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Murielle Banackissa is a Montreal-based food photographer, food stylist, recipe developer, blogger, and educator. These Mini Blinis with Smoked Tomato are excerpted from her debut cookbook, Savoring: Meaningful Vegan Recipes from Across Oceans.

Mini blinis (blinis is Russian for crepes) have been one of my mom’s traditional Christmas dishes for decades. Usually topped with smoked salmon, a dollop of sour cream, and capers, this dish is synonymous with celebrations. My veganized version features a star ingredient: marinated Roma tomatoes as the “smoked salmon.” Preparing them requires you to employ a few fun techniques: blanching, coring, and marinating the tomatoes overnight in a mixture of tamari, liquid smoke, and seaweed. These are then served on pillowy mini blinis, along with silky vegan cream cheese, salty capers, and herbaceous dill. All the flavors build on each other to create the perfect little appetizer or amuse-bouche that is sure to be a crowd-pleaser!

Ingredients You’ll Need

Smoked tomato

Water
Tamari
Olive oil
Liquid smoke (see note)
Ground seaweed (see note)
Roma tomatoes

Mini Blinis

All-purpose flour
Baking powder
Organic cane sugar
Sea salt
Unsweetened soy milk
Avocado oil
Melted vegan butter or margarine, for cooking

For assembly

Vegan cream cheese or vegan sour cream
Capers
Fresh dill
Freshly cracked black pepper

How To Make This Recipe

Step 1: Prepare the smoked tomato

Place the water, tamari, olive oil, liquid smoke, and seaweed in a glass container with a lid. Set aside.
Fill a saucepan with water and bring it to a boil.
Meanwhile, make 4 long and shallow lengthwise incisions in each tomato, from end to end. Place the tomatoes in the boiling water and cook for 1 minute. Drain the tomatoes, then run them under cold water for 2 minutes.
Remove the tomatoes’ skins (it should come off easily after blanching) and quarter the tomatoes lengthwise. Scoop out the core and the seeds (freeze these to use in sauces).
Cut each tomato quarter into 4 to 6 pieces, depending on the size of tomatoes, and add to the tamari mixture. Put the lid on the container, then shake it a few times to fully coat the tomatoes with the marinade. Place in the fridge to marinate overnight.

Step 2: Prepare the Blinis

In a small bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt. Add the soy milk and avocado oil and stir until well combined.
Heat a medium or large pan over medium heat. Using a silicone brush, brush the entire surface of the pan with melted butter.
Scoop the blini batter into the pan, using 1 heaping teaspoon of batter per blini, spreading the batter slightly into a circle using your spoon. Fit in as many blinis as you can while still leaving space between them to facilitate their flipping. Cook for 1 to 2 minutes, until golden. Flip and cook for another minute.
Repeat until you have used all the batter. If the pan gets too hot and starts to smoke, reduce the heat to medium-low.
Let the mini blinis cool completely before serving.

Step 3: Assemble the Blinis

Dollop some vegan cream cheese onto the mini blinis. Top with 1 or 2 slices of smoked tomato, 1 or 2 capers, fresh dill, and a crack of pepper. Enjoy after assembly. Alternatively, store all the elements separately in the fridge for up to 3 days. You can eat your mini blinis cold or warm by microwaving them on medium power for 15 to
30 seconds.

Mini Blinis With Smoked Tomato – Recipe Card

Excerpted from Savoring by Murielle Banackissa. Copyright © 2024 Murielle Banackissa. Photographs by Murielle Banackissa. Published by Appetite by Random House®, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited. Reproduced by arrangement with the Publisher. All rights reserved.

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About The Book

Savoring Book Cover by Murielle Banackissa

There is something so satisfying about choosing to consciously slow down and create a dish without distractions: cherishing the time in the kitchen, celebrating the ingredients that give us life, and slowly transforming them into something magical. Murielle Banackissa—recipe developer, food stylist, and photographer—has spent hours, nights, whole weekends in her kitchen cooking for herself and for others.

In Savoring, she shares a collection of her unique plant-based recipes that is both a celebration of those special moments found in cooking (grilling flavor into peaches to top weekend waffles, sitting with mushrooms while they caramelize) and an interweaving of her different cultural influences—from her upbringing in the Republic of Congo, to her mother’s Russian and Ukrainian heritage recipes, and her family’s immigration to Montreal.

With recipes that range from stuffed savory crepes to lentil-filled dumplings to cassava leaf and spinach stew, inside, you’ll find:

Bountiful Breakfasts: Crispy Chickpea Pancakes with Avocado and Salsa; Rum-Coconut French Toast with Caramelized Bananas; Stewed Blackberries and Lemon Ricotta Toasts
Small Plates and Salads: Pan-Fried Plantains; Pearl Barley Salad with Roasted Bell Peppers and Vegan Feta; Garlicky Miso-Glazed Bok Choy; Fufu
Marvelous Main Dishes: Coconut-Crusted Tofu with Spicy Mango Salsa; Peanut Butter and Sweet Potato Stew; Sesame Ginger Glazed Shiitakes with Sticky Rice; Quebec Meatless Pie
Delectable Desserts: Olive Oil and Rose Polenta Bundt Cake; Spiced Poached Pear Puff Pastry Tart; Date-Sweetened Chocolate Cream Tarts; Fried Banana Beignets

With Murielle’s stunning, atmospheric photography accompanying every recipe, Savoring is the debut cookbook from a very exciting new food talent. Filled with recipes inspired by her far-reaching family, it is a thoughtful and delicious exploration of all kinds of plant-based dishes sure to introduce new flavors to your table.

About The Author

Murielle Banackissa is a food photographer, recipe developer, and food stylist based in Montreal.

Outside of spending hours developing new recipes and shooting them in her home studio, Murielle loves paying attention to the details surrounding her as a way to feel more grounded and present. From water droplets resting on leaves after rainfall, to the golden glow of summer nights, to the way yeasted dough rises under the ideal conditions, she is always seeking the magic in seemingly mundane moments.

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