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Savory
I realize that the prospect of making bread can be quite frightening. However, as the title of this post implies I have a secret bagel recipe that will have you making bread in under an hour. Easy-peasy fresh bread. And the good news is that you can even use dried yeast instead of fresh yeast and your bagels will still turn out perfectly well. Did I mention that these are Montreal style bagels? Whenever I'm not in New York I always find myself missing my breakfast or lunch bagels, so when I'm home I just quickly whip up a batch of these and top them off with some sesame and some rock salt. Isn't it ironic that bagels are such a New York trademark these days, even though bagels were originally invented in Poland and known since the early 1600s?
I got this recipe from one of my favorite easy recipe cook books, and have linked to it at the end of the post! Also if you want to read a post on my favorite bagels in NYC, you can read about Black Seeds Bagels here.
Recipe
50 g sugar
525 ml water
42 g fresh yeast, or 2 packets of dried yeast
20 g salt
1 kg all purpose flour
1 tbsp sugar
Sesame, poppy seed, rock salt, garlic or any toppings you desire
First, stir together the water, sugar and yeast until fully disolved. Add the salt and the flour and place the mixture in a large bowl (now would be the time to use a kitchen aid if you have one) and knead your dough until smooth, or for about 10 minutes. Cover your bowl with a kitchen towel and place in a warm place to let the dough rise (I like to put mine in the oven at about 30-35°C to help the yeast do its magic).
Preheat your oven to 225°C and boil a big pot of water together with the tbsp of sugar. Form your bagels without using any extra flour by rolling sausages from the dough and attaching the ends. Leave them to rise another couple minutes on a baking sheet. Then place a couple bagels at a time in the simmering water. Once the bagels reach the surface of the water, you can remove them and put your toppings on them. It's important to add the toppings while the bagels are still wet and you can add a bit extra of the toppings, because some of it will probably fall off before you can eat it. Place the finished bagels on a baking sheet and in the oven for about 22 minutes or until golden. And there you go, fresh bread in no time.
Good morning !
Good Morning everyone!
A new year has begun!
Welcome 2015 !
What will this year bring? Where will we head with doubledipping ? What will we come up with to inspire you and keep you cooking and enjoying? Who knows, please stay with us through this new year 2015 !
We have some champagne left over from last ... year and it is the best pairing for this dish and will lift some of those yesterday sins. It is a "healing" dish and will bring you back onto your feet.
Promise!
We celebrate not on big scale. I kind of find New Years Eve a bit challenging. One must eat late and long we use to play games like cards or other bord games then we go outside make a little fire in an iron bowl and music and dance into the new year. We stay away from fireworks or crackers. There is a lot of deer in the woods around us and we do not want to scare them. We feed them and love to watch them come real close so fireworks is a no go around our house. They said that on New Years fireworks are responsible for a year's amount of pollution by cars. WOW that really is a reason to stay away from it.
My New Year's day pasta is a simple and heart warming dish and we eat it out of one bowl with lots of laughter and extra cheese.
My mom gave me this wonderful truffle for Christmas and Julian wanted to make lunch for us. In no time I could convince him to enhance his plain noodles with a little bit of truffle oil, cream and parmesan!
You Need
500 grams fresh pasta
400 ml heavy cream
200 gr grated parmesan
salt, grey pepper
2 tbsp truffle oil
a winter truffle thinly sliced
Pour the heavy cream into a saucepan and bring to boil, as soon as the bubbles rise pour in 150 grams of your grated parmesan and let it rise one short time, then turn off the heat. The Cheese will melt while you stir on the stove that is still giving off enough heat. Season to your liking and add the truffle oil last. let sit there while you cook your pasta, drain the pasta and transfer it to a bowl pour the cream mixture evenly over it, sprinkle the rest of the parmesan over the pasta and finally add the truffles.
So easy - so quick - so heavenly!
What will pick you up today ?
Confit is to deep frying what Barbecue is to grilling - a slow low heat affair to preserve taste and minerals, vitamins, keeping bacteria away.
You often read in my recipes that I do not use fresh garlic, I have a glass of garlic, something like a confit that has been heated and preserved with salt and olive oil and keeps in the fridge for a long time. When I looked at our recipes I felt kind of bad that I let you wait for so long for something as delicious as this. Some people cannot eat garlic at all but this one they can and will enjoy.
Peel your garlic and collect them in an oven proof dish. Preheat the oven to 99°C.
Ok! I know I peeled 2 kg of fresh French garlic for my post but you might get really annoyed at peeling so much garlic, teary eyed and with sticky fingers, and lots of dry garlic paper sticking to them if your garlic is older than mine. I found this neat trick on Saveur and you should check it out, it's a bit courageous, but it seems to work best and is really quick: How to peel garlic in less than 10 seconds. You can also put all your cloves into boiling water for 20 seconds back into ice cold water to stop the cooking process and when the dry skin has softened, the ends cut off the garlic will slip out of its skin easily. I like the other version, its more fun!
Pour the olive oil over it and add the spices and the thyme sprigs.
Set the dish in the oven for 2 hours up to 2 1/2 hours. When done the garlic should have a pale golden color and be soft and tender, the oil only bubbling a little then you can remove the dish carefully, the hot oil is very dangerous, so please be careful! - and set it somewhere safe to cool a bit. Fill your prepared clean jars with the help of a ladle, close them and cool them quickly to help the preservation.
You can leave all the spices in the oil with the garlic, it looks pretty I even added more red pepper and if you spilled some hot oil it is best to wash the glasses on the outside under running hot water.
The garlic infused oil is delicious over salad or a tender boiled fish and the garlic can be spread on a bread as well as used in all other recipes. Your breath will be fine - promise!
For your jars I recommend adding a fresh sprig of thyme and extra red pepper maybe a fresh small chili will look nice as well. Those make great gifts, I gave one jar to my neighbor and she was a but suspicious in the beginning but today she said she is already addicted to it!
You Need:
1,3 kg of peeled garlic cloves
1 liter of olive oil
2 tsp of salt
1tbsp juniper (Wachholder)
3 tbsp red pepper
2 tsp of madagascan pepper, or black pepper
5 bay leaves
8-10 sprigs of fresh thyme
How to use it?
I would use it instead of fresh garlic, and if the recipe calls for 1 clove of garlic you can use 3-4 from the garlic in your jar: Salad dressing, pasta, on toasted bread with avocado or tomato, in your mayonnaise and endless more possibilities. It will keep fresh in the fridge for a month, if you use a clean spoon each time, but I bet it will be gone in a few days!
Please bring the confit back to room temperature before you serve it, as the oil can harden up in the fridge.
