What is "blini"

blin \blin\, n.; pl. blini, bliny or blinis. [Russian.] a thin buckwheat pancake made with yeast and usually filled with sour cream and folded over. See also blini.

blini \bli"ni\ (bl[=e]"n[=e]; bl[i^]"n[=e]), n. pl.; sing. blin. [Russian.] Russian pancakes of buckwheat flour and yeast, sometimes made from white flour; they are usually served folded over, with caviar and sour cream on the inside; -- properly, it is a plural word (from the Russian plural of blin) but in America, often used as singular; thus the common plural blinis.

Syn: bliny, blinis.

n. A small pancake, of Russian origin, made from buckwheat flour; traditionally served with melted butter, sour cream and caviar or smoked salmon

n. Russian pancake of buckwheat flour and yeast; usually served with caviar and sour cream [syn: bliny]

A blini (sometimes spelled bliny) or, rarely, blin is a light, thin pancake, traditionally made from buckwheat flour and served with sour cream, butter, caviar, and other garnishes. It typically lacks a leavening agent.

Some English dictionaries record usage of the forms blin as singular and blini or bliny as plural, which correspond to the originally Russian forms, but some dictionaries consider this usage so rare in English that they do not mention blin at all and only record the widespread modern regular usage of blini for the singular and blinis for the plural, for example the American Heritage, MacMillan, and Vocabulary.com dictionaries. Some cookbooks and restaurants use blin and blintchick as in Russian to refer to crêpes.

Blintzes are a type of blini. They are thin, usually wheat-flour pancakes folded to form a casing (as for cheese or fruit) and then sautéed or baked.