How to Serve And Garnish Caviar Russian Style

         Another great way to serve caviar is with eggs. We can eat simply hard-boiled eggs with salty caviar on top. I like to make it for breakfast salty caviar and egg is a great combination! If you feel very clever and have a lot of time, check old cooking books and you can find so many appetizers ideas with caviar. I personally like easy caviar serving ideas with eggs. I mix egg yolk with mayonnaise and soft cheese to serve with caviar. Just a little caviar on top and it will be a very festive Russian style appetizer!

Black and red caviar equally good with eggs, stuffed for Holiday table or just hard boil eggs for breakfast.

Check out the recipe ⇒ Russian Stuffed Eggs Recipe        

Check out fine garnish for stuffed eggs ⇒ Green Onion Curls Garnish

*If you have available quail eggs, great fine and festive way to serve this exotic delicacy because of the quail egg’s small size. I personally didn’t try quail eggs but saw online serving and like the idea.

    Blinis are small Russian pancakes serve with caviar. Great way to serve caviar! I serve blinis and caviar mostly with cream cheese or with green dill  herb compound butter . Great caviar pairings! How to serve caviar and blinis we don’t need to learn much about the pairing, salty caviar with blini as is good without anything to my taste. If you would like very restaurant and fine serving, size of blini great 2″- 3″ in diameter. To make blini the same small size I use a small ice cream scoop.

*Just have to mention because I am Russian. Blini ( блины ) means in Russian more crapes than pancakes. Makes no difference, crapes, and pancakes are great caviar pairings. However, if you are going to travel to Russia and order blini expect crapes, not pancakes.

      Vodka and caviar are on most Russian tables when we celebrate Holidays. It is a great combination if you serve a table for an event. I learned a long time ago how to serve caviar and vodka and most Russian people know, even they don’t drink vodka as I am. However, I surprised some people in the USA (include my husband) when telling them why the best way to serve caviar sandwiches with a generous amount of butter. The reason is butter lessens the effects of alcohol.

      So, if you had butter and caviar as an appetizer before drinking vodka, you get less drunk when drinking. In the photo, you see large hearts of butter but of course, it is a more symbolic purpose than a real amount of butter on the sandwiches to remind you how to eat caviar with vodka.

*If you are interesting to learn more about the history of Russian vodka check out the book “A History Of Vodka” by William Pochlebkin. It has a translation in English and you can find the book on the Internet. This is a historical book and  I want to mention it because the work W. Pochlebkin’s trademark of vodka belongs to Russia. I have the book photo in my Russian Cooking Glossary.

To make a small fine touch with butter on the top of the caviar toast we can use a very easy technique. Place room temperature butter in a plastic bag and make a small cut on the corner. Drow the desirable design (don’t make too thin lines) on wax paper and place it in the freezer. When ready just place it on the top of the caviar.

      The best match for caviar is champagne to my taste. Maybe because I was living in Russia, we were buying caviar mostly for New Year Eve and the Russian tradition to open a bottle of champagne at 12 o’clock. My advice is if you are going to have guests and don’t know their alcohol preferences, the best and classic choice is champagne to serve with caviar. The best and simple caviar serving suggestion with champagne is caviar on crackers but make it just before serving, so crackers do not soften. If you don’t like champagne, try a wine that goes good with fish and seafood.

      To make serving fine and fancy we can make cutouts out of bread or blinis with cookie cutters, serve caviar on the ice, and let guests help themselves. Some people like to serve caviar on potato chips. Potato and caviar are great together too. Small potato pancakes can be served with caviar too. In the photo below, salmon caviar on buckwheat blinis with cream cheese and garnished with dill.

      Yes, we can freeze caviar. However, we will have less flavor and a softer texture, according to one of the caviar sellers. I personally froze red caviar for safe transportation and didn’t notice a big difference in texture, maybe because I didn’t have a fresh one to compare. I froze red salmon caviar in a large sealed plastic container. Frozen caviar needs to be thawed in the refrigerator.

