Beet Spread with Processed Cheese and Walnuts
Before you reach for the grater, put the processed cheese in the freezer for twenty minutes. Cold, it grates into shreds; at room temperature it smears through the holes and the spread loses all its texture.
The idea is straightforward: beets bring sweetness and color, processed cheese brings salt and the creamy binding beets lack, and crushed walnuts or pumpkin seeds give back some grain. Plavleny syr, the cheese in question, is the foil-wrapped Soviet-era melting cheese — a block of processed cheese works, or Laughing Cow-style wedges at a pinch, though the firmer the block the better it grates. Roast the 400 g (about 14 oz) of beets rather than boiling them: in the oven they take on no water, their sugars concentrate, and the spread comes out dense instead of watery.
- Toast the nuts or seeds in a dry skillet — raw, they leave a gummy aftertaste.
- Chill the finished spread at least half an hour so the garlic spreads evenly and the beets take on the cheese’s salt.
Swapping part of the mayonnaise for thick Greek yogurt lightens the whole thing. Serve on toasted rye, in tartlet shells, or mounded in a bowl under chopped dill.
Part of Eastern European cuisine — 65 more recipes in the section.
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Ingredients
Instructions
Roast the beets in the oven or boil them, then peel.
Grate the beets together with the processed cheese.
Add the crushed nuts or pumpkin seeds and the garlic pushed through a press.
Mix, season with salt, and dress with mayonnaise.
Scatter with fresh herbs before serving.
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