My blini with smoked salmon and caviar recipe makes a DIY blini spread for a weekend brunch or feast of zakuski or Russian starters. Use my buckwheat pancakes recipe to make your own blini or pancakes – or use store-bought pikelets or mini pancakes for spontaneous gatherings, as I have for this, and you’ll have this ‘blinis’ spread on the table in minutes.
One summer on the Moscow to St Petersburg train, my mum and I consumed so many blini with smoked salmon and caviar, each plate washed down with vodka shots, that the provodnitsa poyezda (проводница поезда), the female train attendant, astonished after calculating our bill, told us we’d broken a record: in all her years working that route she’d never seen people eat so many blini. We called the train ‘The Blini Express’.
This recipe for blini with smoked salmon, caviar, sour cream and dill makes those ‘train blini’ and it’s one of our best salmon recipes. In Russian, ‘blini’ are pancakes, pronounced ‘bli-NEE’, which is the plural, not ‘blinis’; the singular is ‘blin’, a pancake. While Russian pancakes take many forms, from small potato pancakes and ricotta pancakes to large French-style crepes, I love these cocktail blini, named as they’re perfect for cocktail parties and entertaining.
You could make cocktail blini using my Russian buckwheat pancakes recipe for a weekend brunch, to serve as finger food for a party or as part of a spread of zakuski or Russian starters. But if you’re not up to cooking for a crowd or you’re preparing nibbles for a spontaneous casual gathering, use store-bought pikelets or ‘mini pancakes’, as Aldi calls them, as I did for the spread I recently prepared, pictured in this post.
If you enjoy things topped with smoked salmon and caviar, try my grandmother’s potato latkes with smoked salmon (or trout), caviar, sour cream, and dill, my elegant devilled eggs with smoked salmon and caviar, and Terence’s scrambled eggs with smoked salmon and caviar, perfect for Christmas breakfast.
Salmon lover? Browse our best salmon recipes, which include recipes for creamy smoked salmon dip, Cambodian salmon ‘ceviche’, smoked salmon ‘carpaccio’, fish soup with salmon, Russian salmon potato salad, smoked salmon pasta with capers and dill pickles, Vietnamese caramelised salmon, an easy salmon tray bake, salmon fillets with crispy skin, and scrambled eggs with smoked salmon and caviar.
I’ll tell you more about this recipe for blini with smoked salmon and caviar, sour cream and dill below, but if you’re looking for more cooking inspiration we have many hundreds of recipes in our archives. You can save your favourites in your own private account by clicking on the heart on the right of each post to create an account and save the recipe.
Blini with Smoked Salmon and Caviar Recipe for a DIY ‘Blinis’ Spread
Whenever mum and I reminisce about our Russian adventure – part of a longer European journey of grieving and healing following dad’s death that Terence and I took mum on – we fondly recall ‘The Blini Express’ as one of the most memorable experiences of the trip. Along with the three of us strolling Moscow’s Red Square on a warm summer’s evening with cold beers in hand, as the locals were doing.
I’ve been using dishes my mother loves to spark memories this year and no food triggers more recollections than Russian food, the cuisines of mum’s heritage and family, and these blini with smoked salmon and caviar, sour cream and fresh dill ignite the most reminiscences – mostly of meals with family around my grandparents dining table.
Smoked salmon and caviar were always on the table at my Russian-Ukrainian grandparents’ home for the languorous Sunday family lunches that often turned into dinner. If it was a feast for Christmas, New Year, Easter or a special occasion, it was the good Russian beluga caviar but for the usual hours-long family gatherings it was more affordable lumpfish caviar.
Jars of red and black caviar were served alongside other zakuski (snacks and starters) such as plates of salamis, cheeses, dill pickles, boiled eggs, pickled herrings, smoked fish, piroshki (pastries filled with savoury mince and vermicelli), eggplant ‘caviar’ called ikra, and salads, such as this pink beetroot potato salad, classic garden salad, an Olivier salad (Russian potato salad), and mimosa salad.
If there weren’t blini on the table, there was a loaf of black rye bread cut into thick slices to lay the smoked salmon on, and caviar was piled onto hard boiled eggs or classic Russian devilled eggs to create this fancy devilled eggs with smoked salmon and caviar.
After we’d all grazed on the starters for a while, catching up on news since we’d last got together, my mum and I would help baboushka bring out the hot mains and sides, such as stuffed cabbage rolls, chicken kotleti or chicken Kiev, creamy mashed potatoes, and beef stew in winter.
There’d also be big lidded casserole pots brimming with just-boiled Russian pelmeni (savoury meat filled dumplings) and Ukrainian potato vareniki (filled with mashed potatoes and caramelised fried onion), and dishes of sour cream to dollop on the dumplings and fresh dill to shower over them.
Tips for Making Blini with Smoked Salmon and Caviar Recipe for a DIY ‘Blinis’ Spread
I only have a few tips to making this recipe for blini with caviar and smoked salmon, sour cream and fresh dill, as the spread couldn’t be easier to pull together and will be on the table in fifteen minutes.
If you have the time, I highly recommend making your own blini using my buckwheat pancakes recipe, which are the traditional blini eaten with caviar, smoked salmon and sour cream, as they are so scrumptious.
But if you don’t have the time, by all means use store-bought pikelets or mini pancakes, as I have for the spread pictured. They don’t taste anywhere near as delicious as homemade blini, but they’re really just a vehicle for the smoked salmon and caviar.
If you’re entertaining or serving these blini and smoked salmon and caviar to a gathering, I recommend serving a plate of prepared blini for the guests who don’t want to assemble their own, or to give the guests who aren’t familiar with blini.
My family would assemble their own blini and I like to offer guests the opportunity to do the same and serve an array of accompaniments, such as baby capers, diced onion, cocktail gherkins, finely chopped chives, etc, so guests can make them as they like. Enjoy!
Blini with Smoked Salmon and Caviar Recipe for a DIY ‘Blinis’ Spread
Ingredients
- 24 mini pancakes - see notes
- 300 g sour cream
- 200 g smoked salmon
- 100 g caviar - 2 x 50 g jars red and black lumpfish caviar or the expensive stuff if you prefer
- 1 red onion - finely diced
- 50 g baby capers
- 100 cocktail gherkins
- 1 bunch fresh dill - sprigs only
- chives - finely diced
Instructions
- Prepare a small plate of blini to show your guests how to assemble them: spread each mini pancake with a teaspoon of sour cream, a piece of smoked salmon, half a teaspoon of caviar, a sprig of dill, and perhaps a sprinkle of diced onion, a couple of capers, or a cocktail gherkin.
- On a large serving plate, arrange the blini and smoked salmon around the jars of caviar (provide little spoons for the caviar), and serve small dishes of finely diced onion, baby capers, cocktail gherkins, fresh dill sprigs, and finely diced chives alongside the plate.
- Put the lot on a tray to transport it to your coffee table or dining table and serve with glasses of bubbly, white wine or vodka shots.
Notes
Nutrition
Please do let us know in the comments below if you make our recipe for blini with smoked salmon and caviar, sour cream and dill, as we love hearing how our recipes turn out for you.
