Sunday, August 14, 1994 6:13:01 AM
rec.food.recipes Item
From: CRODRIGU@ucs.indiana.edu,interNet
Subject: VEGAN: Jewish Purist's Bagels
To: rec.food.veg.cooking,interNet
rec.food.recipes
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. It is
vegetarian, and can be made vegan if you omit the egg
wash and use sugar
instead of honey for the dough.
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
CRODRIGU@INDIANA.EDU
|
|
