Liptauer Cheese

Updated June 6, 2024

Liptauer Cheese
Fred Lyon for The New York Times
Total Time
15 minutes, plus 2 hours' refrigeration
Rating
4(99)
Comments
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The journalist Joseph Wechsberg introduced many Americans to the pleasures of Austro-Hungarian food, including this liptauer spread. The recipe is adapted from "The Cooking of Vienna's Empire," Mr. Wechsberg's 1968 entry in the Time-Life Foods of the World series. Cottage cheese and butter are the base for paprika, caraway seeds and briny capers. This dip is a fine accompaniment for crudités or hearty slices of rye on a brisk autumn afternoon. —Sara Dickerman

Featured in: The Way We Eat; Schnitzel on The Brain

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Ingredients

Yield:Makes 1½ cups
  • 1cup cottage cheese
  • 8tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
  • 1tablespoon sweet paprika
  • Freshly ground black pepper
  • ½teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to taste
  • 2teaspoons caraway seeds
  • 1teaspoon dry mustard
  • 1teaspoon chopped capers
  • 1tablespoon finely chopped onion
  • ½cup sour cream
  • 3tablespoons finely chopped chives
  • 1baguette, thinly sliced and toasted
Ingredient Substitution Guide
Nutritional analysis per serving (10 servings)

214 calories; 13 grams fat; 7 grams saturated fat; 0 grams trans fat; 4 grams monounsaturated fat; 1 gram polyunsaturated fat; 18 grams carbohydrates; 1 gram dietary fiber; 3 grams sugars; 6 grams protein; 264 milligrams sodium

Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.

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Preparation

  1. Step 1

    With the back of a spoon, press the cottage cheese through a fine sieve into a mixing bowl.

  2. Step 2

    In a mixer fitted with a paddle, cream the butter on medium speed. Beat in the cottage cheese, paprika, a generous grinding of black pepper, the salt, caraway seeds, mustard, capers, onion and sour cream until it forms a smooth paste.

  3. Step 3

    Spoon it into a 1½ -cup bowl lined with plastic wrap. Cover and refrigerate for 2 hours, or until set. Unmold onto a platter and sprinkle with chives. Serve with baguette slices or crackers.

Tip
  • To make a Liptauer dip, stir an extra ¼ cup sour cream into the paste. Pour into a serving bowl and sprinkle with chives. Serve with crudités.

Ratings

4 out of 5
99 user ratings
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Comments

Been making this exact recipe from a Time-Life Viennese cookbook for decades. Mixer unnecessary. Sieve the cottage cheese. Cream the butter with a wooden spoon. Combine. Add other ingredients. Best on small squares of pumpernickel or rye.

My Hungarian mother made Liptauer spread using anchovy fillets instead of capers, and putting the ingredients through a meat grinder instead of a sieve. We ate it spread on slices of homemade, very dark whole wheat bread. Sixty-plus years later I still remember it well.

Just revisited this recipe which is great. Want to make it easier? Drain the cottage cheese and then put it along with the rest of the ingredients into a food processor and process to your desired consisitency.

Farmer’s cheese works great for this, best approximation that’s also easy to find! Hungarian approved ™️

I have found that the best taste comes from a combination of butter, cream cheese, goat cheese and feta cheese to approximate the taste of the original sheep’s milk cheese which in Austria is called Brimsen, a German version of the original Slovak word of that cheese. I add both anchovies and capers, onion, paprika, caraway and salt and pepper to taste.

This is something my mother always made for parties. But there was gin involved-with the cheese. That seemed to be a pivotal ingredient that is missing here.

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Credits

Adapted from "The Cooking of Vienna's Empire," by Joseph Wechsberg, part of the Time-Life Foods of the World series

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