Eastern European Blini (Or Crepes)

Growing up in a Russian-Ukrainian household always meant a lot of yummy milk-butter-yogurt-cream-[anything dairy]-type food. These are no different. Learning how to cook these in my family was like a rite of passage. Maneuvering the pan to make the thinnest of crepes was always the challenge, as was keeping the butter or crepe from burning.

  

Ingredients

1 pinch salt

1 egg

3 cups milk

1 pinch baking soda

3 cups white flour (you can substitute half for whole wheat)

1 stick frozen butter

Directions

Making the batter:

1. Lightly whisk together egg and salt. Whisk in the milk into the mixture.

2. In another bowl combine baking soda and flour.

3. Sift the dry ingredients into the egg-milk mixture. Mix very well, making sure to get all clumps out.

Frying the blinis:
Important note: Utensils and set-up are very import for cooking the blinis.The spoon you use to ladle the batter onto the skillet must be the right size, or else your bilinis will be too thick, or won't form into a circle from lack of batter. I use a large spoon (shown in the center below)-- a soup spoon and a soup ladle (left and right) are shown for size comparison. Using a measuring cup won't give you the right pour into the pan, so make sure you find what essentially is a very over-sized soup spoon (but not ladle).  

Also, setup is quite important. Most of the steps are very time-dependent, so you'll want to make sure you have everything ready. I usually set up my blini-cooking station like the photo below: I have a plate ready for cooked blini's on the left, the pan(s) for cooking in the center, the frozen stick of butter within reach in the center, and the batter on the right.

1. Once you have a smooth batter prepared, set up your cooking station as shown above. 
2. Heat up the pan(s) to medium-high heat. This is much easier to cook on a gas stove (where you can control heat well), but that's a whole other story :). 
3. Pick up the pan with your left hand and with the frozen stick of butter, lightly grease the pan. You'll know your pan is hot enough for the blinis if the butter starts crackling when you're greasing the pan.
4. Keep the pan elevated, and at a slight angle (40ish degrees) while you ladle out a spoon-full of batter with your right hand. Quickly ladle the batter onto the pan in the upper left-hand side of the pan (most elevated part) so that the batter starts spreading down across the pan. Maneuver the pan quickly so that the batter spreads into a nice circle (will have to get photo of this step sometime soon). 
5. Set it back down on the heat and let the first side cook until the top batter cooks through (depending on thickness, anywhere from 30-90 seconds).
6. Quickly flip the blini and cook the other side for about 20-30 seconds.
7. Grease the plate you have for the prepared blinis and flip the blini onto it, grease the top with additional butter (to prevent sticking to each other) and move on the next one. 

Additional tip: by the end of your batch, you'll notice the butter starting to burn more and more (especially if you have electric) - make sure to take the pan off of the heat a bit longer between blinis  to cool it down a bit.

Enjoy these as savory main dishes, or as sweet desserts or breakfasts. Suggestions for savory blinis are: rice with ground beef, mashed potatoes with mushrooms, rice with mushrooms. Suggestions for sweet blinis are: jam, honey, yogurt, yogurt with sugar, or chocolate spread. Pairing them with berries is also yummy.