We fell in love with caviar in the now defunct San Francisco restaurant Jardiniere. It had the best caviar service, and what we do at home is very much an imitation / homage to Jardiniere. Btw, the best caviar service in town is currently at Spruce.
serves: 8 difficulty: easy prep time: 20 min
Ingredients
- a few oz of caviar. I find that price does not correlate with quality or what I like. So before you spend the $ on the imperial golden reserve osetra, try some cheaper varieties like American white sturgeon or paddlefish.
- 2 eggs, hard boiled or soft scrambled
- 1 Meyer lemon
- chives
- 1 shallot
- 8 oz creme fraiche
- 32 blini. I must admit that I don’t make mine but instead buy them at the San Francisco Fish Co. in the Ferry Building. There are plenty of online sources as well.
Preparation
Either
- Boil the eggs, peel them and separate the egg whites from the yolk. Mince the egg whites and eggs yolks separately.
- Or soft scramble the eggs (which means that you are scrambling them over very low heat so that the eggs don’t form large curdles)
Mince the shallot and chives. Supreme the Meyer lemon (check out the technique for supreming citrus in the crab salad with avocado and grapefruit post) and cut the wedges in 1/4 inch pieces. Warm up the blini.
Lay out the egg whites, yolks (or scrambled edds), chives, lemon and shallots in shallow dishes.
Place the creme fraiche in a small bowl, and put the caviar in glass dish on ice.
Take one blini, smear some creme fraiche on top of it, place small amounts of egg whites, yolks, chives, lemon and shallots, and top with a generous dollop of caviar.
Pair with your favorite champagne. Mine are Ruinart, Vieuve Cliquot and Jacques Selosse Initiale.
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