The Philosophy of Food, Issue #033: Blini

Tonight I made a dish that has been on my radar for some time: blini.  A blini is a small buckwheat pancake of Russian origin, traditionally served with sour cream and either smoked salmon or caviar.  I opted for the smoked salmon.

The recipes use of clarified butter is what kept me from trying it.  Clarifying butter, while easy, was not something I had tried before, and at my former lodgings in Indiana, I was ill prepared for it.  At home with the folks this obstacle was far less daunting.

The Ingredients
-1/3 cup buckwheat flour
-2/3 cup all purpose flour
-1/2 tsp. baking powder
-3/4 tsp. kosher salt
-3/4 cup and 2 Tbs. milk
-1 egg
-1 stick unsalted butter, clarified and divided

The Process
The actual process of making blinis is about as simple as making pancakes.  That is to say, it's incredibly easy.

In a large bowl, mix together your dry ingredients (buckwheat flour, all purpose flour, baking powder, salt).  In another bowl, whisk together your egg, milk, and 1 Tbs. of clarified butter.  Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, and whisk until the batter is relatively smooth.

The flour mixture.

The combined batter.  The buckwheat flour makes it look rather gritty (it's not).

Add 1 Tbs. of the clarified butter to a large skillet over medium heat.  Once it is heated, add the batter to the skillet in 1 Tbs. increments, making silver dollar-ish sized pancakes.  Cook and flip them as you would conventional pancakes.  Once they're all made, serve them with smoked salmon and a dollop of sour cream.  If you're feeling fancy, add a prig of dill for garnish (I didn't).

The Results
They came out pretty fantastic.  The dish is nice and subdued.  The blinis really are a vehicle for whatever they top and they do the job admirably.  Flavor wise they do not seem that different than the typical pancake, if perhaps a bit less sweet.

The pile of finished blinis.

Blinis, salmon, sour cream, and salad.  A nice, light dinner.

We got adventurous and tried them with pickled herring.