These pancakes are drop-dead gorgeous, with a deep pink hue from the addition of beet juice. The great Russian poet Alexander Pushkin adored them, if we’re to believe his friend Alexandra Smirnova-Rosset, who recalled in her memoirs that he would eat 30 pancakes at one go, to no ill effect. Pushkin also adored gooseberry jam and kept a jar on his desk. Darra Goldstein, who developed these recipes for her book, Beyond the North Wind: Russia in Recipes and Lore, suggests following Pushkin’s lead and serving these blini with gooseberry compote.
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