Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Ricotta and dairy products

I was raised on various milk products. Yes, we did not have yogurts, but we had so many different dairy things. Kefir is my favourite, you can find something remotely similar to it in a lot of supermarkets, and although it is called Kefir, it is not the same. Then we had a few more milk drinks which can only be found at Russian supermarkets. And we had Tvorog... Something like it is called here "Cottage Cheese" or "Baker's Cheese". I think that it is most closely resembles Ricotta, but much denser and richer. For me, these dairy products were a big part of everyday meals. We had them for breakfasts, for mid afternoon snacks, for late dinners. They are healthy and they do not contain any added sugar or salt.

There tons of Russian stores around where I live, but sometimes it's just so much easier to go to my regular grocery store and buy ricotta. I love using it for ricotta pancakes: ricotta, flour, sugar, eggs, mix it all together, shape and pan fry, I don't measure them, just put a little bit of everything to get to quite dense consistency. This time, at my favourite cooking discussion board in Russian, I found a recipe for Ricotta Bagels. I happened to have a tub of ricotta at my fridge and I gave them a try. I ended up with six lovely sugary bagels, perfect with a glass of Kefir or a cup of tea.

Ricotta Bagels

4 comments:

Alena said...

In American supermarkets "buttermilk" is the closest thing to kefir. I like it even more than "kefir" that is sold here in Russian stores, because of the thinner consistency of the buttermilk.

Julia said...

I find buttermilk too sour for my taste. I actually found one Kefir brand that reminds of russina Kefir, it's a Liberte, but it's the most expensive of all the kefirs there :(

(Alena, eto ti ili drugaya Alena?)

Alena said...

Это я :)
(А кислое я всегда любила - может, это еще одна причина, почему мне нравится именно buttermilk.)

Julia said...

Хехе :) Может... Я батермилк добавляю в молоко и делаю творог. Или недавно нашла другой рецепт, где только батермилк используется, но мне кажется, что с молоком вкуснее.