Blinis

Going through the recipes I’ve collected so far, I decided to add one dish, which is not traditionally Polish, but very often appears on our tables: blinis. Blinis is an incredibly yummy, traditional Russian and Lithuanian meal.

I saw it a few times on British TV, when people tried to treat it as a starter. No, no, no. It’s not a starter. And blinis are not the size of a squashed strawberry. Blinis are big, the size of a pancake and served hot with meat sauce.

This recipe gives about 30-40 blinis.

Ingredients:

Fresh yeast! (available in Polish shops, one whole packet, 100 g)
Self rising flour (1 kg)
Potatoes (1 kg)
Salt (for taste)
Pepper (for taste)
1 tablespoon of sugar
Oil for frying

Preparation:

Break the yeast into a bowl and add sugar. Leave till yeast dissolves in sugar. Stir occasionally.
Peel potatoes and grate finely (they must resemble mash). Add flower, salt, pepper and dissolved yeast.

Stir the mixture, cover and leave for about half an hour – 45 minutes in a warm place to rise.

The mixture should double its quantity and the consistency should be of a dense cream.
Place a big frying pan on a stove and heat it up. Add small amount of oil (a tablespoon), wait a bit till hot.

Scoop a vase spoon of mixture and pour it onto the frying pan. Make sure it reaches the edges of the frying pan. Fry shortly and shake from time to time. Blinis can’t stick to the pan. After 2-3 minutes (check by raising the edges; blinis should be golden on the side. Flip the blini and fry the same way on the other side.

Once fried, place on a plate and cover with a baking paper so that the next ones do not stick to the previous ones.

Blinis are served hot, with a dense sauce, placed on a plate with a lot of sauce poured over them.

The Sauce:

Boil some chicken drumsticks till soft, adding stock cubes for taste. Remove boiled drumsticks and shred the meat. Place it back in the pan. Add some cream. To make the sauce thick, pour cold water into a jar (half its capacity) and add 3-4 tablespoons of flour. Place the lid on and shake firmly.

Add the mixture slowly to the sauce to thicken it. Keep stirring. Add as much as necessary, to make the sauce thick.

Serve blinis hot with the sauce poured all over each of them. Do not serve them piled.