Bagels, old NY style

This is the country of bread, so we have a lot of kinds to choose from (in fact, there's a wonderful organic bakery across the street from my apartment). Bread has been a staple in my home ever since I can remember.
Bread, yes. Bagels? Not so much.
Actually, bagels only became available around here about 5 years ago. You still hardly find them in grocery stores, let alone bakeries. There are a few bagel shops, but I refuse to spend a whole euro or more on a plain bagel (to put this into perspective: a plain bread roll costs between 10 and 30 cents). And on top of that, the bagel shops are not even open on Sundays. Go figure.
Plus, real NY bagels are different than those sold here. They are tougher and very chewy, while ours have a fluffy, bready texture.
Anyway, it was make it yourself or cough up the cash for store-bought bagels. So I surrendered and started looking for recipes. Fortunately, a friend of mine has this book and was willing to lend it to me when I complained to her about the overwhelming number of recipes out there. She said this one was the best.
It's a little time-consuming, but it's not too hard to make if you go by your instincts.
It's basically made up of 5 stages: Making the sponge, making the dough, shaping, cooking, baking. However, they stretch over (at least) 2 days.

Here's the recipe (adapted from Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice; makes 8 average-sized bagels):

Day 1: Making the Sponge

• 300 g (2 cups) bread flour
• 1/2 teaspoon instant yeast
• 300 ml (1 1/4 cups) warm water

Combine flour and yeast in a big mixing bowl, add the water and stir (I used a fork) until it forms a very sticky dough. It doesn't need to be smooth. Cover the bowl with a damp tea towel or plastic wrap and leave it alone in a warm place for about 2 hours. I actually put it in my bed, because the thing just wouldn't rise. It should about double in volume and be very bubbly. It doesn't necessarily look bubbly. Resist the urge to add more water. I did that once. Bad idea. When it's ready, it collapses very easily when you tap the bowl on the counter or stir the dough. That's fine and intentional.


Making the Dough

• 1/4 teaspoon instant yeast
  
• at least 260g (1 3/4 cup PLUS 2 Tablespoons) bread flour (I needed about 400 g, but start with 260 g and add as you go, if necessary).
  
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1/2 tablespoon barley malt syrup (I got it at the organic food store)

When the sponge is ready (i.e. foamy), add the yeast and stir. Then add the salt, the malt syrup and about 4/5 (i.e. 200 g) of the flour. Mix well until the dough forms a ball and pulls away from the sides of the bowl. Turn it out onto a lightly floured surface. Add the rest of the flour gradually, until the dough reaches a tough consistency. It should absolutely not be sticky or tacky. If you have added all the flour and the dough is still tacky, add more flour gradually until it doesn't stick to your hands anymore. I had to add about a cup (=140 g) more than stated in the recipe.
Now knead the bagel dough for at least 10-15 minutes. It needs to be stiff but not dry, and soft, but definitely not tacky. It's perfect when you can thinly stretch out a piece of dough between your fingers and not have it rip instantly (windowpane test). My dough took over 20 minutes until it was ready. If you want to save some time, use your stand mixer (dough hook).


Shaping

When your dough is ready, divide it into 8 equal pieces (you can make more or fewer, depending on how big you want your bagels). Form each piece into a roll by tightly pinching together the corners you get from cutting the dough. Don't roll it between your palms like you would with cookie dough. The pinching method creates a nice smooth surface.
Place the dough ball seams down on a plate or baking tray lined with a lightly oiled sheet of parchment paper.
Cover the balls with a damp tea towel and let them rest for 20-25 minutes.
Now they're ready to get their bagel shape.
Poke your finger through the center of the dough ball and stretch the resulting hole. I just let it carefully spin around my index finger. Just take care to stretch the dough evenly. Make the holes a little bigger than you want them to be in the end, they will change a little as the bagels rest, cook and bake.
Put the shaped bagel back onto the oiled parchment, cover them with the damp towel or plastic wrap (I prefer to cover them with both - first the damp towel, then the plastic wrap) and let them rest again. Give them 20 minutes to rise slightly. If they don't, let them sit for a little longer and check on them every 10-15 minutes. They are ready to be retired to the fridge when a test bagel floats within 10 seconds of being dropped into a bowl of water. I didn't do that because mine rose significantly, but if you do, gently dry your test bagel with a paper towel and put it back on the tray.
Put the bagels into the refrigerator (covered) for at least 8 hours and up to 2 days.

