3w ago

How different is Eastern European "tvorog" from American cottage cheese?

I'm an American living in Eastern Europe and I desperately miss cottage cheese - they just do not sell it here, and I desperately want it. What they do sell is Tvorog, which is seemingly similar to cheese curds but possibly not the same thing.

Apparently, cottage cheese is just cheese curds + heavy cream, so would tvorog + heavy cream end up as the same product?

7 comments

Home-made tvorog is just cottage cheese without the temperature or fermentation control, you just let the fresh milk get sour and curd on it's own then strain the curd. So it's more acidic and less uniform.
The commercialy produced tvorog is made using the skimmed milk after most of the fat is extracted to make butter, so it's like 1% fat and 10% protein. Cottage cheese keeps the fat content.
You can 'fix' tvorog to be more like cottage cheese by boiling it with fresh milk, it will remove much of the sourness and add back fat content.

Honestly, I'd just make some from scratch because it's honestly pretty easy and cheap. The challenge is to find out what exactly you like about cottage cheese from the US, because it varies WILDLY from brand to brand.
At its core, it's just adding acid to milk to make it curdle. A bit deeper, it's about the kind of milk, the type of salt you use, and the heating and cooling process. Every maker has a slightly different process that changes the flavor. Much like fermentation.
The best part about it is, unlike fermenting things, it's quick to make, so you can quickly try out different things and find what gets closer to home for you.
Look up some different approaches and try some out!

Could you make Farmers cheese and just not fully strain it and add cream? Not sure if it would taste the same, but it kind of looks like it.

Curiously enough my distant relative worked on the tech behind mass produced cottage cheese long time ago (IIRC it was for Piątnica, a polish company). I live in Eastern Europe if that helps. Below should help too :)
Twaróg:
Cottage cheese:

It will be similar but not the same. Tvarog & quark are more acidic. So it will have a tartness you may or may not like. With cottage cheese there is more rennet for curdling, the curd is cut like with cheese production, and the curd is heated and washed, producing a more firm and less sour curd. Then cream is added.
So try it and see what you think. If it is too sour you could try and find a very soft fresh cheese it might be closer to the curd you are familiar with and add cream to that.
In the end though, cottage cheese is an industrial product, with all kinds of bioengineering involved (like special bacteria strains that produce diacetyl for a buttery flavor). So any hacks will be unlikely to duplicate the flavor and texture exactly. It's probably worth learning to love the local stuff.