Maslenitsa is celebrated around Easter every year. This year it is being celebrated the first week of March. In honor of Maslenitsa, I am posting a recipe for Blini (the Russian pancake), I haven't tried this recipe yet, the instructions I got from companions were much simpler, but this is supposed to be the traditional way to make them.
Ingredients:
2/3 cup warm milk
½ tsp honey
1 pkt dry yeast
2 tbl melted butter, cooled
½ cup flour, plus 2 tbl flour
1/4-cup-buckwheat flour
1 pch salt
2 eggs, whisked together
1 potato, cut in half
vegetable oil or butter for frying
Preparation: Combine milk, honey and yeast in a medium bowl. Whisk together and let stand until foamy. Stir in cooled butter. In a separate bowl combine the flours, salt and baking powder. Make an indentation in the center of the dry mixture and stir in liquid mixture, slowly, until blended. Without stirring vigorously, blend in whisked eggs just until combined. Cover and let rise at room temperature for about 1 1/2 hours or until doubled in volume.
Cooking: Heat a thick-bottomed skillet (or a blini, crepe, or plett pan) over medium-high heat. Dip the halved potato in oil, or coat with butter and grease the pan lightly (this is the traditional way, a paper towel or oil brush may also be used). Pour some batter in the pan. Some chefs use a special "blini roller" to spread the batter evenly and paper-thin, otherwise, move the pan while pouring to help spread the batter, or make very small bliny, which will be able to spread themselves (use about 1 tbl.). When the blin is golden brown on its underside (should happen in under 1 minute), flip over and brown the other side. Repeat.
My favorite way to eat them is with a little bit of sweetened condensed milk spread on top. It is also great with butter and sugar sprinkled on top. Not very healthy but yummy!!
I found this article about Maslenitsa on the web - I love it when people try to translate from Russian to English - I love laughing to tears! :)Maslenitsa (Pancake week) is the only purely Russian Holiday that dates back to the pagan times. For seven days Moscow jingles with bells, sings with garmoshkas and glares with gaily-painted dresses. The people are letting the long-annoying winter out and the long-awaited spring in.
The counters in the Maslenitsa town are groaning with various dainties. There are the paunchy samovars with mellow tea, bunches of sweet-scented barankas, nuts and honey pies with different signs: "Whom I love - to those I give", "A present of the sweet-hart is the dearest". Salted foods, various fish, caviar - choose and eat anything however much you like!
But the essential elements, of course, are pancakes (blini). Pankacke is a symbol of sun. It is as round, gold and warm as the sun. Pancakes are served hot with either butter, or sour cream, or caviar, or mushrooms, or sturgeon - to any exquisite taste.
Where else can you take a horse-drawn sledge ride that will take your breath away? Or take a jaunty slip down an enormous ice slope? Or go round on a giant carousel? The Great Maslenitsa will reel you round in a dancing fairy-circle and your feet won't be able to keep still to the sprightly chastooshkas (gaily songs) and byword. Clowns and skomorokhs (histrions) will make you laugh to tears. The show goes on and on in the balagans (Punch-and-Judy shows) and theatres. And those who will not want to be simply a spectator can take part in the masquerade: to dress up beyond recognition or to muffle in a long fur coat and to drink a glass of vodka with a bear.
On the last day of the Great Maslenitsa the feasting and drinking ends up by burning down the scarecrow symbolizing winter thus saying goodbye to winter till the next year.
For the Russians Maslenitsa is like a carnival for the Italians, especially because the initial sense of festivals is the same: the Italian word "carnival" (carne-vale) means "farewell the beef!", and Maslenitsa that precedes the Great Lent, in old time was called "Myasopust" because it was forbidden to eat meat during this week.
The last day of Maslenitsa is called the Forgiveness Day. Everybody ask one another for forgiveness in order to redeem themselves from their sins before the Great Lent. They bow to one another and say, "God will forgive you". Maslenitsa is over and so is the winter giving way to the spring.
Everybody knows what the Russian Soul is! This is prowess, dare-devilry, and, of course, the famous Russian hospitality. Everybody is welcome to Moscow to see the Russian winter off!
