Bagels

Hi! I made bagels. They were round, and had a hole in the middle. See?

Just like a bagel should be. And it wasn't even too difficult! I followed the recipe in Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice. Sure, there were a couple specialty ingredients, such as malt powder

I got this stuff from my local beer brewing store.

and high gluten bread flour, such as King Arthur brand, but all in all, the recipe is pretty straightforward. 

These bagels have a pretty crusty crust, and a dense and chewy crumb. I recommend eating them.

The recipe takes 2 days. The first day is pretty involved, but you only need an hour or so on the second day. According to Reinhart, allowing the dough to ferment slowly overnight allows it to develop deeper flavors. to get maximum flavor, this recipe uses both a sponge and overnight fermentation. 

The quantities listed will make 12 standard sized bagels

Ingredients:

Sponge

• 1 tsp instant yeast (none of that old fashioned active dry stuff)
• 510g / 18oz / 4 cups high gluten bread flour (It is generally better to measure flour by weight or mass rather than volume, because flour density is very variable.)
• 2.5cups water

Dough

• 1/2 tsp instant yeast
• 482g / 17oz / 3.75 cups high gluten bread flour
• 2 3/4 tsp salt
• 2 tsp malt powder

To Finish

• 1 tbsp baking soda (although this quantity doesn't mean anything because Reinhart does not specify the amount of water to dilute it in...)
• toppings: sesame seeds, poppy seeds, rehydrated dried garlic/onion, cheese, salt, etc... 

  

  to rehydrate, just add water!

Method (slightly simplified from the original):

1. Mix together the "sponge" ingredients, the dough should look like pancake batter.
2. Let the sponge sit, covered, at room temperature for 2 hours (until it is foamy and bubbly and has doubled in size.)                                          



bubbles!

3. To the sponge add the "dough" ingredients. Stir well with a spoon or your hands to form a coarse, shaggy dough. 
4. If you are kneading by hand, turn out the dough onto a floured surface and knead for 10 minutes. If you have a stand mixer, have the machine knead the dough with the dough hook for 6 minutes.   Either way, the dough should be "satiny and pliable, but not sticky" (Reinhart).
5. Divide the dough into 12 pieces (each about 128g / 4.5oz). Cover with a damp towel and allow to rest 20 minutes.
6. To make the bagel shape, poke a hole into the center of a piece and shape the dough into an even bagel shape. The hole should be about 1 in in diameter. 
7. Line 2 sheet pans with parchment paper, and place the raw bagels on it. Let the dough sit for 20 minutes, then put it in the fridge overnight or for up to 3 days. 

   

   transporting bagel dough

8. The next day, preheat the oven to 500F and bring a wide pot of water to boil. Add the baking soda to the water.
9. Take the bagels out of the fridge and drop a couple of them into the water (only as many as can fit comfortably on the surface of the water)
10. Boil the bagels for one minute on each side. 

    

    boiled bagels

11. Sprinkle the baking sheets with semolina or cornmeal and place the boiled bagels on it. Top the bagels with desired toppings (I like sesame+poppy+garlic.) Note: to prevent the garlic from burning, you need to soak it in a bit of hot water to rehydrate it before using.

    

    toppings!

12. Bake the bagels for 5 minutes at 500F, rotate the pans and bake until golden, about another 5 minutes.
13. Let the bagels cool for 15 minutes on a cooling rack. 

    

    Om nom nom

14. Slice the bagel open, and spread with cream cheese! 

    

    No bagel is complete without cream cheese.

     



Cheese on top is also good.

We're supposed to eat turkey or something

We celebrated this year's Thanksgiving with our wonderful friends the M family. Yesterday's dinner menu included:

• Roast Turkey (Traditions must be observed)
• Catherine M's Chestnut Stuffing 
• Green beens with lemon
• My dad's Pommes Anna
• My brother's Ginger Cranberry Sauce
• Cornbread
• Hazelnut and Fuyu Persimmon Salad
• Pumpkin Pie
• Sara M's Maple Pots de Crème

I read Bon Appetit Magazine, and in their Thanksgiving issue this year they found issue with using stuffing as stuffing because it prevents the bird from cooking or some other nonsense. They even decided to call their stuffing recipes "dressing" to discourage putting them inside turkeys. This name change doesn't even make any sense because, at least in my experience, dressing is a flavorful sauce. I do not believe that bread mixed with various vegetables/meats fall in that category.
In any case, if your stuffing is hot when you put it in the turkey, it isn't going to prevent the turkey from cooking, and the turkey juices will make the stuffing that much better.

Enough ranting. For the potatoes, my dad found a recipe in that same Bon Appetit magazine for "Mini Herbed Pommes Anna" , which are basically cakes of potato slices layered with butter and herbs. This recipe turned out delicious, and it can be easily made into advance, so I recommend it to anyone who needs a showstopper side.

My brother is the family cranberry expert, and he found a recipe for ginger-lemon cranberry sauce. The sauce came out strong and savory, not as sweet as more classic recipes. The ginger complemented the the rich gravy quite well. 

I made the Hazelnut/Persimmon salad and the pumpkin pie. For the salad, I first toasted some hazelnuts in the oven at 400F for 10-15 minutes (stirring them often). According to Catherine M's instructions, we peeled the hazelnuts by rubbing them in a dish towel.

We then sliced up some fuyu persimmons (the ones with rounded bottoms: they're not astringent) into a cider vinegar-olive oil-mustard-black pepper vinaigrette and added some mixed greens and arugula. The sweetness of the persimmon was nicely complemented by the tartness of the vinegar and the bitterness of the arugula.

