Herbed blinis with smoked trout, caperberries and a poached egg

A blini is basically a fancy word for a pancake. I use oats and fat-free cottage cheese to make mine so they are healthy and a nice little alternative to toast in the morning. Generally I go for the sweet vibe with fruit, honey and yoghurt but this morning I knocked up a savoury version. Was it any good? It was bloody fantastic.

You'll see I've used trout. I love it - it is cheaper than salmon and the flavour is just as good. Try it next time as a substitute.

Okay, stuff you'll need to make about 8 - 10 blinis:

• A cup of oats
• A few lemons
• Half a cup of fat-free cottage cheese
• A handful of parsley, roughly chopped and extra to garnish
• A few caperberries (optional)
• About 200 of smoked trout, torn into ribbons
• One egg
• About 3 tablespoons of milk

Okay, what to do:

1. In a blender, combine the oats, cottage cheese, parsley, egg and milk and blend until smooth. Add some more milk if you need to.

2. Pour some oil in a pan and rub with kitchen paper. Slowly add some of the blini mix and cook over a medium heat for about two minutes on each side. (When you see the blini mixture forming bubbles in the pan, it is time to flip it). Cook two or three at a time, remove and keep arm.

3. Meanwhile, poach some eggs working on 1 per person. What you want to do here is in a deep pot bring water to the boil, then reduce to a simmer. Add a shot of vinegar (any vinegar, except balsamic!) and crack the eggs into cups before gently lowering them into the water. Cook them for three minutes for soft eggs.

4. To serve, place a blini in the middle of a plate. Twist some salmon ribbons to give some height and layer them on the blini. Place a secons blini on the salmon and then drape some salmon over the top. Add a poached egg and garnish with some parsley and the caperberries. To finish it off, squeeze some lemon juice over the dish.

This is, visually, an absolute cracker. It will impress anyone it's super-healthy and it is not really too complicated. Don't forget to season generously with salt and cracked black pepper. If you want to be really shmancy some lemon zest would be a nice touch for presentation. Also, if its the right occasion, I would not be shy to wash this down with a little bubbly.

Cheers,

Jamie Who