Day 2: Cooking

• 1 Tablespoon or so of baking soda
  
• 2 Tablespoons of barley malt syrup
• Toppings (I used sesame, but you could use poppyseeds, kosher salt, dried onions, different herbs... whatever floats your boat)
• Semolina flour or cornmeal (optional)
  

Preheat the oven to 250°C (500 °F). Bring a big pot of water to a boil (a wider pot is better than a tall one). Add the baking soda and the barley syrup.
Get the bagels from the fridge. Drop as many as comfortably fit at once into the water and boil them for one minute. Flip them and boil for another minute.
While the bagels are cooking, sprinkle the tray with semolina to prevent the bagels from sticking. I forgot to do this the second time I made these and they still didn't stick, so suit yourself.
I used a skimmer to lift the bagels out of the water and put them back on the baking tray. If you want to use toppings, put them on the bagels now. If you're quick, you don't even need an egg wash.


Baking

Put the tray in the oven (middle rack) and bake 5 minutes. Then rotate it 180° and bake for another 5 minutes. I actually omitted this step, because my oven bakes very evenly. If yours doesn't, you should rotate your tray. Keep baking your bagels until you like their color. The recipe said to bake them for a total of 10 minutes, but I baked them for 17. Just keep checking on them and judge by the color.
Take them out and let them cool for at least 15 minutes.

Serve with cream cheese and smoked salmon (lox) or whatever else you like on your bagels. I made sundried tomato cream cheese (left in the above picture).


What else is there to say?

• My bagels deflated slightly overnight. I kept the first batch I made on the balcony and apparently, it wasn't cold enough out there. So don't make more bagels than can fit in your fridge.
• My first batch also had formed bubbles where the dough touched the plastic wrap. That's where water seeped in and made the bagels a little too chewy. I found that covering the bagels with a damp towel instead of/beneath the plastic wrap minimized that while still preventing the bagels from drying out.
  
• The original recipe called for high gluten flour, which I couldn't find around here. I used all bread flour the first time. The second time I made these, I grabbed the wrong bag and used bread flour for the sponge, but all-purpose flour for the dough. I honestly couldn't even taste a difference, so if you're not a purist, go with the bread flour.
  
• The barley malt syrup is absolutely essential. It gives the bagels a very typical flavor. You could probably use some kind of strong honey (fir honey might work), but barley malt is readily available even in Germany (try organic food stores; I got mine at BioCompany), so there's really no reason not to use it. The recipe calls for adding it to the dough, but I found that the bagels got a better color and a better taste by additionally adding some syrup to the boiling water.

By the way, excuse me for not taking more pictures, the bagels were all gone before I had a chance to. When I make these again, I will provide pictures, I promise. Can't be that long, either, the boyfriend has already requested them again for next weekend.

