Cheese Blintzes

As a young girl, I always loved Shavuot and waited eagerly for the opportunity to eat my mother’s delicious cheese blintzes. When I grew up and the time came for me to start making cheese blintzes for my family, I realized that I didn’t have my mother’s exact recipe for the blintz “leaves”.

So, I had to experiment and try out alternative recipes that would provide a similar blintz to the one I remember from home.

You will notice that these cheese blintzes use potato starch (potato flour) among the ingredients for the blintz “leaves”. This is actually a recipe that you can use during Pesach, since it doesn’t contain any flour. I find these blintzes to be delightfully light (and easy to make!), and I have adopted this recipe for use throughout the year.

Ingredients for the batter for the blintz leaves:

• 3/4 cup milk
• 4 eggs
• 4 Tablespoons potato starch (potato flour)
• 1 Tablespoon melted butter
• 1/2 teaspoon sugar

Ingredients for the cheese filling:

Please note that the amounts for the filling can be varied according to taste; the most important thing is to use a cheese that is not too liquidy and doesn’t “run” out of the blintz “pocket”. You can make them sweeter or less sweet, as you like. Here is how I do it: Use any combinations of dry white cheese, cream cheese, cottage cheese.

These amounts are approximate and can be altered according to taste.

•  200 grams ( a bit less than 1/2 pound) dry cheese (in the U.S. this would be “Farmer” Cheese, here in Israel I would use “Tuv Ta’am” cheese.
• 200-300 grams cream cheese or cottage cheese, or a combination of both.
• 4-5 Tablespoons of sugar
• teaspoon vanilla extract
• Ingredients for frying the blintz leaves
• butter

Preparation:

1. Mix,  in a bowl, with whisk, all the ingredients for the blintz leaves. Mix till all ingrredients are incorporated, but do not overbeat.
2. In small non-stick (teflon-type pan) (about 20 cm/9 inches), put a tiny pat of butter; when the butter is hot and melted, pour in a small amount of batter; quickly swirl around the pan so that the batter covers the bottom of the pan, Pour back into the batter bowl, any extra batter from the pan. This has to be done quickly, so that no extra batter sticks to the pan (which would cause the blintz leaves to be thicker than necessary).
   • Fry blintz leaf till the bottom is a golden brown color.  There is no nead to fry the other side, as this will be fried when it is filled with cheese.
   • Carefully remove blintz from pan onto a platter or plate. Continue the same process until you finish all the batter, at which time you will have a pile of blintz leaves.
   • The blintz leaves will be very thin, and should have no holes in them.
3. Mix all the filling ingredients together. Cheese mixture should not be too liquidy.
4. Take a heaping Tablespoon of the cheese mixture and place it on the center of a blintz leaf, on the golden-brown side that has already been fried. Fold into a square envelope, closed on all sides. Continue until you finish filling all the blintzes.
5. Place in refrigerator for an hour or two.
6. Before serving, heat butter in a large non-stick frying and when the butter is hot, start frying the blintzes, turing over to the other side carefully so as not to puncture a hole in the filled blintz.
7. When all blintzes have been fried on both sides, serve, adding a dollop of sour cream (and sugar for those who want) next to the blintz.

* Tip: These blintzes are perfect for freezing. Place the filled blintzes in layers SEPARATED BY PARCHMENT PAPER OR ALUMINUM FOIL, one next to the other – they should not touch each other, so as not to tear the blintz leaves when taking them out of the box.  The box should be well wrapped and covered. The blintzers are best frozen after filling them, and before frying; this way you can make a big batch of blintzes, and when you need them, just take them out of the freezer (you don’t have to defrost them), and fry in hot butter till golden brown.