Blintzes
Remember how we started our pancake adventure around the world with these poffertjes? Then we moved on to Aebleskiver and blini and now it is the turn of Blintzes. The funny thing is that when I looked it up on Wikipedia it actually tells me… that it is the same as blini! But when I type in recipe for blintzes in Dutch, I am being told that they are really Jewish and not Russian. I am a bit confused so if anyone can shed some light on this I’d be grateful! I think we should definitely go with Jewish; I think someone on wikipedia is confused!
There are so many pancake varieties out there and if we are talking about a pancake of your native country, please let me know if it is not authentic or in any way wrong according to your culture. I would love to know as the internet is not always the best source of information! In our quest do bake the pancakes of the world I am joined by Nurit from 1familyfriendlyfood and Trissa from Trissalicious. Check out their posts on the subject from Nurit here and from Trissa here. And if you haven’t checked out their blogs yet, you should really do so as both ladies are extremely funny, great writers and take beautiful photos too! What are you waiting for??
Let me first start by apologizing for the somewhat blobby blob of cream on top of that little pancake over there. You know how you’re in a hurry, you’re hungry, the man is hungry and the last thing he or I want is to spend time taking a photo. But you have to or otherwise there will be no blogpost and the agreement was to make a blogpost, so that is what needs to happen. You need to take a photo, so here I am making the blintzes, cleaning the strawberries, whipping the cream and putting it all on a plate. Take a spoon, grab some cream and blob it onto your blintzes… Obviously it wasn’t supposed to be this much or this formless a shape, but I eh… didn’t pay attention.. 🙂
And no, we did not eat this as dessert, but we ate it as our main course, hence the impatience…
So over to the blintzes; to be entirely honest they tasted just like any other regular pancake we always make. So for me this recipe has really no added value. It’s just the same with the exception being that we normally don’t add vanilla so that was noticeable but other then that it was a tasty pancake. Nothing more nothing less. I gotta do some more research and maybe even make another batch of savoury blintzes this time as I am convinced they must be different.
So I will do some more research and maybe even manage to do that before the 10th (which is our official posting day) and I might even be able to make another batch and take some proper photographs this time. If so… you will see more below!
UPDATE!
I did end up making a savoury version of the blintze tonight for dinner. And it was lovely; still no different from a Dutch pancake but lovely nontheless, so who cares where it comes from or if it tastes different from Dutch! It was good. So was the sweet version by the way; I mean strawberries and cream make just about anything taste good right?
For the savoury version I left out the sugar and the vanilla of the recipe you can find below (Thanks to Nurit for providing the recipe) and I made a couple of versions for the filling, basically using what I had leftover in my fridge. Which makes this really a good recipe to make if you have lots of leftovers. I had some ground meat, some bacon, some peppers, some spring onions, chorizo and some ham. O and we added mushrooms into the mix too. Seasoned it with various herbs (dried), some salt and pepper (not a lot as the chorizo and bacon already made it salty enough) and I added a big tablespoon of philadelphia cheese in there to bring it all together. Even Tom – cheesehater – liked it and didn’t think it was too “cheesy” or creamy.
I spread one of the pancakes with pesto, but while it was good; it started to be too overpowering. Maybe I should have added pesto into the mix with the veggies and meat. That would probably have been better. And no, it is storebought pesto (I bow in shame) but I didn’t feel like making pesto also and this is a fairly good substitute for the real thing… (Bertolli pesto genovese)
The pancakes/blintzes I made are fairly pale; I tend to get too impatient and I like mine not too browned, so I always struggle in finding a balance between the two. But they were tasty despite the lack of a bit of color..
If you want to give these a go then here is the recipe:
Blintzes
Ingredients
- 2 eggs
- 1 1/2 cups milk
- 2 tablespoons oil
- 1 cup flour
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 teaspoons sugar
- Butter for frying
- Red pepper cut into small cubes
- Springonion cut finely
- Bacon small strips
- Mushrooms cut into slices
- Ham cut into small strips
- Chorizo cut into small bits
- Ground beef
Instructions
- Mix all the ingredients together to make the batter and start baking them! Make them thin, much thinner and bigger as your average american pancake, but if you're dutch; they are the same as a regular crepe... You need them to be the same thickness.
- For filling the choices are really endless. For sweet fillings you can use strawberries & cream or pineapple or banana or mango or... well, I guess you get the point; anything will go in there and taste good.
- For savoury the same applies, but if you want to know what I used then these are the ingredients I put in my savoury ones. I didn't check qty's or weights so just throw in until it tastes good... 🙂
- Philadelphia creamcheese with chives, about 1-2 tablespoons
- Season with salt, pepper or any other herbs you think would fit well with your filling. And then just enjoy them. If you would like to know how many you would typically eat per person; I found two more then enough, but if you're a big eater maybe three. And.... any leftover blintzes you can transform into a dessert! Now how's that for efficiency?
Disclaimer
The nutritional values above are calculated per portion. The details are based on standard nutritional tables and do not constitute a professional nutritional advice.