Tehina Cookies

I have always been taught never to waste any food. My grandparents on both sides, having survived harsh times here in Germany and the territory which is now known as the Baltic Republics, were very efficient in making use of whatever they had. I never saw them throw out food that could still be eaten (e.g. stale bread was frequently turned into some kind of bread soup).
While this is certainly a good thing, it can put you in a tight spot if you suffer from our family disease: Always preparing too much. I definitely inherited it from my grandma, who would cook up a storm in her tiny kitchen, preparing quantites of food fit to feed a family of 10.
"Nu, willst du seyn hungrig, mejdelach? (Well, do you want to go hungry, little girl?)", she would ask and we would eat. Being unable to feed her family was one of her big fears. Indeed, I never went hungry at my oma's house (quite the opposite, in fact).
So, no wonder I made way too much tehina and found myself contemplating what to do with it. I know it keeps well in the fridge for a few weeks, but I prefer my food fresh. Plus, I probably would've forgotten about it until it turned rancid.
Out of the corner of my eye, however, I noticed a recipe for tehina cookies and decided those were what I would make with my tehina.
Recipe is here at Israeli Kitchen. I pretty much stuck to the recipe, except that I used butter (I hate margarine!) and real vanilla (about a third of a vanilla bean) instead of vanilla extract.
I had a little problem with the consistency of my dough, although I'm sure that wasn't the recipe's fault. I think my tehina contained a bit more oil than the store-bought stuff and thus the amount of flour stated in the recipe wasn't enough to make the dough as dry and crumbly as it's supposed to be. I just added a little more flour and then cornstarch until I liked the consistency (didn't want the cookies to become hard as a rock).
By the way, absolutely do add the pine nuts, and more than one per cookie. I was sceptical at first, but they do make all the difference. It's a perfect match.
My changes resulted in the cookies not being parve, but I just like butter better. They were incredibly soft, yet crumbly - they basically melted in my mouth. I gave some to my dad and he exclaimed: "Chalva cookies!". Chalva is one of his favorites. So in the end, everyone was happy and I didn't have to throw anything out.

And here are some pictures I took.





Making the tehina a little finer.








The perfect consistency I was going for.








Shaping the log using platic wrap.






Cutting... Baking... Done!

Sesame -> Tehina -> Choumous

I love choumous to death. It's creamy, but dairy-free, filling yet somewhat light and it's healthy. Above all, though, it's just yummy.
If it's done right, that is.
Living in Berlin, I probably have the best access to non-German foods in this country, but I have yet to find a store-bought choumous I like. Most of the stuff you get here is Turkish or Lebanese and so full of spices that you can't taste the chickpeas - which doesn't really suit me. Especially the Turkish style of choumous can differ dramatically from the Israeli style and since I grew up on the latter, I naturally prefer it.
The last time I was in Israel, I brought back a huge tub of choumous from the place in the picture above (where I also had lunch every day). If you ever visit Nahariya, I suggest you go there.
Anyway, of course the choumous didn't last me very long. It became pretty obvious that I would have to make some myself. I had previously tried to get a recipe from my Israeli family members, but seeing as great choumous is basically always available within walking distance from wherever you may be in Israel, none of them had ever made it themselves.
So imagine how excited I was to find this recipe by Mimi from Israeli Kitchen! In my opinion, locals always do it best and finding a recipe by an Israeli made me confident the recipe would work.
And work it did, although it took me quite a while, because I made everything from scratch, even the raw tehina paste. You can get it in organic/health food stores, but it's made from unhulled sesame seeds and I find that kind to be too bitter.
And now, without further ado, here are the recipes:


Tehina paste

• 500 g = 1.1 lbs = 3.5 cups untoasted, hulled sesame seeds

• 40-100 ml = 1/5 - 1/3 cup oil (I used sunflower seed oil, but you could probably use other neutral oils or even sesame oil)

There are two ways to toast the sesame seeds. I did them in the oven. You could also use a pan, which is easier if you have pets and/or small kids running around, or if you're uncomfortable with sticking your hand/arm into a hot oven. There's really no need to get them all done at once, since you're going to have to let them cool anyway, so the smaller amounts you get from using the pan are no problem.

Here's how I did it:

1. Preheat oven to 320° F/180° C.
2. Pour your sesame seeds onto a baking tray or into a shallow, oven-safe glassware dish (the latter makes it easier to move the sesame seeds to another dish for cooling afterwards). Put your tray/dish on the middle rack of your oven.
3. Move the seeds frequently by stirring with a heat resistant spatula. Make sure you get them all, they easily burn in the corners of your tray/dish.
4. Toast them until they are fragrant, but don't brown them. Mine took only 4 minutes, although I was originally told it would take up to 10 minutes.
   
5. Remove from the oven and transfer to another shallow dish to cool.
   
6. After cooling, put the sesame seeds into a food processor or blender fitted with metal blades. You could also use a mortar and pestle.
   
