Russian Blini Recipe

Cooking Russian Food

What are you thinking about cooking at your next family dinner?  Why not step outside your comfort zone and try out something totally new and exciting.  International dishes are a great way to show off your talents in the kitchen so today we are going to share with you some hot and cold Russian recipes that anyone can master.

Blini - Traditional Russian Pancakes

The crepe might be French but other countries will argue their version tastes better.  Russia is no different and they have the Blini:

To make Blini you will need:

½ cup plain flour (sifted)

2 eggs

2 ½ cups of milk

1 tablespoon sugar

1 tablespoon sugar

1 tablespoon butter

1/3 teaspoon of baking soda (optional if you want a lighter mixture)

Start by whisking the eggs in a bowl with the sugar and salt.  Add the flower to the mixture and then slowly stir in the milk to avoid lumps.  Mix by hand or with a food processor to a smooth consistency.   You should have a thin batter at this stage.

Optional – Add the baking soda to make the mixture more light (porous).  For the best result, cover your mixing bowl and leave your batter in the fridge for 30 minutes to rest.  If the mixture is too thick, add water/milk.  If the mixture is too thin, add in flour. 

Start cooking the pancakes by warming a non-stick pan over a medium heat.  Coat the pan with a light cooking oil or butter (though butter does give a better tasting pancake, it just depends on how fattening you want them to be).  Pour a couple of table spoons of the mixture onto the pan and spreak the mixture out evenly into small pancakes.  Traditional blini are thin but this is personal preference.  You should be able to fit 3 or 4 on a standard frying pan to make the process go faster.  Each side should only take about a minute.  When bubbles appear in the mixture or the centre of the uncooked side is dry, flip it over to finish it off.

Take your finished blini, butter one side and stack them on a warm plate while you cook the rest of the batch.  Serve them by putting jam in the center and folding them.  Fold them again to make a triangle.  They are best enjoyed as an afternoon treat on a cold winter's day with a nice cup of tea.  The tea should be black, no sugar and served with lemon.  You can sweeten the tea with honey, but there will be plenty of sweetness in the blini.

Russian Salads

If you are use to salads of tossed lettuce, fresh vine ripened tomatoes and a light vinaigrette,  then you are in for a bit of a shock with Russian salads.  Russia is a cold country, so hardy root vegetables tend to feature on the dinner table that delicate spring salads.

This gives us a traditional Russian salad - a salad with some bite.  A typical salad is the Dressed Herring Under Fur Salad.

Ingredients:

2 herring (salted)

5 potatoes

4 carrots

4 beets

5 eggs

1 lb mayonnaise

The Process:

Bring a large pot of unsalted to the boil and add the vegetables.  Boil until soft, drain and set aside.

Skin and debone the herring.  Dice the fish into small cubes about half an inch wide.  Take your serving platter and layer the herring on the bottom.  Cover with a thin layer of mayonnaise.

Take the pototoes and mash them.  Do no add butter or milk to the mash.  Spread the potato as the second layer and cover with mayonaise.  Repeat the process for the beets and 3 of the eggs.  Top the dish with the remaining egg and put in the fridge (covered) for one hour before serving.

What else can you cook that is Russian?  Why not try some Borsht as well?

Recipe russian blinis

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