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Blini (plural blinis or blini, rarely bliny; ; singular: blin) are Russian crêpes, often made with a yeast-raised batter of buckwheat or wheat flour and milk. They may be served with smetana, cottage cheese, caviar and other garnishes, or simply smeared with butter. They are a traditional dish in Russian cuisine.
In the West, blini traditionally refers to small savory pancakes made with leavened batter. In modern Russian, the term most often refers to pan-sized leavened thin pancakes, although smaller leavened pancakes are also called blini. Smaller and thicker pancakes (with several of them baked on one larger pan) are called oladyi.
Blintzes, called blinchiki (little blinis) in Russian, are an offshoot of blini or crêpes. They are basically rolls based on thin pancakes usually made of wheat flour, folded to form a casing for various kinds of filling, typically cheese, fruit, or (in Russian cuisine) pre-fried minced meat, and then sautéed or baked.
Some English dictionaries record usage of the forms blin as singular and blini or bliny as plural, which corresponds to the original Russian forms, but other dictionaries consider this usage so rare in English that they do not mention blin at all and only record the widespread modern regular usage of blini for the singular and blinis for the plural.
Traditional Russian blini are made with yeasted batter, which is left to rise and then diluted with milk, soured milk, and cold or boiling water. When diluted with boiling water, they are referred to as zavarnye bliny (the Russian term zavarnoe testo corresponds to "choux pastry"). A lighter and thinner form made from unyeasted batter (usually made of flour, eggs, milk, or soured milk, kefir, ryazhenka, varenets) is also common in Russia. All kinds of flour may be used, from wheat and buckwheat to oatmeal and millet, although wheat is currently the most popular. Historically, blini have been baked in a Russian oven, which was used for heat processing of all kinds of food. Even though blini are nowadays pan-fried, like pancakes, preparing blini is still referred to as "pech bliny" (i.e., "to bake blini") in Russian, and the word for "Russian oven" is a cognate, "(russkya) pech".
The influence of French cuisine in the 19th century may have led to the development of lighter blini. According to Lesley Chamberlain: "In a full Russian obed, blini are served after the cold zakuski. They may be followed by consommé, then pies and then the main meat course. For all this you would need a gargantuan appetite..."
They may be folded or rolled into a tube with sweet or salty fillings such as varenye, fruit, berry, mashed potatoes, tvorog, cooked ground meat, cooked poultry, salmon, chopped boiled eggs with green onions or chopped mushrooms.
Similar pancakes are eaten in neighboring countries, such as nalistniki in Belarus, although blini are also widely eaten.
There are many Russian proverbs involving blini. ПОСЛОВИЦЫ И ПОГОВОРКИ О БЛИНАХ Русские пословицы и поговорки о блинах и масленице For example, "Первый блин комом" ("The first blin is lumpy") is a figurative saying that the first attempt to do something is expected to be unsuccessful, said to calm down the person who failed the first try. An English equivalent would be "You must spoil before you spin".
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