Food and Travel & Food and Travel
appetizer GermanBavarian vegetariannut-free

Obatzda

The Bavarian beer garden cheese spread. Overripe Camembert mashed with soft butter, sweet paprika, caraway, and onion, loosened with a splash of wheat beer and eaten with Brezn and radishes.

Prep15 min
Rest60 min
Servings6
Cook mode

Built from three Bavarian versions, Emmi kocht einfach, Gaumenfreundin, and Thomas Sixt, with the cheese to butter ratio checked against the Wikipedia entry on the protected name.

Ingredients

Units
Servings
6

Spread

  • 400 g very ripe Camembert, rind included
  • 100 g butter, soft
  • 70 g onion, finely diced
  • 6 g sweet paprika
  • 2 g caraway seeds, coarsely crushed
  • 40 ml wheat beer, plus more to loosen
  • to taste fine salt
  • to taste black pepper
  • 10 g chives, thinly sliced

To serve

  • 6 Brezn, fresh
  • 1 radishes, quartered and lightly salted

Dietary labels are a guide, not a guarantee. If you have an allergy, read the ingredients yourself.

Method

  1. Take the Camembert and the butter out of the fridge at least an hour ahead. Cold cheese will not mash smoothly and cold butter stays in lumps no matter how hard you work it.
  2. Cut the cheese into rough pieces, rind and all. The rind carries most of the flavour and it breaks down as you mash.
  3. Crush the caraway coarsely in a mortar. Whole seeds are hard on the teeth and give up less of their flavour.
  4. Mash the cheese and butter together with a fork until the mixture is streaky and holds a shape. Leave some lumps. Obatzda that has been through a blender is a dip, not Obatzda.
  5. Work in the onion, paprika, caraway, salt, and pepper.
  6. Add the beer a spoonful at a time until it spreads easily but does not slump on the plate.
  7. Cover and refrigerate 30 to 60 minutes so the paprika and caraway come forward, then taste and correct the salt.
  8. Let it sit 15 minutes at room temperature before serving. Mound it on a plate, scatter the chives over, and serve with Brezn and radishes.

Notes

  • The cheese has to be genuinely overripe. That is the whole dish. You want a Camembert that smells strongly of ammonia at the edges, sags when you press it, and has no chalky white core left in the middle. A young Camembert gives you salty butter with paprika in it.
  • If yours is not there yet, leave it in its wrapping on the counter for a day or two, or a week past the date in the fridge, until the centre goes soft all the way through. To push it further in a hurry, mash in 30 to 50 g of Limburger, Romadur, or a ripe blue and cut the Camembert back by the same amount.
  • Brie works and is often the easier buy in Canada, where supermarket Camembert tends to be young and firm. Buy it well ahead and ripen it yourself.
  • Dark beer instead of Weißbier gives a maltier, rounder result. Alcohol-free beer is fine and nobody will notice.
  • Red onion looks better and tastes milder. Yellow onion is more traditional and sharper. Both are correct.
  • It keeps 3 days covered in the fridge and is better on day two. Bring it back to room temperature before serving, because cold flattens the paprika.

Sources used

Sources consulted

From Christoph Mayer

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