Blini, beetroot cream, caviar

My Russian childhood breakfast, snack, lunch and sometimes dinner — made more feminine and elevated with a beetroot cream and caviar.

These would be so cute as appetizers if you rolled them up and put a toothpick through them or cut them into smaller shapes.

I like mine folded, with plenty of toppings — I held off from adding too much for the photo but behind the scenes, trust me, there was more sour cream, more beetroot cream and more caviar added on!

Ingredients:

Beetroot cream:

120g cream cheese

100g beetroot, cooked

1 tsp olive oil

squeeze of fresh lemon, about 1/4 of whole lemon

pinch of salt

dash of water to thin if needed — I used about half a shot glass

Dill sour cream:

200g sour cream

1/4 cup dill, chopped

Blini:

3 eggs

1 1/2 tbsp caster sugar

1 tsp fine salt

500g full cream milk

250g all purpose flour

150 ml boiling water

1 chicken stock cube

3 tbsp olive oil

Garnish:

Caviar

Fresh dill sprigs

Dried rose petals

Method:

To make the dill sour cream: simply mix together chopped dill and sour cream in a small bowl. Keep in the fridge until ready to eat.

To make the beetroot cream: blend together all of the ingredients listed for the cream in a high speed blender, using water to thin the mixture if needed. I buy my beetroots cooked already from the grocery store so this saves me so much time and effort! I doubled this recipe in order to get my blender to actually blend it super smooth — you may like to do this too?

To make the blini: crack 3 eggs into a large mixing bowl and add salt and sugar. Whisk to combine well. Pour in milk and whisk well. Sift in flour and whisk well. Dissolve a chicken stock cube in boiling water and whisk into the blini mixture. Add olive oil and you guessed it - whisk well! Let sit for 15 minutes while a non-stick pan comes up to high heat.

Drizzle in a tiny bit of olive oil into the pan and wipe off excess oil from the pan with a paper towel. Save this paper towel to grease the pan in between every blini.

Once the pan is greased and super hot, add a ladle of blini mixture, pouring into the center of the pan and swirling the pan around to cover the entirely of it’s base.

P.S. — the first one will almost always stick and just suck in general. It’s a chef snack!

Flip the blini once it bubbles and the bubbles start to pop. You will see it start to turn golden brown along the sides too. Cook on the other side for a minute or so, then stack them on a plate to keep warm as they cook. It’s not a bad idea to add a slice of butter in between each blini as they wait to be eaten!