Blintzes, Sweet and Savory

Blintzes, Sweet and Savory

These festive pancakes are more than a mere delivery system for caviar—though they do that deliciously, too. Here are three blini recipes to serve at a New Year’s Eve soirée or for brunch the next day

By Gail Monaghan in the Wall Street Journal

WHEN I WAS A CHILD, my grandmother—a Russian transplanted to Texas—came to stay twice a year. She’d take over the kitchen and make dozens of what I then thought were her personal creation: cottage cheese-filled crepes we called blini. My mother stowed them in the freezer and served them, slathered in sour cream and jam, on Sunday mornings. Six months later, Grandma Rose would come back to replenish the supply.

Later I learned that blini is the Russian word for pancakes, and that Grandma’s version—called cheese blintzes by most Americans outside my immediate family—is distantly related to the elegant pancakes often served at New Year’s Eve cocktail parties smeared with crème fraîche and punctuated with the briny pop of caviar. These savory blini became my grown-up extravagance of choice, especially when I could persuade someone else to foot the bill.

Over the years, I’ve also uncovered delicious alternatives to beluga, ossetra and other high-price caviars harvested from wild sturgeon. Neon-red salmon eggs, for example, are always gorgeous, and there are many other tasty and affordable roes to choose from. Set out a plattered assortment—a roe or two plus a variety of smoked fish, accompanied by crème fraîche, lemon wedges, chopped dill and a pepper mill—and allow your guests to build their own blini.

It’s no accident this food came to be associated with holiday celebrations. To ancient Slavs, the pancakes’ round, golden form symbolized the sun; blini have remained a festive food ever since. Pre-Soviet Russians made fluffy blini from yeast-risen buckwheat batter. I offer both unleavened and leavened recipes at right. The first produces tiny buckwheat cakes, finger food to turn even a casual cocktail hour into a party. The leavened version, adapted from Wolfgang Puck, replaces yeast with baking powder for speed and simplicity. That recipe yields one large, abundantly garnished blin per person—a lavish first course or light main. A pairing of vodka or bubbles will further heighten conviviality.

And then there’s Grandma Rose’s sweet, wheat-flour version, thin as a French crêpe. Prepare a huge batch, serve some on New Year’s Day and freeze the rest to carry you through the winter—an auspicious start to the year if ever there was one.