No. 3281

Polish Blinis

Blinis a la Polonaise

Sift into a pan half a pound of wheat flour, a quarter of a pound of rye flour and half a pound of rice flour; make a hollow in the center. Dissolve three-quarters of an ounce of yeast with half a pint of milk, run it through a sieve into the hollow and incorporate the flour slowly, also five or six eggs and half a pound of melted butter, so as to obtain a smooth paste of the same consistency as a frying batter. Cover the pan with a cloth and keep it in a mild temperature to raise the paste to double its original height, and when this is accomplished beat in four egg-whites previously beaten to a stiff froth and also the volume of a pint of whipped cream; let this rise once more for twenty minutes. Heat twelve small tartlet molds made of tinned sheet iron, two and a half to three inches in diameter and half an inch in depth; baste them with melted butter, using a brush, and fill them half full with the paste; set them in a very hot oven, and as soon as the paste is well seized, remove and baste again with butter, using a brush; turn them over quickly, butter them on the other side and return to the oven. When done dress on a hot plate and serve at once. These are to be accompanied either with a sauce-boat of sour cream or melted butter; they can also be laid on a folded napkin, serving the cream or butter separate. Buckwheat flour may be used alone instead of the three other kinds.

← No. 3280 Oatmeal; Wheaten Grits; Hominy, Boiled Breakfast Cakes No. 3282 Echaudes →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer's blini are a yeast-raised batter lightened twice — once with beaten whites, once with whipped cream — then baked in buttered tartlet tins rather than griddled. The instructions assume a professional kitchen with a coal range and a supply of tinned tartlet molds.

The hinge: two risings, gentle foldingThe batter rises to double, then takes the whites and whipped cream and rises again for only twenty minutes. Fold both in with a spatula and stop as soon as they disappear; if you beat them in properly, as the text literally says, you lose the aeration that makes these light rather than leathery.
Flour weightsHalf a pound of wheat flour is about 1 3/4 cups, a quarter pound of rye about 1 cup, half a pound of rice flour about 1 1/2 cups. Rice flour here is plain white rice flour, not glutinous; it keeps the crumb short and slightly sandy.
YeastThree-quarters of an ounce means fresh compressed yeast. Roughly 2 to 2 1/2 teaspoons of instant dry yeast is the equivalent, and it can go straight into the warm milk without sieving.
"A mild temperature"A warm corner of the kitchen, 75-80F. In a modern house that usually means the oven with only the light on, door ajar.
"A very hot oven"450-475F. The batter must set — "be well seized" — quickly enough to hold its shape before the molds are pulled out for buttering and flipping.
PansHalf-inch-deep tinned tartlet molds 2 1/2 to 3 inches across are effectively a shallow muffin tin or a set of metal egg rings on a baking sheet. A cast-iron Russian blini pan on the stovetop achieves the same thing more easily, since the batter is turned partway through anyway.
Fill half full, and expect batchesA pound and a quarter of flour plus five or six whole eggs, four extra whites, cream and butter makes far more batter than twelve small molds will hold at once — this is a service quantity, baked in successive batches. Scale the recipe down for a household.
Consistency"The same consistency as a frying batter" means it ribbons off the spoon rather than mounding. Add the milk gradually; rye and rice flours absorb liquid differently from batch to batch.
The buckwheat versionThe final line — buckwheat alone in place of all three flours — gives the darker, more sour cake usually meant by blini. Buckwheat has no gluten, so that batter rises less and is best cooked on a griddle.

A Little History

Blini are usually associated with Russia, though pancakes of the kind belong to a shared Slavic tradition. In Russia they are the traditional food of Maslenitsa, the butter-and-dairy week before Lent, when meat is already forbidden but eggs, butter and sour cream are not — which explains the extravagant proportions of butter and cream here, and the sour cream served alongside. Buckwheat was the older and more usual flour, and Ranhofer's closing note preserves that; his three-flour mixture with rice flour and beaten whites is the Delmonico's kitchen refining a peasant pancake into something fit for a hotel breakfast card. Charles Ranhofer had come up through Parisian kitchens before running Delmonico's in New York, and The Epicurean (1894) collects the whole repertoire of that house, including a great many dishes labelled by nationality and cooked by no method the nation would recognise.