Why is everyone talking about cottage cheese, and can you make anything that’s actually good with it?
“I’ve never understood why cottage cheese has such a bad rep,” says Tommy Banks, chef/director of The Black Swan at Oldstead, Roots York and The Abbey Inn in North Yorkshire, who is a big fan of the white stuff. “It’s deliciously creamy and so versatile; I use it in both sweet and savoury dishes at home, where it’s a staple.” And he’s not kidding: Banks has it for lunch just about every weekday, either with scrambled eggs or tinned fish. “It’s a great, affordable, high-protein quick-fix.”
There’s no denying that the diet food from the 1980s is experiencing something of a revival, thanks to videos of ice-cream, flatbread and pancakes made from the curds and whey receiving millions of views on TikTok over the past year or so. However, it is also a good alternative to urda, a Balkan cheese made from leftover whey that, when Irina Janakievska moved to the UK 20 years ago, was impossible to find here. “I started using cottage cheese instead,” says the author of The Balkan Kitchen. “And while it isn’t a direct substitute, it is versatile.” For a riff on a Balkan-style filo or hand-stretched savoury pastry (“such as gibanica, banitsa or burek”), Janakievska combines cottage cheese, fried leeks and blanched and roughly chopped greens (spinach, chard, sorrel, nettles, say), then binds them with an egg before swaddling in filo and baking.
Gustavo Giallonardo, chef director of Oriole in London, meanwhile, suggests adding it to huevos rancheros: “Cottage cheese provides a tangy, creamy contrast. Blend it first, or mix it with lime and queso fresco to enhance that tanginess.” Otherwise, Giallonardo adds, cottage cheese would make a fine alternative to soured cream in a burrito, or get some into that perennial brunch favourite, shakshuka: “Mix some into the sauce, spoon it over just before serving or simply serve it on the side.” Any cottage-cheese cravings could also be sated with Janakievska’s mum’s savoury bread pudding, which she has “unfairly called old bread bake”: “It’s an amazing dish, though, using odds and ends of bread with cottage cheese to make an almost-strata,” she says. “That makes a very nice breakfast or brunch.”
Now on to dessert, where cherries, be they frozen, fresh (when the time comes) or sour, make a superb filling combined with cottage cheese and a bit of semolina for a strudel, Janakievska says. Alternatively, go for a kind-of deconstructed kadaif baklava bowl. This involves layering cottage cheese mixed with honey, lemon or orange zest, and ground cinnamon, followed by a mix of toasted and roughly chopped nuts (walnuts, hazelnuts, almonds, for example). “You could add fruit [apples, pears, frozen cherries] stewed with citrus juice, then top with kadaif pastry brushed with butter and toasted in the oven until light brown,” Janakievska says. She then finishes off proceedings with a drizzle of honey and an extra sprinkle of toasted nuts. “That’s also a good way to use up any leftover kadaif pastry, which is itself having a moment with everyone trying to make a Dubai chocolate bar at home,” she adds. It just so happens that the Guardian’s own Ravneet Gill will be sharing her own take on that bar very soon, so keep an eye out in the run-up to Easter.
