| My recipe is slightly different. I use a little egg (or Eggbeater
egg substitute), and less yeast, and I make a sponge with the yeast
first. Basically, when you make a sponge with yeast, a little
flour, sugar, and water, you are letting the yeast multiply and
so you can get away with using less yeast. It used to be a frugality
measure, before yeast was as cheap as it is today. I use it as
a REAL indication of whether or not the yeast is alive. Since I
have not used much flour, I'm not throwing away much if the yeast
fails to form a sponge.
These directions are very thorough, but they should be as easy as
the ones in .0.
Wheat and white bagels makes 12 - 120 calories each
4 1/4 to 4 1/2 cups flour, half whole wheat and half unbleached white.
1 teaspoon yeast (NOT a typo!)
1 1/2 cups hot tap water - as per prior comments, about 110 deg F
2-3 Tablespoons sugar, brown or white
1 Tablespoon salt
1/4 cup Eggbeater, or one egg
[optional - a few tablespoons of gluten flour, if you have it]
1) Put hot water in mixer bowl. Stir in yeast, sugar, and 2 Cups
white flour. Mix well. Set bowl in a warm place to rise for
1 to 1 1/2 hours, until spongy.
2) With a strong mixer (not hand held!), blend in egg, salt and
as much wheat flour as it'll take.
3) Knead on a floured wooden board about 10 minutes, adding flour
as needed up to 5 cups maximum total. Really work the dough - get
out your frustrations! It should end up smooth and springy.
4) Shape dough into 12 bagels. Divide dough into 12 pieces and
roll each piece out. Pinch ends together to form a ring. Pinch
firmly, or the ring will fall apart when you boil the bagels.
5) Place bagels on a greased cookie sheet. Cover with a kitchen
towel. Place in a warm place and let rise 1/2 to 1 hour.
6) Heat water with 1 Tablespoon sugar stirred into it. I use
my huge cast iron skillet for this - you're looking for a pot or
pan that's at least 12 inches in diameter and 3 inches deep.
The skillet is easier than a deep pot, since you don't have
to boil as much water, so it doesn't take as long. Cover the water
until it boils, so it's faster.
7) Preheat oven to 375.
8)Cook bagels in water, uncovered, about 6 minutes, turning once.
Drain on rack. I cook 4 at a time in my skillet, and I put the
rack over 1/2 of the double sink. Don't let them cook longer
than 7 min max in the water, or they won't turn out right.
9) Put bagels back on that cookie sheet. Bake at 375 deg F for
30 minutes. Spray or brush with water twice during the last 10
minutes for crustier bagels.
ADDITIONS: My favorite - stir in poppy or sesame seeds when you're
adding the whole wheat flour. Since the seeds are
inside, they don't fall off. MMMMMM.
Onion - fry a chopped up onion or two in a few tablespoons
of butter. Stir in when you add the whole wheat flour.
|
| Article: 12164
From: Bewildered <[email protected]>
Newsgroups: rec.food.recipes
Subject: Authentic Jewish Bgels
Date: 23 Apr 1995 06:42:31 -0600
Organization: ucs.indiana.edu
Sender: [email protected]
This is a recipe by my friend Johanne Blank. She has a wonderful array of
foolproof recipes, of which this is one of the greatest ever.
Johanne's Foolproof Recipes presents
Real, honest, Jewish (Lower East Side)
P U R I S T ' S B A G E L S
Gentle reader, it is assumed that you know from bagels. The bagel, in
its peripateic history, has moved from the shtetls of Eastern Europe to the
delis of the United States, survived the onslaught of many a foreign
formulation and flavoring, and also has managed to remain relatively dignified
in the face of mass-production, freezing and other procedural adulterations and
bastardizations. In the United States, however, most people's idea of a bagel
seems to be of a vaguely squishy unsweetened doughnut, possibly with some sort
of godawful flavoring mixed into it (with the "blueberry bagel" being perhaps
the most offensive), generally purchased in lots of six in some supermarket...
possibly even frozen. These are not those bagels.
