A kind of folded pancake stuffed with sweet or savoury fillings, the blintz takes its name from the Yiddish blintseh, which developed from the Russian name for the dish, blinyets. Blinyets was itself a diminutive of blin, which evolved from mlin, which arose as the noun form of the verb molot, a Russian word meaning to grind (blintzes are made, of course, from grain ground into flour). Even further back, the Russian molot arose from the same Indo-European source as the Latin molere, meaning to grind, which gave rise to the English molar, a tooth that grinds food, and to the Dutch maelstrom, meaning grinding-stream, that is, a whirlpool. Both molar and maelstrom, therefore, are distant relatives of blintz.
A dainty and refined pastry resembling the famous French delicacy, the crepe. The delicacy is prepared by lightly frying one side of the pastry and subsequently smothering it with filling, which typically consists of cheese. The pastry is then deftly rolled and cooked either through frying or baking until it attains a golden brown hue.
This is a thin pancake that is similar to the French crépe and is a staple of Jewish cuisine. The blintz can be made with either milk or water and cooked with butter or oil, depending on its intended use. Fillings for blintzes can include fruit, vegetables, or meat, but the most popular filling is cheese.