My syrniki obsession continues

I just can’t get enough of these Ukrainian curd cheese pancakes - so I decided to try making them at home. Recipe at the end!

For this week’s post - another love letter to my favourite Ukrainian dish, syrniki. I am determined to make them a thing on breakfast menus here in the UK. I have enjoyed them all over Ukraine, and can rarely resist ordering them for breakfast: sweet ones with apricot jam or fresh berries or even tahini cream and blueberries, savoury ones with fried mushrooms and pesto or smoked salmon and sour cream. There are some excellent Ukrainian cafes in London, and I have diligently tried the syrniki everywhere I can… including the very fancy version which comes as dessert at Mriya Neo Bistro in west London, the supremely fluffy ones at XIX Nineteen in Stratford, and some rather more traditional ones at TDO in Canary Wharf and a new-ish place called Maracuya next to the O2. 

Syrniki at XIX Nineteen cafe in East London

But I really wanted to master making my own at home. I had been treated to an incredible masterclass in Odesa by my friend Maria Kalenska, who first went to the Privoz food market in search of the best curd cheese. At Privoz, there’s an entire room devoted to different kinds of curd cheese, thick cream and the firmer, saltier brinza cheese which is similar to feta. In Odesa you can even find a very unique kind of curd cheese made from baked milk, or ryazhenka. Maria likes to serve it alongside prunes stuffed with walnuts. For some reason prunes from the Odesa markets are often slightly smoky, offsetting their natural sweetness. They go perfectly with the caramelised baked-milk cheese. 

Pryvoz market in Odesa

But back to syrniki: in Maria’s kitchen, she unwrapped the fresh curd cheese into a bowl, added an egg, and a minimum amount of flour and - on my request - some raisins. Most recipes for syrniki include sugar but Maria told me that just made them more likely to burn when you fry them: you can add honey or jam when you serve them, she said, which is plenty sweet enough. Maria scooped up portions of the curd cheese mix, forming little puck-shaped discs which she dredged in flour before frying them gently in sunflower oil, until they were golden brown on both sides and cooked through in the middle. They were incredibly delicious served with some thick, rich sour cream from the market and some golden cherry jam.

Maria’s syrniki - amazing

Without the glorious range of the food market, back in London I was limited to buying curd cheese or tvorog from a Polish shop, or sometimes in the Sainsbury’s supermarket if they still had any in stock. I could of course have made my own, and Maria sent me a recipe showing how to make it from fresh organic milk. I even bought some muslin to strain the curds but somehow never quite got my head around the idea of letting curdled milk sit out on the kitchen counter for 24 hours to form the curds. So I stocked up on the Polish full-fat tvorog and tried out a variety of recipes.

Some of them definitely included too much flour, which made the syrniki rather heavy and stodgy. Others didn’t contain enough flour and the syrniki fell apart in the frying pan. I tried making gombuvtsi, another new favourite dish which I had at my beloved Snidanishna cafe in Kharkiv. It involves a similar curd cheese mixture formed into balls with a cherry or apricot inside, which you steam and roll in fried breadcrumbs. I added a bit too much semolina, but they were still a decent breakfast, so next I decided to try a syrniki recipe with semolina instead of flour - and using an egg yolk instead of a whole egg, plus a bit of sugar and a splash of vanilla. I made half the batch plain and half with raisins because I am obsessed with them.

My attempt at Snidanishna style Gombovtsi

The result was my best effort yet, not too dense or stodgy which is always a bonus, and I took some to a Ukrainian friend who gave them the thumbs up - although I have yet to try Maria’s signature recipe at home. If you want to have a go at this one… here it is below.

1 275g pack full fat Polish tvorog

1.5 tbsp fine semolina

1 large egg yolk

1.5 tbsp sugar

½ tsp vanilla paste

Mix everything together with a fork so that it is well blended and if you have time, set aside in the fridge for half an hour or so. If you want to add raisins, go right ahead!

Take a small golf-ball sized amount and flatten into a puck shape, about half an inch thick. Dredge lightly in flour and fry in sunflower oil for about 3 mins on each side until they are golden brown and cooked through. Serve with sour cream and jam or fresh berries! They will keep a couple of days in the fridge in an airtight container. Possibly they would freeze but I have never tried!