Sirniki (Farmer's cheese pancakes)

My mom doesn't feel like much cooking now that I'm out of the house, but the other day I found her making sirniki. These little pancakes are made with tvorog, Russian cottage cheese.

Tvorog is nothing like bland, milky American cottage cheese. Ricotta is a distant relative, but tvorog has a tangy, yogurt-y taste and a thick, creamy texture. It's also known as farmer's cheese, and you can sometimes find it in Russian/European groceries. Making your own is cheaper and usually easier, though. I've seen lots of different techniques for making it--one of these days, I'll post detailed directions, with pix, for mine.

Inspired by my mom, I made a batch of tvorog and whipped up the sirniki on Sunday. I tweaked Anya von Bremzen's recipe from Please to the Table to reflect my Sunday morning laziness. With sour cream and a lump of strawberry jam, they were very good.

I mixed a cup of tvorog with an egg, a couple of tablespoons of flour, a table spoon of uncooked cream of wheat, a tablespoon of sour cream, a couple of teaspoons of sugar, and a dash of salt. Then I formed round, hamburger-sized patties, dusted with flour, and fried in a buttered skillet.