* p. 90 in Claudia Roden's book The Book of Jewish Food: An Odyssey from Samarkand and Vilna to the Present Day (Penguin Books, 1996). Sounds cool, doesn't it?My first challenge as
a new member of the Daring Bakers was to
make bagels. Not just any bagels, but
Real Honest Jewish Purist's Bagels according to
a recipe chosen by
Jenny of
All Things Edible and
Freya of
Writing At The Kitchen Table.
Bagels, in addition to being a doughnut with
rigor mortis (alias chewy and dense and just a bit hard), were the staple bread of the Jews in Eastern Europe, especially in Poland (though they originate in Southern Germany). Since then bagels - especially
lox and bagels - have become
the most famous Jewish food in America, and a popular breakfast dish for non-Jews as well. I've never had the New York bagels, which are supposedly the best in the world (something in the water, apparently), but I did have some in Scotland over the years. I began with the six-packs available at one of the large supermarkets (not too bad to my novice bagel-tastebuds), and during my last year in Scotland I often picked one up from the Bagel Factory kiosk at the Waverley train station (so much better that the supermarket ones; I always opted for the salt beef & gherkin topping). Until I've tasted the NY bagels, I rely on
Clarissa Hyman's description of a perfect bagel in her
The Jewish Kitchen: Recipes and Stories from Around the World (Conran Octopus, 2003): "
I am a purist when it comes to bagels: they should be crisp and glossy on the outside, soft but still satisfyingly chewy inside".
How did mine compare? They're far from perfect, I must admit, but then we have both eaten quite a few of them, so they're far from disaster as well. They're glossy alright, and definitely chewy. But shapewise, I found them a bit flatter than I remembered, and they weren't as smooth as I wanted.
May I present my first ever bagels -
vesikringlid alias 'water kringles' in Estonian - with four types of toppings:
Starting from the top left corner, moving clockwise:
caraway seeds,
Maldon sea salt, Kalonji black onion seeds (also known as
nigella seeds, read more
here),
sesame seeds.
The shape of the bagels - a small circle with no beginning and no end, and with a hole in the middle - represents the
eternal circle of life. There are two ways to get the all-important hole: a
dough-centric (you roll the dough into a long 'snake', then press the ends together) and a
hole-centric way (roll the dough into a small ball, press your finger through to make a hole). I used the hole-centric way of making holes:
Then you
boil the bagels first in some water which has been seasoned with syrup or sugar (malt syrup would be the first choice, but I used dandelion syrup instead; mine were all 'floaters', I must admit), then
brush with egg wash and sprinkle with your chosen topping (see first photo above), and then
bake until golden in the oven. (And then cool, halve and
schmear with your choice of topping).
I got 22 reasonably-sized bagels instead of the 15 prescribed ones:
Although the Daring Bakers were allowed to get all creative with the fillings, we opted for the popular
lox & bagel topping (bagel, smoked salmon, cream cheese and a sprig of dill). Note that this is not the 'traditional' bagel filling. Quoting
Clarissa Hyman again,
"The bagel met its life partners, smoked salmon and cream cheese, in the New World. ... [this is] a marriage made in heaven. Which is why the egg and bacon bagel will always end in divorce". I wanted to be on the safe side, so smoked salmon and cream cheese it was:
Clarissa suggests few other
schmears in her book, which I'll keep in mind for the future bagel-baking extravaganzas:
avocado & egg schmear,
cheese & dill schmear and
Liptauer schmear.
Now, I wonder what the next Daring Baker challenge - hosted by
Peabody - will be like?