          On the photo on the middle shredded butter. Cold butter is much easier to spread if we shredded it before serving.  Just makes easily if you take butter directly out of the refrigerator and don’t have time to soften it at room temperature. Another important factor caviar needs to serve on ice. According to “Art of Garge Manger” book, caviar should serve cold because room temperature changes very rapidly taste. It explains why fine restaurants serve caviar on ice. We can buy a special nice dish to serve caviar on ice but it not necessary if we serve caviar seldom. We can make it at home. Check the direction and tips on the bottom of the page.

     Caviar is a delicacy and needs to serve in small amounts. One fun way how to serve caviar appetizers is toast in the shape of a spoon. An easy and attractive fun way to serve red or black caviar for family and friends. We can use black or white bread depending on your preferences. I used to serve my appetizer Russian black rye bread Borodinskii. I like to use cream cheese instead of butter sometimes not really Russian style but I like it.

     Technique:

1. I used the wooden spoon as a pattern. This way my spoons are the same size and shape.

2. When bread spoons are ready, toast them. A toasted spoon from bread holds shape and is easy to pick up.

So easy to pick up and attractive fun caviar appetizer! On the photo, on toast in the shape of spoon salmon caviar.

       The easiest and fancy way to garnish caviar sandwiches is by decorating them with butter. The small touch with a tiny flower from butter great addition to serve caviar Russian style. Another simple touch with butter is just to add a curl made from butter as a garnish. Traditionally most of the time we serve caviar with green dill or parsley. Another way to make a fancy caviar sandwich is different cutouts with cookie cutters from bread or blinis.

        Very nice to garnish the caviar appetizer with a tiny flower made out of butter and the center garnish with one caviar. Lemon I use to garnish to bring more color to a plate. The very attractive way how to serve salmon caviar! The technique to make the flower maybe look easy but the best read my illustrated guide and tips before trying to make it. It is really easy when you know how to do it. Check out the technique ⇒ How to Make Butter Garnish Flower

       Another way to garnish caviar sandwiches is to use cookie cutters in the different sea-related shapes for bread. I use a fish cookie cutter. So a simple and fun way to do a red caviar presentation. In the photo below is my favorite breakfast idea. We can use parsley or dill to garnish the plate but I used cucumber and it looks so nice too, in my opinion.

Check out more cucumber garnish ideas → 13 Easy Cucumber Garnish Ideas With Many Photos And Videos

    Fresh roe from fish we cook in Russia. The most common method to cook it is frying. Low-quality canned caviar can be added to cold sauces or salads but can’t be cooked. High quality caviar is an expensive delicacy and serves as is. Caviar which we buy at stores ready to eat we can’t cook because it is good as is, just serve with the right ingredients this is a delicacy and we don’t need to cook it to make it better.

        I checked online dishes for serving caviar on ice and instead of buying one, check what I have in my kitchen and made my own substitute for glass caviar dishes to serve caviar surrounded with ice. Maybe you have the right bowls or dishes to make one yourself too. I am sharing 2 options, I made 2 caviar dishes and it works great and looks good at the same time.

        The type of bowls as you can see in the photo below we can even buy at dollar type of stores and they are inexpensive. The smaller bowl when we place it on the top of the larger bowl should stay on the top as a lid. It is important because when ice is going to melt the top bowl doesn’t have support anymore. I found crushed ice works better than shaped because the dish to serve caviar surrounded ice is small.

         I found for the same large bowl a smaller dessert dish slightly taller than the large bowl. My dish will be not placed as a lid, it will be served with ice. Instead of filling with ice space between bowls, I froze water with a smaller dish in it. I garnished it with lemon wedges but I can say the ice usually does not come out clear when we are going to freeze water. Very important the smaller dish touches the bottom. When ice is going to melt, the smaller dish not going to drain in the water.