Buckwheat Blini with Smoked Salmon and Crème Fraîche
It was in Paris in the 1960s that I first tasted buckwheat blini. My friend Nanou took me to a tiny, chic Russian restaurant near the Champs- Élysées. Russians, many of them Jews, came to France at the end of the nineteenth century, not long before the Russian Revolution, and congregated in restaurants like this one. We ordered the elegantly presented blini, and ate them daintily with smoked salmon and crème fraîche. Twenty years after Nanou died, her son Édouard got married. The wedding party took place at Maxim’s, where we drank lots of champagne and danced until the wee hours of the morning. I was touched to taste blini with smoked salmon and crème fraîche, the same appetizer that Édouard’s mother and I had enjoyed so many years ago. For me, it was as though she were present at the wedding. This recipe was adapted from Lynn Visson’s The Russian Heritage Cookbook.
Recipe information
Yield
20 to 24 bilini
Ingredients
Preparation
Step 1
Put the milk, yeast, and 1 tablespoon of the sugar in a small bowl, and whisk together. Mix the two flours in a large bowl with the remaining sugar and the salt. Whisk in the yeast mixture, the butter, and the egg yolks. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap, and let rise for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, or until bubbly and doubled in bulk. You can also refrigerate overnight until ready to use.
Step 2
When ready to make the blini, beat the egg whites to stiff peaks, and gently fold them into the risen batter.
Step 3
Heat a small crêpe pan or griddle to medium, and brush with melted butter. Pour about 3 tablespoons of the batter onto the crêpe pan or the griddle, and fry until golden brown on both sides. Remove from the pan, and keep warm, wrapped in a towel. Brush the pan with additional butter as needed, and continue to make additional blini. Serve with smoked salmon, caviar, and crème fraîche as an appetizer or a breakfast dish.
