Tag Archives: cottage cheese

Sweet Galette

From time to time everyone of us have come across special moments, which we enjoy. What about baking or probably preparing a hearty stew or a pie, which recipe was received from mother or grandmother, or trying something new. It’s hard to explain, but there is something magical, sense of happiness and satisfaction, when I’m making dough for a pie, baking. I adore making pastry, especially when much time is not required to make it. Like short pastry, you need only four ingredients to get smooth, buttery pastry.

Simple, but beautiful, always delicious, with apples or apricots, it’s all about Galette. I’m so excited that this crusty cake one day came into my life! I still remember my very first galette, it was sweet galette filled with mix of wild berries, and it’s turned out so tasty and delightful, that I couldn’t expect more. Since then I’ve experimented with various fillings, tried savory galettes too; and I’m sure now that it’s almost impossible to choose the favorite one, I love them all! My fellow-bloggers don’t drop back, just look at aromatic galette from Seana @cottagegrovehouse, I almost can feel sweet-smelling scent of apricots! Or another delicate grape galette from Suzanne @apuginthekitchen, it can be a great weekend brunch with a glass of crispy rosé!

A couple of weeks back I bought sweet cherries from Iran and was nearly to eat them all at once. 😀 I had in a fridge few cherries and peaches. So, all those goodies I put in galette on a bed of cottage cheese, and folded in rich nutty pastry! Yummilicious!

Sweet Galette

Servings: 5-6
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You can divide the pastry into 2 partss to make 2 small galettes with different filling

Walnut Short Pastry

170g/6oz all-purpose flour

120g/4.2oz butter

50g/2Tbsp walnuts, roasted and finely chopped

1/2 Tbsp caster sugar

a pinch of salt

50ml cold water

Put flour, sugar, salt, walnuts, and butter in a big bowl. Rub ingredients together until breadcrumbs. Add water and mix until the dough is formed. Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes. You can keep the pastry in a fridge up to 3 days.

Filling

2 peaches, cut into wedges

few cherries

100-200g soft cottage cheese/farm cheese/ricotta

50-70g brown/raw or white sugar

1 egg, yolk and white separated

1 Tbsp brown or demerara sugar

Method

For the filling, beat sugar with cottage cheese with a spoon or hand whisker, then add egg white and beat.

On a lightly floured table, roll out the pastry into 30cm/12inch circle.

Place cottage mixture in the middle of the pastry and spread evenly. Arrange peaches and cherries as desired. Sprinkle with some brown/demerara sugar. Brush pastry all over with egg yolk.

Bake in preheated 190C/370F oven for 45-50 minutes or until the pastry is golden.

Enjoy!

If you like peaches, have a look here to get the recipe of amazing cake!

Syrniki

Syrniki are fried pancakes, which are made from cottage cheese and traditionally garnished with a sour cream. They are very popular and widely-cooked not only in Russia, also in Ukraine, Belarus and Poland. The word ‘syrniki’ is derived from Russian word ‘syr’ which means cheese.

The main ingredients are cottage cheese, flour, eggs, sugar, sometimes raisins and vanilla. Commonly syrniki are eaten for freakfast, but could be served as a dessert.

You can find a great variety of syrniki recipes, in one you should add one egg, in another three, in third just few spoons of flour or semolina flour, and etc. Finally, it doesn’t matter which recipe you’re using, just adjust it to suit your own taste.

TIPS:

Flour and sugar. One adds only few tablespoons of flour, in such option, might be difficult to shape syrniki and turn them over during frying, as they will be soft, but at the same time tender and creamy. Amount of sugar is totally depends on your preferences.

Filling. Raisins and vanilla are most popular ingredients for the syrniki filling, but you can go further – add cinnamon, dried apricots, plums or cherries, lemon or orange zest.

Dressing. Sour cream, jam and sweet condensed milk are the most favourite toppings for syrniki. If you neither like the one nor the other, make berry or chocolate sauce, or just dust it with icing sugar, or pour over some honey, add dulce de leche…

You can fry syrniki on a moderate heat in a frying pan for 5 minutes on each site or until golden-brown (using few tablespoons of sunflower oil). I propose you the recipe of an oven-baked syrniki, which is much better and healthier, as you don’t need to use oil.

