antoine style potato blinis recipe

i love blinis - and my favorites are from a french restaurant called antoine's. it moved recently, but they've always had the best caviar and potato blinis combo. You've probably heard of the normal blinis (the pancake type), but today i've got a little twist on the potato blini to get that more luxurious, rich, french blini taste. 

I originally worked off this recipe: https://scratchinit.halversen.com/2016/01/yukon-gold-potato-blini/ which is iconic, and super helpful, with a few amendments that worked well for me. credit where it's due. 

Few notes - you can pretty much use any potato for this that's like, relatively good for mashed potato. 

Ingredients: 

3-4 medium potatoes, around 450-500 grams. 

25-30 g unbleached flour. All purpose or self raising works. 

70 g crème fraîche (anywhere between 70-80g is the golden zone, but if you use too much it'll be a bit deflated) 

3 eggs (60 gram eggs, or 180g in total) 

Half teaspoon of salt. 

 Procedure: 

1. Peel, cut and boil potatoes. Cut in any way you want - just as long as they're chunks. Boil them with a dash of oil. Cook until they're soft - if you can poke through them with ease, theyre fine. you can even leave them in the water with the heat off if you want. 
   
   
2. Mash/blend potatoes. You can try to press them through a sieve like the professionals, or you can be lazy and blend them with a food processor. Using a sieve makes them more fluffy and airy, but using a blender (stick, thermomix, whatever) will give them that velvety finish without needing extra butter or oil.
   
   
3. Add flour to the potatoes. You can use all purpose or self raising - there's no real difference in taste but there will be a better lift on the self raising one which makes it easier to tell when things are cooked. I don't mind either - but I find that cooking with self raising makes it a bit easier personally. 
   Then add the creme fraiche and whisk it in. Original recipe calls for 30g, but I find anywhere between the ballpark of 60-90g works well. Add 3 eggs and whisk. Original recipe also suggests that the batter should hold its shape, but the Antoine version is much more like pancake mix, it should be more like a liquid. Add salt - a pinch or a dash will work since you can't really taste it right now. 
   
   
4. Heat up pan. I use a crepe pan, and coat the pan with oil using a silicone brush. Start with medium heat and turn to low - these burn relatively easily. You can make these as big or as small as you want, and make sure you turn them over when they're properly cooked - so when they slide around the pan if you shake them a little because that side will be cooked. 
   
   
5. Serve! Enjoy with anything - Antoine serves these with salmon caviar, creme fraiche and chives. 

If you want to keep them, refrigerate as soon as possible and heat them back up on the pan again. If you cook with self raising, they deflate a little so they might look not as pretty.