{"id":17034,"date":"2022-03-07T07:45:34","date_gmt":"2022-03-07T12:45:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ethnojunkie.com\/?p=17034"},"modified":"2022-03-07T07:45:34","modified_gmt":"2022-03-07T12:45:34","slug":"ukrainian-blintzes-with-a-twist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ethnojunkie.com\/?p=17034","title":{"rendered":"Ukrainian Blintzes with a Twist"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Click on any image to view it in high resolution.)<\/em>
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Although I can\u2019t know for certain whether my grandmother was Ukrainian, she did make memorable blintzes and she made them often. When I was a kid and just becoming aware of concepts like heritage, I asked her over lunch where she was born. Her responses typically consisted of a single word, in this case, \u201cBrooklyn.\u201d <\/p>\n

I pressed on. \u201cThen where were your parents from?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBrooklyn,\u201d she replied, tersely.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen where…\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cEat,\u201d she interrupted, setting another plate of blintzes down in front of me figuring that I wouldn\u2019t ask any more questions if my mouth was full. I never did learn about her roots.<\/p>\n

Years later, I tried to extract her special recipe: \u201cHow much flour should I use?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEnough.\u201d<\/p>\n

You get the idea. Anyway, I reverse engineered it and I\u2019ve been making them ever since. In a single word, \u201cyum!\u201d<\/p>\n

But I told you that story so I could tell you this one: The other day when I was in Brooklyn\u2019s Brighton Beach neighborhood developing a revised itinerary for the upcoming revival of my Little Odessa food tour, I spotted a pint-size deli container filled with an obviously store-made creamy white mass in the dairy case of one of my favorite markets. The home spun label read Sirkovaya Massa (likely a romanization of \u0421\u044b\u0440\u043a\u043e\u0432\u0430\u044f \u041c\u0430\u0441\u0441\u0430 in the surprising absence of Cyrillic characters). I recognized the first syllable, Sir- (\u0421\u044b\u0440-), as the word for cheese; a closer inspection revealed a list of ingredients: cultured milk, vanilla, sugar, and raisins and I divined that this \u201cCheese Curd Mass\u201d would probably taste like an Eastern European take on cannoli cream, but more cream cheesy than ricotta based. It was sweet, rich, and absolutely delicious. But what to do with it? Spread it on a bagel? Serve it with fresh fruit perhaps? And then it hit me: combine it with an equal part of farmer\u2019s cheese and make blintzes with a twist! This is a photo of the result, decked out with blueberries, blueberry syrup and sour cream \u2013 note the blue and yellow theme. (Next time, I\u2019m might try adding mini chocolate bits to it for a real cross-cultural treat.)<\/p>\n

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\nHow were they? In a single (Ukrainian) word, \u201c\u043d\u044f\u043c!\u201d Grandma would approve.
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Although I never could determine her heritage, my grandmother did make memorable blintzes and she made them often. Read on…. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3336,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[65,158],"class_list":["post-17034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-home-cookin","tag-jewish","tag-ukrainian"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ethnojunkie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ethnojunkie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ethnojunkie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ethnojunkie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3336"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ethnojunkie.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17034"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/ethnojunkie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17034\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17045,"href":"https:\/\/ethnojunkie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17034\/revisions\/17045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ethnojunkie.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ethnojunkie.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ethnojunkie.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}