A Bavarian specialty: Obatzda

Obatzda is a typical Bavarian cheese spread you get both at festivals like the Oktoberfest and in beer halls any time of the year, but it is something you can make for yourself very easily, too. In larger amounts, I have prepared it for a party buffet, but the small amount listed below is just perfect for a Brotzeit (cold meat, cheeses, salad and bread) with the family.

Place all ingredients outside the fridge some hours before preparing the Obatzda. They mix much easier, and the taste is more accurate for seasoning.

The ingredients are:

• 62,5 g butter
• 62,5 g camembert (or a similar cheese like brie)
• 100 g cottage cheese
• 1 small onion
• salt, pepper, paprika

Mash the camembert and butter with a fork and mix them. Cut the onion very finely and mix it in, then do the same with the cottage cheese. Season with salt and pepper. Form a mound of the spread and place it in a bowl or on a plate. Leave it covered in the fridge overnight. Take it out early – it tastes much better at room temperature. Before serving, sprinkle it generously with paprika (I use far more paprika than shown in the picture above).

Obatzda tastes best if eaten with dark bread: rye bread, sourdough bread, or brown bread. Radish goes very nicely indeed with it.

As you can gather from the list of ingredients, this is no low-fat dish. I use full-fat ingredients, but I guess ingredients with reduced fat would just work fine, too. I would advise against preparing Obatzda with no-fat ingredients, however, because the wonderful taste depends partly on the presence of some fat.

Enjoy!

– Rike Horstmann