Caviar Service with Ikura, Trout Roe & Buckwheat Blini

By Sprig Originals ✓ · cooked up in Sprig

The $100 caviar course, rebuilt around roe you can actually buy: bright orange ikura, popping trout roe, and a tin of affordable American caviar if you want it. Everything is served ice-cold over a bed of crushed ice with warm buckwheat blini, salted kettle chips, crème fraîche and a Japanese-leaning garnish tray of shiso, nori and chives. It's less cooking than choreography — get the ice cold, the blini hot, and let people build their own bites.

Ingredients

• 2 oz ikura (salted salmon roe), chilled
• 2 oz trout roe, chilled
• 1 oz tobiko or masago (flying fish or capelin roe), optional
• 1 oz American paddlefish, hackleback or bowfin caviar, optional splurge

• 1/2 cup buckwheat flour
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• 1/4 tsp fine sea salt
• 1 large egg
• 3/4 cup whole milk
• 1 tbsp unsalted butter, melted, plus more for the pan

• 1/2 cup crème fraîche
• 2 tbsp sour cream
• 1 tsp finely grated lemon zest
• 2 tbsp finely minced shallot
• 3 tbsp thinly sliced chives
• 4 leaves shiso, cut into fine ribbons (or extra chives)
• 1 large hard-boiled egg
• 1 sheet toasted nori, cut into 1/2-inch strips with scissors
• 1 wedge lemon

• 3 oz salted kettle-cooked potato chips
• 4 cups crushed ice
• 1 pinch flaky sea salt

Instructions

1. Two hours ahead (or at least 30 minutes), chill your serving vessels: put a wide shallow bowl, four small dishes, and any spoons in the refrigerator. Keep all roe in the coldest part of the fridge, ideally on a bowl of ice, until the moment you serve. Never freeze roe and never leave it at room temperature.
2. Make the blini batter: whisk the buckwheat flour, all-purpose flour, baking powder, sugar and salt in a medium bowl. In a second bowl whisk the egg, milk and 1 tablespoon melted butter. Pour the wet into the dry and whisk just until smooth, about 20 seconds. Rest 15 minutes at room temperature — this hydrates the buckwheat and thickens the batter to the consistency of heavy cream.
3. Meanwhile, build the garnish tray. Stir the crème fraîche with the sour cream and lemon zest until smooth and just pourable; keep refrigerated. Rinse the minced shallot in cold water and pat dry so it stays sweet. Peel the hard-boiled egg, separate yolk from white, and press each separately through a fine-mesh sieve with the back of a spoon into two tiny piles. Arrange chives, shiso, nori strips, shallot, sieved yolk and sieved white in small piles on a chilled plate.
4. Cook the blini: heat a nonstick or cast-iron skillet over medium heat for 2 minutes and brush lightly with butter. Drop batter in scant tablespoons, spacing them 1 inch apart, to make 2-inch rounds. Cook 60–90 seconds until the tops are matte and bubbled and the undersides are deep brown, then flip and cook 45–60 seconds more. Transfer to a rack and repeat, wiping and re-buttering the pan between batches; you should get 22–26 blini in about 12 minutes total.
5. Hold the blini warm on a baking sheet in a 200°F oven, loosely covered with foil, for up to 30 minutes. They should be warm and pliable, not crisp.
6. Set the service five minutes before serving: fill the chilled wide bowl with crushed ice and nestle the open jars or tins of roe directly into the ice, pressing down so the ice supports them but no water can seep in. If your roe came in a metal-lidded tin, spoon it into a small glass or ceramic dish first.
7. Bring everything to the table at once: iced roe in the center, warm blini in a napkin-lined basket, kettle chips in a bowl, crème fraîche, the garnish plate, a lemon wedge and flaky salt. Serve with mother-of-pearl, bone or plastic spoons — metal will give the roe a tinny taste.
8. Show guests one build so the ratios land: a warm blino, a small spoon of crème fraîche, a rounded 1/2 teaspoon of roe, then one garnish only — chives with trout roe, shiso or nori with ikura, sieved egg with black caviar. Eat immediately, and keep the bowl of ice topped up over the course of service.

Chef's tips

Nutrition (per serving, estimated)

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