Miniature blini with finely chopped egg, onion and pickled gherkin were once the standard serving on first class British Airways flights from London to Moscow.
I’m not sure if this is the same thing today but we can certainly recreate some aspects of the experience, although in this instance it’s with crackers rather than blini.
It was always very important to get the process exactly right. The customers had very high expectations. The egg white, egg yolk, onion and gherkin were to be very finely chopped, and kept separate from one another. They were also served with sour cream.
This would allow guests to mix the ingredients for their blini to their preferred ratio. Some people would avoid the egg yolk, others would like more onion, etc.
The accompanying vodka also had to be suitably cold – you can read more about that here.
It sounds like a very civilised way to spend time in the air between London and Moscow in the 1990s but we can recreate the decadence easily at home.
In this case, however, I’m using black charcoal crackers rather than blini. I like the colour contrast and the crunch. They are also slightly easier to arrange than blini as you don’t need to warm them up. Nonetheless if you can prepare blini for this, that would be absolutely perfect. Here’s another post on blini that might interest you.
Prepare your ingredients
Hard boil your eggs (one per person per serving) using the following guidelines:
Bring the eggs to room temperature (I just let them sit out for an hour) then place them into gently boiling water and leave them for eight minutes to cook. Don’t let the boil become to fierce. Remove the eggs and place them into iced water to chill.
When they are quite cool, peel them, cut them in half, then separate the white from the yolk. Chop them finely but keep them separate.
Finely chop some onion as well, and add some sour cream to a small bowl.
Finely chopped gherkin and pickled beetroot also work very well for this so feel free to include them too. Crispy fried onions also add a nice, flavour and crunchy texture to the dish.
If you are dairy intolerant you can substitute the sour cream with mayonnaise. The crackers will likely work better for you as well because blini traditionally contain dairy too.
If you are vegan you can use vegan mayonnaise (homemade is best) instead of sour cream, omit the egg and enjoy extra helpings of the onion and pickle.
If you are coeliac you can use slices of cucumber instead of blini or crackers.
Serve
You then serve the items in individual dishes or bowls with spoons, with your crackers, blini or cucumber slices on the side. I also served mine on a tray for that little extra sensation of being served in the air. Oh how we were all affected by lockdown…
Speaking of which, if airline food is something you are interested in, I thoroughly recommend my friend’s Instagram account where he recreates plane meals from around the world and through the years. He was even covered by CNN.
To really tie up the dish with some old school finesse you could serve this with caviar. Lumpfish roe is absolutely fine. Vegan seaweed mock-caviar is also absolutely fine.
If you are lucky enough to have proper caviar I would recommend eating it on its own, so you can appreciate the full flavour and texture of this absolute delicacy free from distraction, rather than mixing it with other ingredients in a canapé.
It’s like champagne: why mix it in a Kir Royale or even a Champagne Cocktail when you could just use prosecco for the cocktails and enjoy the quality champagne unmixed in all its unadulterated beauty. Good caviar should be similarly appreciated in its purity.
Otherwise, serve up your selection for as many people set to enjoy this delicacy together – and it’s absolutely fine if it’s just for you!
Martini Pairings
I recommend pairing it with a nice, cold Vodka Martini if you really want to recreate the old school Slavic style. However, it also goes very well with a Gibson Martini or a Beetroot Gibson Martini.
If you would like to pair it with a little bit of heat you might also like to try it with the Spicy Martini (with a dash of Tabasco sauce) or even the full blown Spicy BJ Martini, named after my Air Hostess aunty who introduced me to this style of service in the first place. Very much recommended!
The Martini Socialist 