What is pot cheese?

Cafe Society
21

MLS, you were right, the term paschka, (pashka, pasqua) is a root term for Easter. In churches that go in for formal liturgy, you may hear a prayer during the Eucharist, or Holy Communion, referring to Christ as the “Paschal Lamb, sacrificed for us to take away the sins of the world.”

That bread is what** yBeayf** was referring to earlier in the thread as kulich. I have made that before, and the recipe I had was quite tasty, a rich, yellow, eggy dough with spices, nuts, and fruits kneaded in. It is raised and baked in a coffee can, or other metal can, and the top sort of mushrooms out. It’s iced, or glazed, and decorated.

I see Eva Luna beat me to it, I was out looking for an image of paschka, had this response already prepared. I found one image last night, but didn’t save it and now can’t find it again. Grrr. But in looking around I did find a bread that was also referred to as “pashka”, and it did say it was Russian/Ukranian.

I have also found there are more recipes for the paschka than one can shake a stick at, and cottage/ricotta/farmers cheese all get mentioned. So I figure I can’t go wrong by draining well plain cottage cheese.

With all the dairy products in it, I recall what Dr. Stephen Franklin said, on Babylon 5, about a recipe with olive oil and butter “I can feel my arteries hardening just being in the same room with it.” I hope this sucker tastes as good as it looks in the books I’ve seen.

22

If you’re searching for information/recipes about it on the web, you might have more luck spelling it “pascha” or “paskha” – until this thread I’d never seen it spelled “paschka”. Paskha + cheese in Google Image Search brings up a pic of paskha, a pic of kulich, and a couple of paskha molds.

23

You’ve inspired me to drag out my copy of Catherine Cheremeteff Jones’A Year of Russian Feasts; the chapters titled “In the Danilovsky Monastery Kitchen” and “Orthodox Easter Services and an Easter Feast at the Lebedevs’” have a long discourse on Easter rituals, particularly abtaining from dairy during Lent, and related Easter rituals, and some really killer-looking recipes for kulich and paskha*. There are apparently some folk beliefs that many things can make the kulich not rise properly, including the cook being in a bad mood, so be cheerful when you bake! It also says the best substitute in most Western kitchens for a kulich mold is an empty cotfee can, which I’ve also seen recommended for baking brioche.

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yBeayf, thanks so much for that link! It had some great images. Now I’m tempted to buy one of the molds. The image I found yesterday had an ultra-traditional wooden mold, but I don’t know why those plastic ones wouldn’t do just as well. And they have the symbols already on the mold!

25

Hope I’m not too late to the dance but:

  1. If you’re using a clay flower pot be sure to brush scrub it to remove any clay and then submerge it in water for about a half hour. Do not use any soap or detergent as it will leech into the pores. Drain it and bake it in a 200 degree oven for about an hour. This will help seal the pores. You don’t want the clay taste ruining the fine taste of your custard.
  2. there are pyramidal shaped paschka molds available, usually made of wood, with a pierced insert at the smaller end that is “clamped” into the mold using a series of screws and wing nuts to secure it and then open it to release the dessert (and then clean it!). Another wood float is placed in the opening at the wider end. You usually weight this end to help squeeze out the whey and any other liquid from the cheese/custard mix. Even if you use the flower pot you have to place some weight on top to help liquid drain from the bottom hole. I have used both and place pot or mold on a rack in a pan. I place the whole set up in the refrigerator for 24 hours.
  3. pot cheese is fine curd cheese like cottage cheese before it sours. It has the texture of ricotta. I have also used farmer’s cheese which is creamier.
    Good luck and blessed Easter!
26

It does indeed come from the word for Easter in Russian (Latin, and romance languages) and the spelling is transliterated. The Pasch refers to “the Passover of the Lord - from death to new life.” The feast consciously recapitulates the Hebrew Passover, its unfolding in Jesus and now at work in us through baptism.

The reason for the rich dairy content of the dessert is that, in many countries, dairy products were rationed during the 40 day Lenten fast preceding the Easter festival. But the egg has always symbolized new life, so it is fittingly part of this dessert creation. Fruits had been candied from the previous fall harvest to preserve them. What wasn’t used up at Christmas was dumped into the custard to remind those who ate the dessert of the flowering of the earth about to begin again in Spring: another sign of new life.

If you can get hold of the NY Times International Cookbook, there is a beautiful photo of what the desert can look like.

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[noted that it’s a zombie thread]
I don’t think ‘pot cheese’ is UK terminology, unless it’s regional. Fresh curd cheeses (including acid-set) tend to be called ‘cottage cheese’ or just ‘curd cheese’ here.

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So, how did the paschka turn out?

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A few years too late, and the information you gave is enough for someone to recognize it at a Polish grocery. Twaróg is the Polish spelling you were trying to remember.

30

FWIW, I used to make pot cheese when I lived in Latvia. It’s dead easy.

I would buy a couple of litres of whole milk every day. This was necessary because even though it may have been pasteurized, what ever was left over at the end of the day would go sour overnight. (It wasn’t low fat milk, either; I regularly bought 3.8%.)

Rather than throwing it out, I decided to try boiling it in a Turkish cesve over low heat. The curds and whey would separate, with the former sinking to the bottom. I’d pour the liquid off the top and spread the milk solids on toast. It was delicious!

31

Baker, if you’ve been waiting for the response, I recommend you get some fresh eggs before trying the recipe.

32

My ignorance was fought by a zombie: I never knew dairy was not allowed during Lent. (Must’ve been terrible for those whose income depended on it.(<—not snark).

But I did know beaver is allowed.

33

Draaaaaaains.

34

This isn’t a general rule nowadays for Lent in the Roman Catholic Church. Looks like Eastern Orthodox may still do it?

35

Oh my goodness, I didn’t know this thread had risen from the dead! I’m going to have to review it!

36

Moved to Cafe Society.

Note this thread was started in 2005.

Colibri
General Questions Moderator

37

Old threads never die; they just age and ripen slowly. :cool:

38

Sort of like the mods.

39

lots of time to play with that pascal recipe this year. pascha is on cinco de mayo!

kielbasa tacos!

gigi, the orthodox church has rather strict lenten/fast rules. including no fish or oil as well as meat and dairy. fruit, nuts, twigs, and bark are about it. there are about 5 wends. and fridays per year that are fast free.

40

One of my Mexican friends who owns a restaurant here in the Chicago area makes a kind of “taco polaco” using kielbasa, potatoes, onions, and chipotle peppers, on a flour tortilla (this is one of the tacos he insists on flour instead of corn.) He doesn’t serve them at the restaurant (it’s one of his home meals), but they are damned good. There should be more taquerias offering them as an option.