Liptauer Cheese Spread

This is a highly popular cheese spread in much of Bavaria and Austria, commonly just called Liptauer, or Liptauer Aufstrich (spread), not to be confused with the well known "Obatzda," another, similar, cheese spread, primarily from Bavaria, often eaten with large soft pretzels (YUMMY!). There are a number of variations on Liptauer, with just a change or two in ingredients, but all recipes I've seen are very similar to one another. Good with pumpernickel or hearty rye bread and some sliced vegetables. Liptauer came from the "Liptov" area of northern Slovakia, for which the German rendering of the name was "Liptau."  

Ingredients:

1 pound small curd cottage cheese, mashed up well (or pressed through a sieve, if you want to get that involved, which I don't, but see the Word History)
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
3 heaping tablespoons sour cream
1/2 medium onion, finely chopped
1 large clove garlic, minced
3 tablespoons sweet paprika (Hungarian for authenticity, but use what you have)
2 tablespoons hot paprika (same as with sweet paprika)
1 medium pickle, finely chopped
1 teaspoon grainy mustard
2 tablespoons caraway seed (whole or ground)
3 tablespoons capers (whole or chopped)
3 anchovy fillets, chopped*
3 tablespoons chopped red bell pepper

In a bowl, thoroughly mix the cottage cheese, cream cheese and sour cream. Gradually add all of the other ingredients to make sure everything is well mixed. Cover and chill for a couple of hours. "Typically," "hot paprika" is not really all that hot, but you can cut down on the hot paprika, but then up the regular paprika, as the spread needs quite a bit of paprika.

* Please don't be afraid of anchovies. When used in cooking, they actually melt away, but provide a subtle meaty taste. When used in cold dishes, they do need to be chopped well to keep the taste subtle, and not the taste anchovy haters remember from a bite of pizza they had when they were 11 years old. I love anchovies, including on pizza, but I realize that "full strength" anchovies are not for everyone.   

I had mine with pumpernickel cocktail bread along with celery and green onions. (Hey, who's the guy with the onion breath?)

WORD HISTORY:
Sieve-This word, closely related to "sift," goes back to Indo European "seip," which had the notion, "to flow through, to drip, to trickle." This gave the West Germanic branch of Old Germanic, "sibp," ^ which meant, "sieve." This then gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "sife" (likely pronounced "sifeh," with a short "i," and the ending "e" was pronounced 'eh'). This then became "sive," before the modern form. The verb form was derived from the noun in the 1400s. Other West Germanic languages have: German "Sieb," Low German Saxon "Seev," Dutch "zeef," West Frisian "souwe."

^ Forms of "sieve" are only in the West Germanic languages, so either other Germanic forms died out in East and North Germanic, or the form itself was developed in West Germanic.