Gone are the days when I lived with my daughter and two other adults and Bill would go get the Boston Globe, New York Times, National Enquirer, bagels, cream cheese and lox and bring them back and deliver them with coffee and juice to our bedrooms.
Papers are now read on-line and bagels, good or bad are rare in Argelès. So-so bagels can sometimes be found in Geneva, but new rituals have taken the place of old ones.
Every now and then I get a hankering for raisin-cinnamon bagels even though there are four bakeries with fresh baked many things for a Sunday morning breakfast within a few minutes walk of my house.
I WANTED RAISIN-CINNAMON BAGELS...
Never having been one to bemoan a situation I was capable of changing, I made them. I found the recipe on-line and added a handful of raisins and a couple of tablespoons of cinnamon. I'm sure anyone can add onions, caraway seeds of whatever appeals to them if they aren't in bagel-friendly spots.
Bagel Recipe
Ingredients:2 teaspoons of active dry yeast
1 ½ tablespoons of granulated sugar
1 ¼ cups of warm water (you may need ± ¼ cup more, I know I did)
3 ½ cups (500g) of bread flour or high gluten flour(will need extra for kneading)
1 ½ teaspoons of salt
Preparation:
In ½ cup of the warm water, pour in the sugar and yeast. Do not stir. Let it sit for five minutes, and then stir the yeast and sugar mixture, until it all dissolves in the water.
Mix the flour and salt in a large bowl. Make a well in the middle and pour in the yeast and sugar mixture.
Pour half of the remaining warm water into the well. Mix and stir in the rest of the water as needed. Depending on where you live, you may need to add anywhere from a couple tablespoons to about ¼ cup of water. You want to result in a moist and firm dough after you have mixed it. I found I'd added about 3/4 cup of flour to get the stiff dough.
On a floured countertop, knead the dough for about 10 minutes until it is smooth and elastic. Try working in as much flour as possible to form a firm and stiff dough.
Lightly brush a large bowl with oil and turn the dough to coat. Cover the bowl with a damp dish towel. Let rise in a warm place for 1 hour, until the dough has doubled in size. Punch the dough down, and let it rest for another 10 minutes.
Divide the dough into 8 pieces (I used a scale to be extra precise, but it’s not necessary). Shape each piece into a round. Now, take a dough ball, and press it gently against the countertop (or whatever work surface you’re using) moving your hand and the ball in a circular motion pulling the dough into itself while reducing the pressure on top of the dough slightly until a perfect dough ball forms (as pictured below). Repeat with 7 other dough rounds.
Coat a finger in flour, and gently press your finger into the center of each dough ball to form a ring. Stretch the ring to about ⅓ the diameter of the bagel and place on a lightly oiled cookie sheet. Repeat the same step with the remaining dough.
After shaping the dough rounds and placing them on the cookie sheet, cover with a damp kitchen towel and allow to rest for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 425ºF / 220ºC / Gas Mark 7.
Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Reduce the heat. Use a slotted spoon or skimmer to lower the bagels into the water. Once the bagels are in, it shouldn’t take too long for them to float to the top (a couple seconds). Let them sit there for 1 minute, and them flip them over to boil for another minute. Extend the boiling times to 2 minutes each, if you’d prefer a chewier bagel (results will give you a more New York Style bagel with this option).
Once all the bagels have boiled, transfer them to a lightly oiled baking sheet.
Bake for 20 minutes.
Cool on a wire rack.
Source for recipe here
Instead of reading the Sunday papers, we watched BBC's Dateline on the TV which makes OR+NR=VGL
Old ritual + new ritual = very good life
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