Recipe: Cottage Cheese Pancakes 18 April 2007 6:15 pm
Posted by Tracy in : breakfast,cheese,cooking,dessert,eating,recipes,vegetarian , trackbackI got the recipe for these delicious tasty treats from a New York Times article by Mark “The Minimalist” Bittman on 20 December 2006. Bittman called them “Light, Fluffy, and Rich Cottage Cheese Pancakes” and I call them delicious. What’s especially excellent how they’re all chock-full of delicious protein, which means if I play it safe with the sweet toppings they’ll keep me full for an hour or two longer than a starchier version. Yum again.
Other good things about these pancakes are the fact that the recipe calls for yogurt and cottage cheese instead of milk, which is usually the pancake ingredient we’re most likely to be out of around here. (Also yogurt and cottage cheese keep a little better, too.) Now that it is warm enough for Tracy granola breakfasts, we’ve almost always got yogurt in the house, so all we have to do is remember to get cottage cheese now and then so that we can have these now and then as well (like last Sunday morning, for instance). Yum one more time.
What You Need (Ingredients and Equipment)
- two or three mixing bowls, a spoon, and preferably an electric mixer of some sort unless you really like beating egg whites by hand, in which case you’re gonna need a whisk.
- 1 cup ricotta or cottage cheese
- 1 cup sour cream or plain yogurt
- 3 eggs, separated
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- dash salt
- 1 TB sugar
- 2 TB lemon juice
- 2 TB lemon zest (optional, or at least I’ve never tried it; I almost never have lemons in the house and the recipe turns out fine anyway)
- oil or melted butter for frying
- frying pan and turning implement
- more lemon juice, honey, maple syrup, jam, and fruit for topping
What You Do
- Separate eggs. If you have a stand mixer, put the egg whites in there on high while you do the next step.
- Beat together cottage cheese, yogurt, and the egg yolks in one bowl; combine baking soda, flour, salt, and sugar in another. Beat egg whites until stiff but not dry (this is where a stand mixer comes in awesome).
- Heat oil or butter in the frying pan over medium-low heat; it’s ready when a drop of water sizzles and skitters across the cooking surface (this is pretty fun, so no one will blame you if you go ahead and do a few drops of water).
- Meanwhile, stir the dry ingredients into the dairy mixture; blend well but do not beat. Stir in the lemon juice and zest (if using). Finally, gently fold in the egg whites (don’t overmix; they should remain somewhat distinctly visible in the batter).
- When skillet and cooking oil are hot, add heaping tablespoons of batter (make sure there’s a little egg white in every spoonful). Cook until lightly browned on the bottom (3-5 minutes), then turn and cook the second side, maybe another 1 or 2 minutes.
Yum! (I keep saying that word, and it means exactly what I think it means.) You can also make big pancakes with up to 1/4 cup of batter, but I like the little ones described here best. Serves 2 hungry people, or 3 not very hungry people, or maybe as many as 4 not very hungry people if you have enough fruit toppings. One last time: Yum!
