Book 9 - Chapter 22 - Blini with Creamed Mushrooms and the Coming of Age (Disillusionment) of Nicholas Rostov

Book: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Recipes: Cooking Around the World: Russian and Polish by Chamberlain and Catherine Atkinson
Music:  Just had Jay's ipod playing on shuffle

Blini

2/3 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup buckwheat flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp easy-blend dry yeast
3/4 cup warm milk
2 tbsp butter
1 egg separated
3 tbsp oil for the pan 

It is possible that if you don't mix everything in the right order, your batter will come out thick and rather gluey. It is also possible, since I've never made it before, that it will be thick and gluey no matter what you do. That said, the instructions are to mix the flours with the salt and the yeast, then make a well in the center. Pour in the warm milk, mixing until smooth and let rise one hour. If you live where I live, you already know that some ingredients are harder to find; I had to go downtown to a Whole Foods for the buckwheat flour and exotic mushrooms, never guessing that I should have picked up yeast while down there - there was none in the Pathmark at 125th. I used baking powder instead. I also made the very foolish assumption that these would be made just as regular pancakes are, and I didn't really read the directions. Instead of making a little well, I just dumped all the ingredients together in a bowl, including the oil, which was really for the pan. I also do not have a microwave, so I assumed I could just heat the milk and melt the butter together in the same pan. If you were to be more literate than I, at this point, you will have waited out your hour, and can now mix the egg yolk and butter into your batter, which will have dutifully risen to double its original size. The final step is to beat the egg white with a whisk until it forms stiff peaks and fold it into the batter, which you then cover and let stand for 20 minutes. I did beat my egg white, but not with a whisk, I strongly recommend technology in the form of a hand blender. Heat the oil, which you will in no way have mixed into your batter, in a frying pan and take in the show of trying to get small, silver dollar sized rounds out of the glutinous mass that your batter has become if you have failed to follow instructions properly. Panic, flip the first, thick cakes and flatten them with the back of the spatula to attempt to get the right thickness; then add water to your batter until it becomes somewhat more manageable. Cook the rest of the batter in the way of regular pancakes, waiting for bubbles to appear before flipping, and keep warm while you wait for your mushroom sauce to cook. Or in my case, due to much panic and nonsense, keep your mushrooms warm while you wait to sort out the near-disaster of your blini.

Creamed Mushrooms

1 small onion sliced
4 tbsp butter
6 cups sliced mushrooms
2 tbsp fresh dill
1 1/4 cup sour cream
Salt and pepper to taste


Melt the butter over medium high heat and saute the onions for 5 minutes. Stir in the mushrooms and saute for another 3 minutes, stirring constantly. The recipe calls for white button mushrooms, but since I love exotic mushrooms, I used a mixture of buttons, baby Portobello, Shiitake, Maitake, and some dried Chantarelles that I resuscitated in hot water; and a good thing, because I think the stronger mushrooms added all the flavor that the dish had. Stir in the now familiar sour cream and dill, add salt and pepper generously to taste and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer another minute or until the sauce thickens a bit. It will not get that thick if you leave all the mushroom liquid in the bottom of the pan. However, draining off the liquid, I think, would take out most of the butter and flavor, so I just left it in. Add a lot of salt and pepper, and extra dill to this. It is almost, but not quite bland. You might even consider adding some chicken or bacon. I considered and found the consideration quite feasible. 

Serve your mushrooms hot over your blini with a salad on the side. It's pretty tasty, but you really have to love mushrooms. The recipe is listed in the appetizer section, but it only took one look at the pictured blini to realize that this was easily heavy enough to be a main course. The salad is necessary, as stated in a previous post, to save this from being an overly brown meal.  (Special thanks to Jay for his decorative arrangement of salad and mushrooms for the photo op.)

About the book:

"Since the campaigns of Austerlitz and of 1807 Rostov knew by experience that men always lie when describing military exploits, as he himself had done when recounting them; besides that, he had experience enough to know that nothing happens in war at all as we can imagine or relate it. And so he did not like Zdrzhinski's tale, nor did he like Zdrzhinski himself... But he did not express his thoughts, for in such matters, too, he had gained experience. He knew that this tale redounded to the glory of our arms and so one had to pretend not to doubt it. And he acted accordingly."

Nicholas Rostov, formerly a coward of the Czar's army, has this wonderful coming of age scene.  In the above passage, he condemns a man in his mind for exaggerating about war.  He does not speak about his thoughts, does not even convey them and the sixteen year old adjutant attached to him (as devotedly as he was formerly attached to Denisov - and where is Denisov, by the way?) will buy the whole tale, or also pretend to, for it is glorious to hear valiant tales of war.  Rostov is learning to be a military man for whom nothing is important but victory for the sake of being able to go home alive to a home that is as close as possible to the way you left it.  

He realizes that bravery comes more from thinking of anything other than the danger rather than from facing the danger head on.  He captures a French officer and is embarrassed by it rather than elated.  He has become disillusioned with heroism, as have many of the other characters of the book. "So others are even more afraid than I am!" he thought, "So that's all there is in what is called heroism! And did I do it for my country's sake? And how was he to blame, with his dimple and blue eyes? And how frightened he was! He thought that I should kill him. Why should I kill him? My hand trembled. And they have given me a St. George's Cross.... I can't make it out at all."  He is learning that it is possible to take a man's life simply because his leader is at odds with the other man's leader.  He realizes this with an "unpleasant feeling of depression in his heart."  He is also learning the value of medals of honor and soldierly banter.  

He may actually become a better sort of character as we keep reading on.