These bagels are the genuine article. These are the bagels that have
sustained generations of Eastern European Jewish peasants, the bagels that
babies can teethe upon (folk wisdom has it that the hard, chewy crust
encourages strong teeth), the bagels about which writer and humorist Alice Kahn
has so aptly written that bagels are "Jewish courage."
This recipe makes approximately fifteen large bagels, The bagels are
made without eggs, milk or any type of shortening or oil, which makes them
pareve according to Kosher law. These bagels are plain, but I will provide
suggestions as to how you may customize them to your tastes while retaining
their Pristine and Ineffable Nature. May you bake them and eat them in good
health.
INGREDIENTS:
6-8 cups bread (high-gluten) flour
4 tablespoons dry baking yeast
6 tablespoons granulated white sugar or light honey (clover honey is good)
2 teaspoons salt
3 cups hot water
a bit of vegetable oil
1 gallon water
3-5 tablespoons malt syrup or sugar
a few handfuls of cornmeal
EQUIPMENT:
large mixing bowl
wire whisk
measuring cups and spoons
wooden mixing spoon
butter knife or baker's dough blade
clean, dry surface for kneading
3 clean, dry kitchen towels
warm, but not hot, place to set dough to rise
large stockpot
slotted spoon
2 baking sheets
HOW YOU DO IT:
First, pour three cups of hot water into the mixing bowl. The water
should be hot, but not so hot that you can't bear to put your fingers in it for
several seconds at a time. Add the sugar or honey and stir it with your fingers
(a good way to make sure the water is not too hot) or with a wire whisk to
dissolve. Sprinkle the yeast over the surface of the water, and stir to
dissolve.
Wait about ten minutes for the yeast to begin to revive and grow. This
is known as "proofing" the yeast, which simply means that you're checking to
make sure your yeast is viable. Skipping this step could result in your trying
to make bagels with dead yeast, which results in bagels so hard and potentially
dangerous that they are banned under the terms of the Geneva Convention. You
will know that the yeast is okay if it begins to foam and exude a sweetish,
slightly beery smell.
At this point, add about three cups of flour as well as the 2 tsp of
salt to the water and yeast and begin mixing it in. Some people subscribe to
the theory that it is easier to tell what's going on with the dough if you use
your hands rather than a spoon to mix things into the dough, but others prefer
the less physically direct spoon. As an advocate of the bare-knuckles school
of baking, I proffer the following advice: clip your fingernails, take off your
rings and wristwatch, and wash your hands thoroughly to the elbows, like a
surgeon. Then you may dive into the dough with impunity. I generally use my
right hand to mix, so that my left is free to add flour and other ingredients
and to hold the bowl steady. Left-handed people might find that the reverse
works better for them. Having one hand clean and free to perform various tasks
works best.
When you have incorporated the first three cups of lour, the dough
should begin to become thick-ish. Add more flour, a half-cup or so at a time,
and mix each addition thoroughly before adding more flour. As the dough gets
thicker, add less and less flour at a time. Soon you will begin to knead it by
hand (if you're using your hands to mix the dough in the first place, this
segue is hardly noticeable). If you have a big enough and shallow enough bowl,
use it as the kneading bowl, otherwise use that clean, dry, flat countertop or
tabletop mentioned in the "Equipment" list above. Sprinkle your work surface
or bowl with a handful of flour, put your dough on top, and start kneading.
Add bits of flour if necessary to keep the dough from sticking (to your hands,
to the bowl or countertop, etc....). Soon you should have a nice stiff dough.
It will be quite elastic, but heavy and stiffer than a normal bread dough. Do
not make it too dry, however... it should still give easily and stretch easily
without tearing.
Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl, and cover with one of your
clean kitchen towels, dampened somewhat by getting it wet and then wringing it
out thoroughly. If you swish the dough around in the bowl, you can get the
whole ball of dough covered with a very thin film of oil, which will keep it
from drying out.