Russian Syrniki

Servings: 3-4
Time: 30-40min
Difficulty: easy
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Ingredients:

Cottage cheese, 500g

Eggs, 2

Sugar, 2-4 Tbsp

Flour, 50-80g

a pinch of salt

Semolina, 2 Tbsp

Vanilla sugar or extract, 1 tsp, optional

Raisins/sultanas, 50g

Preparation:

In a small bowl or mug, put raisins, cover with warm water and let it soak, meanwhile you do all below steps. Optionally, you can add a tablespoon of cognac, brandy or rum along with water for an extra flavor. Then pour the water out and wipe raisins.
In a large bowl, combine eggs, sugar and vanilla together and beat well until pale color (use hand whisk or electric mixer).
Add flour, semolina, salt, raisins, and combine well.
Shape beautiful syrniki -about 5cm/2inch in diameter and 1cm/0.5inch wide.
Arrange syrniki on a greased baking tray and bake in preheated 200C/400F oven for 20-25 minutes or until nice golden color.
Serve warm with a dollop of sour cream.
You can keep all remaining syrniki in a fridge, and reheat them next morning.

Syrniki are so delicious that I could eat them every other morning. Cooking of syrniki is highly recommended as alternative to regular pancakes! 🙂

Enjoy! ❤

Cabbage casserole with farmer cheese

White cabbage is widely used vegetable in Russia, it’s eaten raw in salads, pickled to eat during the winter and braised in various stews.

Nowadays it’s pretty popular to eat healthy dishes, such as cauliflower soup, sautéed Brussels sprout, fish with broccoli and etc. It seems like everybody forgets about this simple beauty – the white cabbage.

Even Greek philosopher Pythagoras said: “It is a vegetable, that helps to have a courage and cheerful mood”. In ancient Russia it was a belief, that if one has a headache, they should cover their temples with cabbage leaves to release the pain.

The below recipe is a very simple dish with a modern twist, using fresh ricotta and your favorite cheese. It could be eaten alone or as a nice side dish. A must try! 🙂

Cabbage casserole with farmer cheese

Servings: 4
Time: ~2h
Difficulty: not too tricky
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Adapted from Russian magazine ‘The school of gastronomy’

Ingredients:

400-500g white cabbage, thinly sliced

1 small onion, sliced

100-150g fresh homemade ricotta/cottage cheese/farmer cheese

60g any grated cheese + 1Tbsp for the top (Emmental/Gouda/Red Cheddar)

1Tbsp Parmesan cheese for the top, optionally

2 big or 3 small eggs, whites and yolks separated

40g butter

50g flour

400ml milk (preferably low fat)

2Tbsp bread crumbs, homemade

pinch of nutmeg, cumin

1Tbsp fresh chopped dill or 1tsp dried

salt, white pepper to taste

1Tbsp olive oil+1Tbsp butter for frying

Preparation:

1) First, make the sauce. Melt the butter in a small saucepan and turn the heat to low. Sift the flour into the butter, stirring continuously to combine them. Add the milk a little at a time. Cook for 8 minutes more, stirring continuously until the sauce becomes thicker. Remove the saucepan from the stove and let it cool.

2) Meanwhile, put olive oil, butter and onion in a pan, and fry for 4 minutes. Add cumin and fry for 1 minute more.

Add the cabbage, sprinkle with dill and stir fry for 10-15 minutes. Transfer the cabbage into big bowl.

3) Add egg yolks into the sauce, one at a time, nutmeg and combine thoroughly.

4) Pour the sauce into the cabbage, add cheese, ricotta, salt, white pepper and give it a good stir.

5) Beat egg whites with a pinch of salt until foamy, then carefully combine with cabbage mixture.

6) Grease the baking pan with butter, sprinkle with bread crumbs, add the cabbage mixture and sprinkle with cheese. Bake in preheated oven 180C/360F for 40 minutes.

7) Serve warm. Enjoy!

Winter cake with red berries

Red berries and cheese make this cake a frequent guest on my table during the winter. 😀 It looks gorgeous and tastes delicious! Perfect for holiday season!

INGREDIENTS

100g butter, very soft at room temperature

150g Philadelphia cheese or smooth cottage cheese

120-140g sugar

2 eggs, at room temperature

130g self-raising flour (or plain flour+ 1tsp baking powder)

2tsp mandarin or orange zest

1tsp lemon zest

200g mix of cranberries, redcurrents and raspberries, fresh or frozen (no need to defreeze)

50-70g flaked almonds

METHOD

Beat the cheese, butter and sugar together.

Add eggs to the batter mixture, one at a time, beating rapidly.

Stir in mandarin&lemon zests.

Sift the flour and mix to combine.

Finally, carefully stir the berries into the batter.

Sprinkle the cake with flaked almonds or your favorite nuts.

Bake in preheated oven 180C/360F during 35-40 minutes.

Bon appetit!

Adapted from this source.

Apple pie with semolina

There are so many things I love about autumn!

Chose a day in our rush-life-time and stop! Stop and look around! You could see many bright colors, that golden fall has brought for you. Browny-orange and fiery red leaves are falling from trees. Gloomy and gray sky. Breeze in! Cooling and lightly burning air.

What an amazing day to bake a warm apple pie! 🙂