russian dessert blinis

My roommate Matt, who blogs over at 27aday, moved to D.C. from L.A. last June. He and his former roommates in L.A. started a weekly tradition of homemade "family" dinners - each meal inspired by different countries drawn out of a hat. An appetizer from Poland, an entree from Namibia and a dessert from New Zealand, for example. A few weeks ago he pitched the idea for our house, and I jumped right up on the culinary tour bandwagon. Instead of each course from a different country, we're doing one meal per. Matt's doing most of the cooking, as he's using it for a new blog project of his that I won't reveal until he unveils it, but I'm more than pleased to be a tasting guinea pig.

We drew Russia for week one. Matt chose to make the popular dish Beef Straganoff. The traditional version of this dish is very different than what we see in American kitchens and restaurants. My first thought when he chose it was, "meh." It brought to mind images of canned mushroom soup, limp mushrooms, egg noodles, and that soppy creamy texture that needs a lot of work to be considered even edible, in my book. The real version, as he found out, involves no canned soup, arguably no mushrooms (there's a serious culinary debate over that one!), is served with pan fried potatoes, and the beef tenderloin is sauteed or flash fried. The real version? It's great.

Matt opted to serve our beef stroganoff with Russian blinis. Blinis, not bellinis - which got me really excited (mmm prosecco!), are flat pancake-like dough fried with onion. They're served with savory items - like stroganoff! or caviar, beef strips, etc. They've also been traditionally served with honey or jam.

I'm glad I had my narrow opinion on beef stroganoff challenged. You'll never find egg noodles on my dinner table in this dish again. Side note: we also made fried potatoes to try them, as well, and unanimously voted the beef better with them than the blinis.

Many cultures have these pancake-like dishes. I imagine they come from peasant roots, don't you? They're simple, cheap and can feed quite a few people. And for Russia's purposes, they're warm and filling. 

As I ate them with the warm beef, I immediately thought of crêpes and imagined ways to make them sweet, instead of savory (of course I did...). Luckily, we had quite a bit of batter left - enough for 4-5 more blinis, and two ended up being more than enough.

We were out of Nutella - my first choice for a quick dessert blini, so I scavenged some more. I skipped the onion on the skillet and used a pat of butter instead to fry the batter. After letting it brown on one side, I flipped it to brown on the other. I dusted brown sugar on top, added a few drops of vanilla, and sprinkled on a small handful of chocolate chips. I folded over a third of the blini on top of itself, then rolled it the rest of the way. Voila! An American-Russian-French inspired dessert. That's what America's all about, right?

Russian Blinis

you'll need...

• 1 cup flour (be prepared! these will be runny. for a heartier blini, add more flour, up to an addl cup)
• 3 cups milk
• 2-3 eggs, mixed in one at a time
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil (for frying) *you can substitute cooking spray or butter
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• half an onion, peeled

here's how...

• beat eggs with milk. 
• add salt & flour and stir, stir, stir (mix well)! 
• beat out the lumps or drain, if lumps persist. 
• spear your onion with a fork and dip it in oil (or skip this step and use cooking spray/butter). rub the onion along the pan to grease it every time you make a new blini. 
• pour a thin layer of batter into the pan (we used a little less than 1/2 cup for each blini). 
• cook until lightly browned - about 2 minutes, flip & brown the other side.

dessert blini...

• skip the onion & use butter instead to grease the pan 
• brown on one side & flip
• dust with brown sugar (a large pinch, more by taste)
• add a few drops of vanilla (no more than 1/2 teaspoon)
• sprinkle with chocolate chips
• roll and serve with milk (mmmmm I want another now!)