Tomatoes Filled With Seasoned Cottage Cheese

Added two photos 6-19-22

 

I recently came across this "general" recipe among some German dishes. It grabbed my attention, especially with warm weather upon us. To my knowledge, I had never seen this dish, and I looked it up, even under its German name, "Gefüllte Tomaten mit Hüttenkäse" (Hüttenkäse= literally, "hut cheese," hut... cottage... käse=cheese, get it?). Anyway, I found several variations, with some using feta cheese, others using herb seasoned cheese, and still others using no cheese at all, but rather a variety of herbs and spices. So this recipe is the basic recipe, but with my own touches to it.

Ingredients:

4 large (baseball to softball size) ripe tomatoes
2 1/2 cups cottage cheese (large or small curd, low fat is fine)
1/4 cup of your favorite crumbled blue cheese, like Stilton, Roquefort, Gorgonzola or some other 
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped or minced
3 green onions, with the green, chopped
2 teaspoons chopped rosemary
3 tablespoons tomato paste, thinned out with a tablespoon of white wine or just water
1 teaspoon Hungarian sweet paprika
1 teaspoon Hungarian hot paprika (generally, Hungarian hot paprika is not really all that "hot")
1 tablespoon chopped parsley
1/2 teaspoon white or black pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt (optional, as the cheese has salt)

Cut the tops off of the tomatoes, cut out the tough core and scoop out the seeds and center of the tomatoes, so they can be filled. Mix the rest of the ingredients together well. The mix will have an orange or red like color. Fill each tomato with the mixture and serve with some crackers, chips or bread.  


I served the tomato with a slice of multi-grain bread

And with whole wheat bread ...

WORD HISTORY:
Strain (2)-There is more than one word of this spelling in English, but this is the one with a variety of specific meanings, among which the most common are: 1) "to injure a muscle by tightening that muscle too much, due to overexertion (also used of voice)" 2) "to filter something, typically through some type of sieve" 3) "to lift an object to the point of injury or physical endurance" 4) "to press a matter to what is seen as an extreme position." It is distantly related to "strait," which is used both as a noun and as an adjective, and is a word of Latin derivation, but borrowed by English by way of Latin-based French; and to, "stringent," a word borrowed by English directly from Latin. It goes back to Indo European "streygh," which had the notion, "to press, to exert pressure on;" thus also, "to pull with force." This gave Latin "stringere," meaning, "to pull tightly, press together." This was passed to Latin-baased French as, "estreindre," meaning, "to hold, press or tie tightly." This was borrowed by English in the early part of the 1300s as "streynen," which then became, "straynen," before the modern form. The noun form was derived from the verb in the early 1400s to mean, "an injury to muscle by overexertion (straining)." The noun "strainer" (a filter) was also derived from the verb in the first half of the 1400s (it has peacefully coexisted with the native English word "sieve" since the 1400s, so there is no "strain" between them). 

Hungarian Cheese Filled Pancakes

"Palacsinta" (pronounced as if, "palah-cheen-tah") is the Hungarian word for pancake. From what I've found, these cheese filled pancakes are called "Túrós Palacsinta" (curd cheese pancake) in Hungarian. These are a sweet crepe-like pancake. If you can't find dry cottage cheese, you can use small curd cottage cheese.

Ingredients:

Pancakes:

1 cup flour
1 cup milk
1 egg
1 teaspoon sugar
2/3 cup sparkling mineral water (or club soda)
1/4 teaspoon salt
oil/butter for frying (I used a mix of the two)
powdered sugar for dusting

Filling:

8 ounce package cream cheese (let warm to room temperature), mashed
2/3 cup dry cottage cheese (room temperature), mashed 
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon grated lemon zest

Mix the flour, egg, milk, sugar, salt and sparkling water together into a batter. Heat a little oil in a small to medium frying pan over medium heat. Add enough batter to just cover the bottom of the pan and shake the pan to spread out the batter to form a relatively even thin layer. Fry the pancake until it gets a little brown, then flip it over and brown that side. You will have to watch the palacsinta carefully, as they will cook quickly, with the first side likely requiring only 25 to 30 seconds and the second side needing only 15 to 20 seconds, but the cooking time will naturally depend upon how thick you make the pancakes. Remove each fried pancake to a separate plate, then fry another pancake.

Make sure to let both the cream cheese and cottage cheese come to room temperature. In a bowl, mix the cheeses and other ingredients well. Spread a heaping tablespoon or two of the cheese filling into each pancake and then roll up the pancake. Serve the pancakes seam side down and dusted lightly with powdered sugar. Alternatively, to serve the pancakes warm, you can place the palacsinta on a baking sheet (parchment paper lined helps with any clean up), seam side down, and put them into a 350 F oven for about 10 to 12 minutes. Serve immediately. 

I overfilled this palacsinta with cheese filling so it could be easily seen.

WORD HISTORY:
Callow-This word, meaning, "young, inexperienced," in modern times, goes back to Indo European "galwh," which meant, "bare, naked." There is disagreement over the next step in this word's history, with some believing there was an Old Germanic offshoot from the Indo European form, while others point to the Latin form derived from Indo European, and that this was borrowed into Germanic. I go with the latter, but it seems to me the borrowing was into the West Germanic branch of Germanic, as forms of the word were (and still are) in West Germanic, but not in the Germanic languages in general in the past.^ So, the Indo European form gave Latin "calvus," which meant, "bald." This gave West Germanic "kalwas," which meant, "bald, bare." This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "calu," with the same meanings. This then became "calwe," before the modern version of "callow." The meaning gradually came to be applied (adjectivally) to young birds not yet old enough to have feathers. Later the meaning broadened to young living things in general; then, to the notion of "young," to "inexperienced." The other West  Germanic languages have: German and Low German Saxon "kahl" (bald, bare), West Frisian "keal(e)" (bald), Dutch "kaal" (bald, bare). (Karl/Charles II, the grandson of Charlemagne, and also a Frankish king and emperor, has been known to history as "Charles the Bald," which in German is, "Karl der Kahle," from Latin "Carolus Calvus.")

^ Present versions of a word don't necessarily tell much about the history of its ancestor, as words are frequently borrowed between languages; so, in this case, while English has always had a form of "callow," just knowing that English has "callow" in modern times does not mean it originally had it; thus, if Swedish had a form of "callow" in modern times, would not mean it always had it.