Syrniki - Russian curd cheese pancakes

Russian curd cheese! Unless you've spent any time in Russia or Eastern Europe, you've probably not come across this very strange ingredient. I've heard it called curd cheese, farm cheese, or cottage cheese (although it isn't anything like Western cottage cheese), but to me, it will always be tvorog (творог). You can get hold of tvorog in any Eastern European or Russian shop (and in my experience, there's a Polish shop in most places!), but it's worth making the journey - even if you end up hating it, it's worth a try!

I am actually not a huge tvorog fan myself - unless syrniki are involved! Syrniki (pronounce that seer-nik-ee - in Russian it looks like this: сырники) are little fat pancakes made out of tvorog, traditionally eaten at breakfast in Russia. They can be sweet (with honey and jam as a dip) or savoury (with sour cream), and are strange-tasting but weirdly moreish! And they're easy to make - so what are you waiting for?

For about six little pancakes, you need:

250g tvorog
50g plain flour
1-2 tablespoons of sugar - depending on whether you're having them sweet or savoury!
A pinch of salt
A drop or two of vanilla essence
1 egg
Butter or spray alternative (such as Fry Light Better than Butter)

The tvorog should be pretty smooth, so dump it into a bowl, add the egg, sugar, salt, and essence. Sift in about two-thirds of the flour, and mix thoroughly.

Dust some flour onto a chopping board or a spare plate, then form the mixture into little fat pancakes, and dust with flour on both sides.

Melt the butter into a frying pan (or spritz it with your chosen butter spray), and throw the syrniki in - however many will fit at a time! We have a bit of an awkward cooking situation at uni in that we don't have any hobs, so we had to cook ours on a George Foreman grill.

Grill cakes?

 These shouldn't take long in a pan - they'll go golden (make sure to turn them over so they cook on both sides!), and they're ready!

These are served with orange blossom honey and cherries, but you can experiment!

Oh - and these tasted good, but they look funny because we had to use the grill! Yours should look something like this:

Why not double or triple the quantity and have friends over for brunch? Or you could serve these as a pudding after some other Russian food - Vinegret, Olivier and Buckwheat would all be good suggestions! I hope you try them and let me know what you think!

Love,

Emy

xxx