Savoury Cheese Blintzes

Last week, I was lucky enough to find farmer's cheese (dry cottage cheese curds) at Ideal Grocery, in Lincoln. There's nothing better for making cheese fillings, but it is getting difficult to locate these days.

A blintz is a crepe that has been fried in clarified butter. Typically, blintzes are sweet, filled with fruit or a sweetened mixture of cheese and eggs. A sour cherry blintz served with a dollop of rich sour cream is a wonderful weekend breakfast, and in recent years I've even seen them filled with chocolate. Still, we have them most often as a savoury, and as I had both spinach and chard ready to harvest from the garden, the availability suggested this recipe to me.

Both the filling and crepes may be prepared ahead of time, then assembled and fried when ready to serve. The crepe batter will work better if permitted to rest for several hours before use. Allow at least two hours.

For the crepes:
1 cup cold water
1 cup milk (I used 2 %)
4 large eggs
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups plain flour
4 tablespoons melted and slightly cooled butter

Combine water, milk, eggs, and salt. Whisk together. Whisk in the flour one cup at a time, then add the butter and whisk until smooth. Cover, and chill several hours.

To make crepes:
Pour out batter into a hot pan, tilt to cover and cook until top of crepe is dry. Flip, and cook about 30 seconds longer. Remove to a plate t cool. I find stacking them between sheets of wax paper helps keep them from sticking. When cool they can be stored in a plastic bag in the fridge.

For the cheese filling:
1 lb. dry cottage cheese curds
2 large eggs
1 cup cooked spinach, chard or whatever green you prefer
A good grating of nutmeg
Salt/pepper to taste
Heavy cream to moisten

Combine the curds, eggs, spinach, nutmeg, salt and pepper. Mix well. At this point you may need to add a bit of heavy cream to get a smooth enough consistency to your filling-this will be a matter of taste, but keep in mind it will thicken as it sits.

Chill the mixture well before filling.

To assemble to blintz:

Place a mound of filling in the bottom part of a crepe. Fold in the sides, then roll to enclose. Fry over medium heat in clarified butter until nicely browned on both sides.

Not health food.

If you have more blintzes than you need, they can be frozen before frying by wrapping them tightly in freezer paper. These are a great thing to have on hand in the freezer for a quick meal.

Serve with a good, thick sour cream (or skyr if you have it).

Now, you'll need a salad to go with that. How about a bit more dairy to go with all that dairy?

Thinly sliced cucumbers, radishes, fresh tarragon, thyme,lemon balm,  and dried dill. Salt, pepper, and a mixture of sour cream and buttermilk for the dressing. Scallions would be nice here as well, but I didn't have any. Serve well chilled.

The turnip greens have been harvested this week as well, but that's a recipe for another day.