For the pumpkin pie, I used Cook's Illustrated recipe, which can be found here http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2008/11/cooks-illustrated-pumpkin-pie-recipe.html . I really like this recipe because it combines canned pumpkin with fresh sweet potato to give a complex flavor. Compared to the pumpkin pie from the dining hall I had eaten last week, this pie tasted full and complete.

Strawberry Cardamom Sour Cream Upside-Down Cake

Well, it certainly has been a while since I last posted here. Turns out having a job and taking a class at the same time is a lot of work. I've been taking a b&w film photography class this summer. At first I was a bit confused as to why film photo is a pre-req for digital photo, but the class is actually very interesting. Contrary to everyones expectations, I did not take pictures of food, because food in black and white is just not particularly exciting. So I have been exploring the bay area / my house in search of situations to take pictures of.

(Creepy?) Handbags in Half Moon Bay

Dragonfly

California + Bikes

Public Transit

Donner Lake

That last picture somehow became brown when I took a picture of it, probably because the white balance on my digital camera was off. I think it fits the landscape well though.

But anyways, back to food.

Mmmm strawberries

Strawberries are good, right? And sour cream is pretty good with strawberries. And cardamom is just plain delicious. (While making this cake I discovered that chewing a cardamom seed is very refreshing.)

Mmmm cardamom

Joy from Joythebaker is a genius and combined these three flavors into a cake. The super thick batter is spread on top of sliced strawberries that are sitting in some butter and brown sugar. I decreased the amount of sugar from Joy's recipe because my strawberries were sweet enough for my taste. (And of course I doubled the number of strawberries!)

Also, if you look at her post, she somehow manages to keep her strawberries bright red, while mine went to a dull purple. I'm guessing that adding some lemon juice to the strawberries before baking might help prevent discoloration. 

Ugly but delicious. I'm sure your cake will be beautiful and delicious!

Anyways, recipe time!

But first some sliced strawberries

Ingredients:

     For the strawberries:

• 2 tbsp butter
• 2 tbsp brown sugar
• 2 cups sliced strawberries
• 1 tbsp lemon juice (opt, may preserve color) 

     For the cake:

• 6 tbsp butter, soft
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp ground cardamom
• 2/3 cup sour cream

Procedure:

1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. Mix strawberries with lemon juice (if using.)
3. Put the 2 tbsp of butter in a 9" round cake pan and place in the oven until melted.
4. Rotate pan to coat all sides with butter, sprinkle the 2 tbsp brown sugar into the bottom of the pan.
5. In a medium bowl, stir together flour, baking powder + soda, salt.
6. In a large bowl cream together the butter and 1/2 cup brown sugar.
7. When butter is fluffy, add egg and vanilla, and beat until well combined.
8. Beat in dry ingredients and sour cream, batter will be very thick. 
9. Spread strawberries on bottom of pan.
10. Spoon batter over strawberries and spread evenly.



Spread it out more evenly than this

11. Bake for about 35 minutes.
12. When cake is cooked, run a knife along the edge of the cake and then invert over a plate. If the cake sticks to the pan, leave the pan upside-down over the plate and go read a book or check your email. After ~5 minutes, the cake will have unstuck from the pan (Yay gravity!)
13. Serve with a spoonful of sour cream

I brought this cake to a friend's house and it was gone in 5 minutes. Granted, there were three tall and skinny runner guys participating, so it wasn't particularly surprising. 

Garlic Bread

... is basically at the top of the list for foods both delicious and quick to make. I mean, who doesn't like garlic bread? (Many people, I am sure, especially those who dislike garlic.) But I cannot resist the warm combination of fresh crusty bread, melted butter, and garlic.
Of course, like all inherently simple things, there are many different recipes, each claiming to "be the very best" (that no one ever was??) My suitemate, for example, simply kept a bowl of garlic-butter on the counter (for some reason unrefrigerated) and whenever he wanted garlic bread, he would spread a thick layer of butter on a slice of sandwich bread and microwaved it until the butter was melted. I must say, it was delicious. Some people put cheese or zest or their garlic bread, which is delicious too. The main debate I have seen is olive oil vs butter. But hey, this recipe uses both, so anything is possible.I am personally a fan of butter garlic bread, probably because I am a fan of butter.

But why am I talking about garlic bread anyways? Well, the other night we had family friends come over for dinner, and my parents (Hi parents!) basically assigned me to make the dinner they had planned: clams and fish cooked in a tomato-chorizo-roasted red pepper-garlic-onion sauce and garlic bread.
So how did I make this garlic bread? Well, I opted for the "melt butter with garlic and brush/pour on top of the bread" method.

Garlic Bread (serves 6-8)

Ingredients

• 1 baguette
• 3 tbsp of salted butter
• 4 medium garlic cloves
• Parsley (opt)

Tasting the melted garlic butter :)

Method:

1. Cut the baguette in half to make 2 short baguettes
2. Cut each of those in half like you are splitting them for a sub sandwich. The goal here is to have have access to the crumb of the bread.
3. Use a garlic press or knife to mince the garlic and place it in a small microwaveable bowl.
4. Add the butter to the bowl and microwave the contents until the butter is melted and bubbly.
5. Use your communism skills to distribute the melted garlic butter evenly among the pieces of bread (on the not crusty side). 
6. Sprinkle on a bit of chopped parsley if you want to.
7. Slice the bread into the number/size of pieces you desire.
8. But the bread pieces crust down on a baking sheet and stick under the broiler until the edges of the bread brown.
9. Serve warm!