Place the bowl with the dough in it in a dry, warm (but not hot) place,
free from drafts. Allow it to rise until doubled in volume. Some people try
to accelerate rising by putting the dough in the oven, where the pilot lights
keep the temperature slightly elevated. If it's cold in your kitchen, you can
try this, but remember to leave the oven door open or it may become too hot and
begin to kill the yeast and cook the dough. An ambient temperature of about 80
degrees Farenheit (25 centigrades) is ideal for rising dough.
While the dough is rising, fill your stockpot with about a gallon of
water and set it on the fire to boil. When it reaches a boil, add the malt
syrup or sugar and reduce the heat so that the water just barely simmers; the
surface of the water should hardly move.
Once the dough has risen, turn it onto your work surface, punch it
down, and divide immediately into as many hunks as you want to make bagels.
For this recipe, you will probably end up with about 15 bagels, so you will
divide the dough into 15 roughly even-sized hunks. Begin forming the bagels.
There are two schools of thought on this. One method of bagel formation
involves shaping the dough into a rough sphere, then poking a hole through the
middle with a finger and then pulling at the dough around the hole to make the
bagel. This is the hole-centric method. The dough-centric method involves
making a long cylindrical "snake" of dough and wrapping it around your hand
into a loop and mashing the ends together. Whatever you like to do is fine.
DO NOT, however, give in to the temptation of using a doughnut or cookie cutter
to shape your bagels. This will pusht them out of the realm of Jewish Bagel
Authenticity and give them a distinctly Protestant air. The bagels will not be
perfectly shaped. They will not be symmetrical. This is normal. This is
okay. Enjoy the diversity. Just like snowflakes, no two genuine bagels are
exactly alike.
Begin to preheat the oven to 400 degrees Farenheit.
Once the bagels are formed, let them sit for about 10 minutes. They
will begin to rise slightly. Ideally, they will rise by about one-fourth
volume... a technique called "half-proofing" the dough. At the end of the
half-proofing, drop the bagels into the simmering water one by one. You don't
want to crowd them, and so there should only be two or three bagels simmering
at any given time. The bagels should sink first, then gracefully float to the
top of the simmering water. If they float, it's not a big deal, but it does
mean that you'll have a somewhat more bready (and less bagely) texture. Let
the bagel simmer for about three minutes, then turn them over with a skimmer or
a slotted spoon. Simmer another three minutes, and then lift the bagels out of
the water and set them on a clean kitchen towel that has been spread on the
countertop for this purpose. The bagels should be pretty and shiny, thanks to
the malt syrup or sugar in the boiling water.
Once all the bagels have been boiled, prepare your baking sheets by
sprinkling them with cornmeal. Then arrange the bagels on the prepared baking
sheets and put them in the oven. Let them bake for about 25 mintues, then
remove from the oven, turn them over and put them back in the oven to finish
baking for about ten minutes more. This will help to prevent flat-bottomed
bagels.
Remove from the oven and cool on wire racks, or on a dry clean towels
if you have no racks. Do not attempt to cut them until they are cool... hot
bagels slice abominably and you'll end up with a wadded mass of bagel pulp.
Don't do it.
Serve with good cream cheese.
TO CUSTOMIZE BAGELS: After boiling but before baking, brush the bagels with a
wash made of 1 egg white and 3 tablespoons ice water beaten together. Sprinkle
with the topping of your choice: poppy, sesame, or caraway seeds, toasted onion
or raw garlic bits, salt or whatever you like. Just remember that bagels are
essentially a savory baked good, not a sweet one, and so things like fruit and
sweet spices are really rather out of place.
END OF RECIPE
I hope you can understand this recipe. I am in the process of making a batch
right now. They are delicious and very authentic. I lived in New York (Bagel
heaven, Hell for everything else except opera) and I must say that now that I
have Johanne's recipe, I have no reason to go back there...
Enjoy.
-Carolina
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Carolina Rodriguez VOICE: (812) 339-4023
Indiana University
[email protected]
~~~
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