7. Add the oil, a little at a time and process to a smooth paste. Your tehina paste should have a very thick pouring consistency.
8. If you don't need it right away, you can put the paste into a tightly covered container and refrigerate it. The tehina paste will seperate into two layers, with the oil on top keeping the tehina paste underneath fresh for a few months.

Tehina (adapted from Israeli Kitchen)

• About 500 ml = 2 cups of raw tehina paste (I didn't bother to weigh it, just poured everything into a huge measuring cup)
  
• About 300-500 ml = 1 1/3 - 2 cups of cool water
• 1-2 big cloves of garlic (depending on how fresh your garlic is and how long you intend to store the tehina before you use it)
• the juice of 1 lemon
• Salt to taste
• A drizzle or two of olive oil

1. If you use tehina (either home-made or commercial) that has separated, thoroughly stir to blend the two layers. Be careful and avoid spilling any of the oil.
2. If you want to make this is a bowl (i.e. by hand), put the garlic and the salt in a mortar and grind them to a paste. Add the olive oil and mix well.
   
3. Put the tehina paste and the lemon juice in a big bowl and slowly add about a fourth of the water to it. Whisk. Don't be irritated if it thickens a lot initially. Just keep whisking and add water gradually, lest the tehina become too runny. The perfect consistency is like whipping cream.
   
4. Just before it reaches that perfect consistency, add the garlic-oil-mix. Stir well. If your tehina is too thick, add some more water, only a little at a time.
   
5. Put the tehina into a screw-top jar and store in the fridge until you need it.
6. If you make your tehina in a food processor, just put in all the ingredients at once, except for the water. Pour it in gradually and keep checking your mixture so it doesn't end up being too runny.
   

Choumous (adapted from Israeli Kitchen):

• 500 g = 3 1/8 cups dried chickpeas
  
• 8 Tablespoons = 1/2 cup tehina (again, didn't weigh it, just added tehina by the spoonful until I liked the taste)
• 1-2 big cloves of finely chopped garlic (again, depending on how old your garlic is and how long the choumous will rest before it's served - I'd err on the light side next time)
• the juice of 1 lemon
• about 4 Tablespoons = 60 ml olive oil
  
• Salt to taste
• Parsley, chopped
• A little cayenne pepper
  

1. The night before you want to make your choumous, put the dried chickpeas into a pot, cover them with plenty of fresh water and let them soak overnight. I changed the water once, because it looked murky. By the way, I found out that chickpeas emit a pretty peculiar smell when you soak them. Don't throw them out, they're supposed to be a little stinky (I confirmed that by repeating the experiment with another bag of dried chickpeas).
2. The following day, gently rub the chickpeas against each other while still in the soaking water. This will cause many of their skins to come off. Discard the skins. This step isn't absolutely essential, but apparently the skins are not digested too well and fewer skins will produce a smoother choumous. I just rubbed them against each other a couple of times. Don't skin every single chickpea, it's not worth it.
   
3. Drain the chickpeas and cook them in fresh water until they are very soft (1 1/2 - 2 hours). I changed the water once halfway through the cooking time. Don't add any salt to the cooking water, it will make the chickpeas tough.
4. Occasionally skim off foam and chickpea skins that have floated to the surface.
5. When the chickpeas are very soft, drain them, reserving the cooking water, and put them into your food processor.
   
6. Add lemon juice, oil, garlic and tehina and process until the choumous is smooth. If it won't become smooth enough for your taste, gradually add some cooking water and/or olive oil until you like the consistency.
   
7. Add salt to taste. I also added a tiny pinch of cayenne.
8. Serve by spooning a good amount of choumous onto a plate, making a donut-like shape. Put some tehina in the middle, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with parsley and add a handful of whole cooked chickpeas if you like. Serve with pickles and pita bread.
   

I took my home-made choumous ve tehina to my parents' house for brunch on Sunday and everyone loved it. None was left, but fortunately, I still had my "confirmation batch", half of which I turned into choumous, while the other half remained whole for snacking and a great chickpea salad I intend to make this week.
If your family isn't as gluttonous as mine when it comes to this kind of food, you can put your leftover choumous in a jar, cover it with olive oil and keep it in the fridge for a while.