From Russia, With Love

Matt and I have a bad case of Olympics fever, and the only cure is watching a lot of the Olympics. We currently are watching the ski-athlon (I think that's how it's spelled?), which we learned is a cross-country ski event. I guess there is more than one way to cross-country ski, and this event combines them both with competitors changing types partway through. Seems weird to me, but this is coming from a girl who can't even master one type of cross-country skiing.

Cooking up some blini - just like pancakes!

So anyway, we're big into the Olympics. To celebrate the beginning of the games, we planned a Russian feast for Friday night, and I followed that up by making Russian cookies on Saturday. Like most Americans, borscht is what I think of when I think of Russian food. Unfortunately, one of us does not like beets, so that was off the table. After a little research, we decided to make blini for our Russian dinner. Blini are traditionally made with buckwheat flour and are endlessly customizable. In some recipes, they were large and thin like crepes, and rolled up around a filling; in others, they were smaller and thicker (like silver dollar pancakes) and meant to be finger food with something on top. We decided to go the second route and make small-ish pancakes with savory toppings. Traditional blini toppings include sour cream with smoked salmon or caviar, chopped hard boiled egg, pickled vegetables, fruit, herring, and other smoked/preserved fish.

With fromage blanc and smoked salmon.

The nice thing about blini is that they are so customizable and can be topped with whatever you like or have on hand. We topped ours with smoked salmon, a smoked bluefish pate (very tasty), seafood salad with imitation crab and shrimp, fromage blanc (a French fresh cheese that's kind of like a cross between sour cream and plain Greek yogurt - it's very delicious, especially with a little sugar and some fruit. Just in case you know anyone planning on going to France...), pickled vegetables, a tuna-olive spread, and some leftover white bean and rosemary hummus. The hardest part was finding buckwheat flour - I couldn't find it anywhere! Whole Foods had buckwheat pancake mix, but no plain buckwheat flour. I ended up buying the pancake mix, since all the recipes I saw for blini called for mixing the buckwheat with all-purpose flour, baking powder, and salt, and that's what was in the mix. It ended up being a super easy dinner - all I had to do was cook up some pancakes. I made them according to the package directions, so they were maybe a little thicker than traditional blini, but it would be perfectly easy to thin the batter a bit.

Our whole spread!

After our blini feast on Friday, I decided to make Russian cookies on Saturday. Probably the best known Russian cookies are Russian tea cakes, which are similar to Mexican wedding cakes or the snowball cookies Mom makes at Christmas. I figured I'd check my International Cookie Book, from which I made Icelandic cookies a few months ago, and see if there were any Russian recipes in it. There are / aren't. Since the book was published in the 1980s, it includes several cookie recipes from the Soviet Union, so the cookies I made may or may not actually be Russian. They're called paliushky, or walnut finger cookies. They are pretty similar to Mom's snowballs in that they are a nut-based cookie covered in powdered sugar and that both are delicious. These, however, also include lemon zest and sour cream in the dough (I subbed in fromage blanc, and it seems to have worked), are rolled into log shapes instead of balls, and the powdered sugar coating includes lemon zest and a piece of vanilla bean. They are delicious - the lemon-vanilla sugar smell is amazing, and cuts the sweetness of the cookies with a nice citrus-y tang. Yum!

Yummy! And messy!

I'm not sure how authentic the blini or the cookies are, really, but it was fun to try something new and they were all delicious. I'm thinking about making Russian black bread for the end of the games, but might go with something Korean instead, as Pyeongchang is the host in 2018. Hmmmm

A Moscow mule (left) and White Russian to wash it all down!

Walnut Finger Cookies (Paliushky)
Nancy Baggett's The International Cookie Book

 1/3 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup butter
2 1/2 Tbsp lard or vegetable shortening
1/2 cup powdered sugar
pinch of salt
1 large egg yolk
2 Tbsp sour cream
finely grated zest of one lemon
2 cups all purpose flour

Sugar topping
2 Tbsp granulated sugar
1 1-inch long piece of vanilla bean, or 2 packets of vanilla sugar
1 strip of lemon zest, about 3/4-inch by 1/2-inch, chopped
1/2 cup powdered sugar

Place walnuts in food processor or blender and grind until very fine, keeping the nuts aerated and fluffy rather than clumped and oily while grinding. Set aside.

Place butter and lard in large bowl and mix on medium speed until light and fluffy. Add powdered sugar and salt and continue beating until thoroughly incorporated. Beat in egg yolk, sour cream, and lemon zest until well blended. Beat in nuts. Add flour and stir in with spoon until incorporated. Cover and refrigerate 1.5 hours.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease several baking sheets, or line with parchment. Pull off 1/2-inch pieces of dough and roll each into a 2 1/4-inch long log about 1/4-inch in diameter. Space cookies 1 inch apart on baking sheet, bake in upper third of the oven for about 8-10 minutes or until just browned at the edges. Let cool on sheet for 2 minutes, then remove to cool.

Combine granulated sugar, zest, and vanilla in a food processor or blender (this smells really good). Combine until the bean and zest are completely ground, turn into a bowl and mix with powdered sugar. Strain to remove any pieces of vanilla bean. Dredge the cookies in the sugar mixture until they are lightly coated. Store in airtight container for up to a week. Undredged cookies may be frozen.

Makes about 55 cookies.