From the 2012 Artisan Cheese Festival cooking demonstrations. These blintzes were beautiful and delicous—the golden blintze sitting on a bed of vivid green chive sauce with a sprinkle of purple chive flowers for garnish.
Bellwether Farms Ricotta Blintzes with Smoked Salmon
Tom Schmidt, Executive Chef, John Ash and Company
Serves 8
Crepes
4 Eggs
½ cup AP Flour
1 cup Milk
¼ teaspoon salt
Crack eggs into a stainless steel bowl. Add flour and mix with a wire whip until smooth. Add milk & salt then mix. Let stand 30 minutes.
Filling
16 ounces Bellwether Farms Ricotta
2 egg yokes
Zest 1 Meyer lemon, approx. 1 teaspoon
Freshly ground white pepper, to taste
8 oz sliced Atlantic smoked salmon, brown fat removed, julienned
Garnish
Chives with blossoms
With a wooden spoon, mix all together in a stainless steel bowl adding pepper and salt (if needed). Chill
Chive butter sauce
2 bunches Chives, chopped fine
1/4 lb. Butter
¼ cup Cream
½ cup White wine
2 Shallots, chopped fine
Juice 1 Meyer lemon
Salt, to taste
In a small food processor fitted with a steel blade, chop chives with softened butter until bright green, scrape into a bowl and set aside. In a non-reactive sauce pan, reduce white wine with shallots until 1 Tablespoon remains. Add cream and reduce by half. Mount in chive butter slowly being careful not to break the sauce. Adjust flavor with lemon juice and salt. Strain and keep warm.
Using a 5 to 6-inch crepe pan (non-stick) make the crepes. Allow about 3 tablespoons of batter per crepe. Have the pan well heated before beginning. Using about 2 tablespoons of the oil, brush the pan with a little of the oil before adding batter each time. Cook each crepe on one side until lightly browned, then turn and cook just a few seconds on the other side. Remove to waxed paper to cool.
Lay the crepes out on a work surface, 4 at a time. Place about ¼ cup of in the middle of each crepe. Fold up envelope-style, by first folding the bottom to cover the filling, then folding over the two sides. Allow the seam to be in the bottom of the blintz. Blintzes can be made to this point ahead of time and refrigerated
In a 10-inch skillet heat one tablespoon each of the butter and oil. Sauté the blintzes over medium heat allowing them to brown nicely on both sides. Add more butter and oil to the pan as needed. Keep warm in a 200° oven while completing the batches.
Pour a pool of sauce on the pre-warmed plates. Set blintzes in the middle of plate, garnish with snipped chives and chive blossoms. Serve warm.
