Isn’t it funny how ingredients have entirely different connotations depending on your context?
In the Anglosphere, cottage cheese is mid-century diet food. Served with grapefruit halves, joyless and tasteless. Richard Nixon’s last White House meal: tinned pineapple slices with an ice-cream scoop of cottage cheese and a glass of milk. Yikes.
Yet in eastern Europe, farmhouse cheeses like cottage cheese and quark are staple inclusions that have nothing to do with weight loss fads. To me, it’s stained with sour cherry jam and washed down with Babushka’s black tea “zavarka” in a saucer. It’s bulking out the filling of Mum’s khachapuri. And, if I’m lucky, it means syrniki – AKA tvorozhniki for breakfast – using up any old dairy in the fridge, but especially cottage cheese, to make our version of ricotta hotcakes.
Of course, context can change over time too; and even western palates are growing fond of this fresh fromage. Cottage cheese has become a feature of some of this year’s most viral recipes, from protein-packed super bowls to two-ingredient GF wraps (the other ingredient is eggs). As a result, many countries are experiencing shortages.
Luckily, there are plenty of uninitiated folk who are seeing the cottage cheese shelf empty and wandering off, without giving a quick glance nearby to find its kissing cousin: quark! Say it like the sound a posh duck would make.
While they’re both fresh cheeses, quark and cottage cheese are made quite differently. Some cottage cheese is cultured to help it set, but it’s more likely to be acidified with vinegar or lemon juice like ricotta. There can be a lot of variation between brands and styles of cottage cheese, depending on where you are in the world.
As this product has traditionally been relegated to the “diet” section of western supermarkets, it’s often made using skim or low-fat milk, which can affect the flavour and make the texture a little more watery. Rather than seeking out a low-fat label like it’s 1985, look for the cheese with the fewest ingredients, keeping an eye out for additions like thickeners and gums, as well as flavourings and salt content.
Quark is always made with Lactobacillus cultures, like yoghurt, along with microbial rennet (as you would for other cheeses). As a result quark changes more in texture and flavour, depending on the season and the milk. I spoke with one of my favourite quark suppliers and they said: “Because we pasteurise low and slow and unhomogenised, our quark is generally smooth – but being small-batch and seasonal, it can change depending on the milk, the weather and, yes, who’s on the tools that day.”
You can probably guess which product is my pick, though you can pretty reliably sub one in for the other the next time you’re inspired to try a “cottage cheese hack” from the internet – including in this recipe. The only difference you might find is that low-fat cottage cheese can get a little weepy and split due to all the thickeners and gums going goopy under heat, so in those recipes, low real estate labels and/or quark are your friend.
For this recipe, I’m taking inspiration from the sweet syrniki Mum makes for breakfast and the savoury pelmeni Dad makes for dinner (bought frozen from the shops then pumped up with caramelised onion, sour cream and dill).
I’ve kept the syrniki super light by treating them more like ricotta gnudi, shaping them, then letting them sit on the gluten-free flour until they form a skin. Because it’s gluten free, you don’t have to worry about overworking the gluten, which means you can really ensure that the ingredients are evenly mixed together. With a diligent fry on either side, the batter then sets while the inside stays tender. The golden onion slices (sweated down low and slow until they change colour) are enriched with sour cream for a simple sweet-savoury-tangy sauce that brings everything together.
Cracked caraway is the surprise hero here, taking these from a simple breakfast stack to a sophisticated dinner dumpling, with notes of Borodinsky rye. Mind you, that’s just my frame of reference. My home economist Jane Grylls visited when we were cooking these and described the eating experience as “Russian dimmies” (that’s dim sum for those outside Australia) because they’re so savoury and satisfying. If you can’t find caraway seeds, fennel seeds will give you a similar enough vibe to save a trip to the shops.
These can be made in advance and reheated to serve, or eaten cold for brunch al desko, so you can nix the paltry pineapple slices and blob of bland forever.
Savoury syrniki with caraway and caramelised onion – recipe
Serves: 4
2 tbsp olive oil, plus extra for frying
40g butter, plus extra for frying
1 brown onion, thinly sliced into half-moons against the grain
½ tsp caraway seeds, or fennel seeds, crushed
¼ tsp salt flakes
1 egg
500g quark (or full-fat cottage cheese)
100g gluten-free self-raising flour, 50g for the syrniki and 50g for dusting
300g sour cream
¼ bunch of dill, fronds picked, stems finely chopped
Freshly ground white pepper
In a wide, heavy-based pan, melt the butter and oil together, then pop in the onion (along with a pinch of sugar if you’re that way inclined) and listen for the sizzle on medium heat. Once you hear the sizzle, drop the heat to medium-low and whack a lid on, along with a timer for 10 minutes.
Crush your caraway seeds with the salt in a mortar and pestle. Alternatively, pop the seeds and salt in the base of a large mixing bowl and use the bottom of a bottle (like wine or olive oil) for crushing.
Mix together the crushed seeds and salt, along with the egg, quark and 50g of flour.
On a medium sized tray sprinkle over the other 50g of flour. Use two tablespoons to blob out walnut-in-shell-sized amounts of batter into the flour, shaking it about to coat them. Leave them on the tray for five to 10 minutes to keep soaking up more starch while you wait for the onion to caramelise (this’ll help them form a crust).
Once the onion has fried and turned golden brown with little flecks of caramelisation on the tips, pull it out into a bowl, trying to keep as much oil and butter in the pan as possible.
If need be, add another knob of butter and oil as you go, and fry the batter balls for three to four minutes each side on a medium heat until browned top and bottom.
Pull the dumplings out of the pan on to a lined tray and pop a tea towel on top to keep them warm but not schvitzy.
To finish the sauce, wipe any gunky bits out of the pan, then pop the caramelised onions back in on a low heat, stirring through the dill stalks, most of the sour cream and a good helping of freshly ground white pepper. Taste for seasoning.
When ready to serve, schmear the sauce on the bottom of a platter or individual plates, then arrange the dumplings over the top. Sprinkle with the dill fronds and an extra dollop of sour cream.
If you have leftovers, you can store them in the fridge and then pop them in the oven – or eat cold – for breakfast, lunch or tea.
