Bliny, the main food of Maslenitsa

Since the Pancake Week (or Maslenitsa), the famous Russian holiday, is approaching, we decided to get you acquainted with interesting recipes of Russian pancakes – a traditional food we eat during these days.

Oladi
Oladi is a variant of pancakes that we like to cook for breakfast. They differ from blini (another variant of pancakes), because we use kefir, a traditional Russian drink, for cooking them.
It won't take you much time to cook them, because it is very easy.
Traditionally, we like to eat oladi with various toppings like jam, honey, sour cream, chocolate sauce, etc.

 
Ingredients:
1 egg
Kefir: 0.5 liter
Sugar:4 tablespoons
A pinch of salt
Flour: 7-8 tablespoons
1 teaspoon of soda

Yield: 30-40 oladi , 3-4 servings.

Method:
In a medium bowl whisk kefir, egg, sugar and salt – 1 minute, just to blend the ingredients. Than add flour and whisk everything for another 1 minute (by fork or spoon). Add a teaspoon of soda (maybe less) to pastry. Blend just a little bit and everything is ready! You will spent no more than 5 minutes to prepare it. The consistence of pastry should be as a sour cream, a bit thiny than a sponge pastry. Now it’s time to preheat a fry pan with several tablespoons of oil, spoon up a pastry and fry in a medium heat 1-2 minutes from each side.
Enjoy!

Bliny
Bliny is another variant of Russian pancakes. We don't use kefir to make them, as when we cook oladi. It is the main food we eat during the Pancake Week.
Maslenitsa is the holiday, when we celebrate the end of the winter and welcome the spring. We get used to cook blini during this week, because they remind the Sun. Our ancestors believed that when eating a round and hot pancake, they tok in a bit of its warmth.
Here is a recipe for sunny and delicious pancakes.

 Ingredients:
2 eggs
Sugar:1 tablespoon
Salt: 1/3 teaspoon
Flour: 1/2 cup
Milk: 2 1/2 cups
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 tablespoon butter

Yield: approx. 15 pancakes.

Method:
In a medium bowl whisk together the eggs, sugar, and salt. Sift the flour into the bowl, and stir in along with the milk. Mix until smooth and well blended. The batter should be thin. 
Heat a frying pan over medium heat and put oil in it. Pour about 2 tablespoons of the batter and tilt the pan to spread the batter out evenly. When the edges are crisp looking and the center appears dry, slide a spatula carefully under the blin. Flip, and cook for about 1 minute on the other side, or until lightly browned.
Remove blini to a plate. Put a little butter on top, and continue to stack the blini on top of each other. To serve, spread with desired filling, then fold in half, and in half again to form a triangle.
Enjoy!

Bliny Fillings
We like to eat bliny with different fillings, for example, with meat, mushrooms, cottage cheese, caviar, etc.
You can make delicious fillings yourself. Here are a couple of examples.

Meat Filling

Ingredients:
500 g (=1.1 lb) minced meat
1 big onion
2 tbsp oil
100 ml (=1/2 cup) meat stock

Method:
Preheat a pan and add oil. Chop onions and fry until transparent.
Add minced meat into the pan and fry until ready.
Pour meat stock into the pan to make the filling juicy, but not fluid.
Put a tablespoon of the filling in the middle of each pancake. Fold pancake like an envelope and fry until golden brown on both sides.

Curd Filling

Ingredients:
300 g (=10.5 oz) curd
2 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp sour cream
2 egg yolks
1 tsp grated lemon zest

Method:
Cream curd and sugar together.
Add egg yolks, sour cream, grated lemon zest and mix well.
Put a tablespoon of the filling in the middle of each pancake. Fold pancake like an envelope and fry until golden brown on both sides.

Pancakes with Caviar
This is another recipe of Russian pancakes, which differs much from the previous one. It is more difficult, as we are going to make yeast-leavened buckwheat pancakes, but still very tasty.

 

Ingredients:
Milk: 1 1/2 cups 
1 package granular yeast
Unbleached white flour: 1 1/2 cups
Buckwheat flour: 1/2 cup
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
4 eggs
1/4 pound unsalted butter, melted
2 cups sour cream
Red caviar 

Yield: 6-8 servings.

Method:
Scald the milk and set aside.
Dissolve the yeast in one-fourth cup of warm water.
Sift the white flour into a bowl, add the buckwheat flour, salt and sugar.
Beat the egg yolks until thick. When the milk has cooled to lukewarm, add the yolks and three tablespoons of the melted butter. Add the yeast. Mix well and pour into the flour. Mix thoroughly, removing any lumps. Set aside in a warm place lightly covered with a towel for about two hours, or until doubled in bulk.
Whip the egg whites until they stand in stiff peaks and fold them into the batter.
Lightly butter a small frying pan. Pour in just enough of the pancake mixture to coat the bottom of the pan. When the mixture begins to bubble, turn the pancake over and cook lightly on the other side. Wrap the pancakes in a napkin and keep them warm in the oven while you cook the others. Serve in a pile, wrapped in a napkin.
Serve the caviar, the sour cream and the remaining melted butter in small bowls on the table. Each person puts a pancake on a plate, butters it, adds sour cream and caviar, and rolls it like a crepe.
Enjoy!

Syrniki
To say more about traditional Russian food, we should mention syrniki, pancakes made of cottage cheese (or tvorog).
Tvorog is a very famous product in Russia. We eat it on breakfast (often with jam) and use for cooking syrniki.
Tvorog could be found in any Russian supermarket in a milk section, where you can also buy kefir and sour cream for the previous recipes.

Ingredients:
Cottage cheese (tvorog): 400 gram
2-3 eggs
Sugar: 4 tablespoons
A pinch of salt
Flour: 3-4 tablespoons

 

Method:
We need to take 3 eggs, 4 tablespoons of sugar (or by taste), a pinch of salt and mix all ingredients. It takes 1-2 minutes and the pastry is ready. I also recommend you to add a bit flour if the pastry looks wet but it always depends on cottage cheese.
Dust the table with 3-4 tablespoons of flour, take the pastry and shape it into pancakes.
Heat the frying pan, add 2 tablespoons of oil and brown pancakes on each side.
This recipe is very simple and you can cook this delicious meal very fast.
Enjoy!

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Natalia Semicheva.

Sources: www.tasterussian.com, www.russlandjournal.de, www.allrecipes.com, www.zastavki.com, www.englishclub.com, www.cooooking.ru, www.russianlegacy.com, www.indrus.in.