Tbsp butter

Mix flour and egg in 1/2 cup cold milk to a smooth cream. Slowly add the cream to the remaining 1.5 cups boiling milk and stir so it will not turn lumpy. Add salt and cook until thick. Melt the butter in a frying pan. Add Machanka to small bowls, and spoon butter on top. Eat as any hot cereal.

I'm very surprised to say that this stuff is quite good. The texture is smooth, creamy and soothing and is basically a porridge. It had a few lumps in it, but they actually enhanced the feel. As for the flavor, it is a lot like a buttermilk biscuit with butter and salt. I'll definitely be making this again and updating it. It would be fantastic with brown sugar, cinnamon, apples or other fruit, like bananas.

On a related not, I need to find out what "macanka" actually means, because my mother makes a macanka that has tomatoes in it, and the Slovak neighbor of ours from my childhood used to make it with sauerkraut juice and bacon fat, which we would all eat on bread. I'm wondering if machanka means gravy or sauce or something like that. Anyone know?