The most delicious casserole suitable for both breakfast and dinner: step-by-step recipe
Cottage cheese casserole is an ideal option for a hearty breakfast or dinner. It is also suitable for children's and dietary meals. Which, in fact, is a recipe for cottage cheese casserole.
It is based on cottage cheese, eggs (2-3 pieces per kilogram), a little whole wheat flour or bran (no more than 3-5 spoons, otherwise the casserole will not be as tender). The cottage cheese is rubbed through a sieve beforehand to remove any lumps. It is better to beat eggs with a whisk or blender before adding them to the cottage cheese. Mix all the ingredients thoroughly.
But this is the basis. Then it all depends on your goal and imagination: you can add dried fruits, spices, berries, fresh fruits to the cottage cheese casserole. But you can also make a savory casserole, for example, with herbs, pepper, garlic. As for the fruit, any fruit will do for a cottage cheese casserole, except for citrus fruits
Peaches, apples, pears, apricots, any berries... They can be mixed with the cottage cheese mass, or you can - and this is even better - layered. The main rule is that juicy fruits and berries should be blanched beforehand (you can grill them) to remove excess water. If you don't do this, you'll end up with baked cottage cheese soup instead of a casserole.
Yogurt is a good sauce for the cottage cheese casserole... However, you can serve no sauce, take a couple of egg whites, whip them into a thick foam, pour it over the finished casserole and put it in the oven for another 10-15 minutes. When it turns golden, you'll have pulled out a cottage cheese cake from the oven!
Classic cottage cheese casserole
This kind of cottage cheese casserole - tender and dietary, delicate in sweetness but rich in calcium - is an indispensable item for a tasty and healthy breakfast or dinner. It is good both when warm, freshly cooked, served with sour cream or yogurt, and when cooled.
It is undesirable to use fatty cottage cheese from the market for the casserole, as it can release a large amount of oil during baking, and the taste of the casserole will be worse. On the other hand, the cottage cheese should have a homogeneous structure and medium moisture content.
Ingredients:
natural cottage cheese 9% - 1000 gr.
2 medium eggs (total weight 120-135 g)
Wholemeal or bran flour - 4 tbsp with a large slide (80 g)
vanilla sugar (optional)
small pinch of salt
pitted raisins - 100 g.
butter 15 g. + a little to grease the pan
Sour cream 15-20% fat, about 150-200 g (for greasing the casserole) + sour cream for serving (optional)
Method of preparation:
Turn on the oven and heat it to 160-170 °C.
Measure out the amount of butter required by the recipe, put it in a saucepan and place it in the preheated oven to melt completely (but do not bring it to a boil!).
Wash the raisins first with warm and then cold water and dry them on a paper towel. Grease a small baking tray (17.5×27.5 cm, 4 cm high) or any other similarly sized baking dish well with a small piece of cold butter.
Put the cottage cheese, salt, and vanilla sugar into a large mixing bowl (about 3-3.5 liters) and add the eggs.
Mix all the ingredients until smooth with a mixer, moving it in one direction.
Pour the melted butter into the mixture (or put a similar amount of sour cream from the refrigerator). Mix, then add 4 tbsp with a large heaping of bran or flour, scattering it evenly over the surface.
Mix everything thoroughly again with a mixer until smooth. The mixture should be thick and fluffy and easy to remove with your fingers from the whisks or spoon.
Add the pre-washed raisins to this mixture and quickly mix them in with a mixer or spoon.
Put the resulting casserole mixture on the prepared baking sheet, smooth the surface with a spoon, spread with sour cream and cover with foil.
Put the pan in the oven and bake the casserole according to the recommendations in the instructions for your cottage cheese casserole oven for about 55-60 minutes (it should rise well) under the foil, and then another 10-15 minutes without the foil to allow the whey on the surface of the casserole, which has been released from the cottage cheese and sour cream, to evaporate completely.
The surface of the finished casserole is glossy and dry and slightly cracked.
Leave the finished casserole on the baking sheet for 5-10 minutes, then cut into portions with a dull knife and serve, placing on plates with a serving spatula and pouring sour cream or yogurt over it.