Recipe testing: Sesame seed bagels

Okay, apologies for the slight hiatus in posting. With everything that’s been going on with jobs, visa paperwork, and other time consuming things that present themselves at the busiest moment possible, I’ve had to put writing on the back burner. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t been hard at work cooking! I’ve got two, accidently related posts coming up. And this is the first.

This post is about bringing back the basics; slowing life down, and taking the time to do things yourself. And while I won’t be hand-washing my clothes, or changing the brake pads on my car anytime soon, I will definitely be making these bagels again. In fact, I had such a great time with this recipe that I was inspired to start my own sourdough culture to be done with commercial yeast forever! Exciting right? Just getting you all on board for my next post :)

Homemade bagels AND home-cured gravlax with dilly cream cheese... stop it, I know

But back to the bagels. Between all the recent stressful moments, I’ve been spending as much time as possible laying in the sunbeam that perfectly shines on my outdoor lounge. And what better activity to do while relaxing in the sun than read a favourite author? It doesn’t matter which book you choose, any one written by Michael Pollan is a winner. In his newest book “Cooked” he illustrates a true back to basics lifestyle from the origination of Carolina BBQ, to home fermented vegetables, brewing beer, and baking bread.

In the book he makes a good point. We are making more money, working harder, and spending way more time doing things we don’t actually enjoy doing. And for what? Two weeks holiday? A new car? New clothes? More stuff? More stress? I can create more than enough stress on my own thank you very much. With only two days per week off work, is shopping really the best thing for us? Is the only legitimate form of leisure really consumption?

Not for me it isn’t. I get way more pleasure out of learning how to do things for myself, and then doing it better than I could buy anywhere else. Cooking especially. I mean how great do you feel when you spend all day comparing recipes, prepping ingredients, and hosting a great big dinner party for all your friends?! Super!

These bagels are my first attempt at bagel-making. They are one of the many things I miss from home, while also being one of the few things I can actually make (Kraft Dinner’s mysterious powdered cheese sauce still evades me). And as my toughest critic, I would say these bagels rate a 7/10. They looked great, and had a great chewy exterior, the way proper bagels should. But the inner crumb was a little too crumbly, and they were definitely too small. I’m working on improving the recipe and will keep you posted on the results!

The great thing about these bagels, and the reason why I’m sharing the recipe is because they were really good. They were really easy to make, and look totally impressive. Nick and I are hosting a friend for the next few days, and I’m definitely going to be making up a batch of these bagels.

“You mean these ole’ things? Nah, we’ve always got them hanging around” ;)

Sesame Seed Bagels

25g butter

125 ml milk

1 tbsp caster sugar

1 tsp dried yeast

1 egg, separated

250 g bread flour

6 5x5 inch squares of parchment paper

Melt the butter, milk, and sugar in a sauce pan until the sugar is completely dissolved. Turn off the heat and let cool to body temperature. Add the yeast and let sit until foamy, 10 min. Whisk in the egg white and ½ tsp salt.

In a big bowl sift your flour. Make a well in the centre and pour in the yeast mixture all at once. Knead until smooth and elastic.

Cover with plastic wrap and leave in a warm spot. Rise until doubled.

Divide dough into 6 pieces and roll each into a ball (using flour as necessary). Poke your finger through the centre of each ball and spin around to make a bagel shape. Place each shaped bagel on its own square of parchment paper. Cover and rest until slightly risen, 30 min.

Meanwhile bring a large saucepan of water to boil and preheat oven to 200C. Add 1 tbsp baking soda to the water (this is a substitute for lye which is normally used when making bagels).

Slide bagels with paper attached in batches into the boiling water, turning once until puffed. The bagels will slide easily away from the paper. Remove each boiled bagel with a slotted spoon and transfer to a nonstick baking sheet.

Combine the remaining egg yolk with 1 tsp water and brush over the bagels. Scatter with sesame seeds and bake approximately 20 minutes, or until golden brown.

Now the fun part... all the many ways you get to enjoy them!!

Mix up some home-cured gravlax, fresh dill, and cream cheese. Smear it on thick with some sliced cucumbers. Delicious.

Breaky to go!

Easy peasy toasted with peanut butter

YUM!

Happy and Healthy Animals Always Taste Best

Have you ever seen a chicken’s “fingers”? or a pig’s “bacon”? I find it curious that we transform the meat we eat on a regular basis to look like anything but the actual animal we are eating. Whether it’s a natural defense against the ugliness of eating something that was once living, or simply something people have grown up with not questioning, I can’t say. 

We aren’t eating Babe, 
the cute little pig with the rest of his life rolling in mud and making friends with other barnyard animals ahead of him, 

we’re eating “pork”; uniformly sliced and packaged for a convenient stir-fry, streaky smoked bacon for breakfast, and thick cut pork chops for the grill. But none of these products look like a pig. Maybe the closest we get to actually recognizing the animal is when we leave the skin on the roast, but even then it’s not called skin, it’s crackling.

It wasn’t until I saw the reaction when a contestant on Masterchef roasted a pig head that I realized not everyone thinks about where their food comes from. The entire week prior to air, the commercial showed the roasted head being pulled out of the oven with ominous scary music in the background! Pigs aren’t scary. Roasted meat isn’t scary either. But I could feel the unease the moment Australia saw that roasted pig head, and the pig looked back. Because there’s no avoiding the image of Babe when his head is roasted and served on a platter at your dinner table.

And that’s exactly the point I want to make (aside from letting you in on the secret that the best part of the pig is its cheeks and jowl). I am against people forgetting that what they eat everyday actually was a living thing, which is what happens when we go to the grocery store and pick up carts full of dismembered, chopped up, and neatly packaged meat. Because it’s at this moment that people stop caring about the product they are buying. It’s easy to forget that that coq au vin was once a chicken when its feet are taken off and its legs and neatly arranged and cling filmed.

I don’t agree with vegetarianism as a means towards the end of animal cruelty. Because as poetic as it sounds, spending the rest of your life eating vegetables isn’t going to keep the billions of cows out of the slaughterhouse. Talk is cheap. What you need to make a difference today is money. The power of supply and demand is a force to be reckoned with. And as a consumer, you have a lot more power to control that force than you might at first think. It’s all about who your dollar supports. And if you are against cruelty to animals, then you should be supporting the hundreds of farmers doing meat farming the ethical way. It may be a little more expensive, but you reap the benefits not only in supporting a sustainable and ethical meat farmer, but in the intense flavor of the meat! That is what meat is supposed to taste like! I check up on this website at least once a week. Check it out: <http://www.sustainabletable.org.au/>

The website has got a great list of ethical butchers in Sydney and Melbourne. And the best part about shopping at one is that they’re always really friendly, and ready to share (or trade!) tips. When you ask for something maybe not on display, they go to the back, bring out a forequarter of an animal, and show you the piece they are going to cut! Really cool.

Sunday’s Southern feast was a special request by Nick. Creamy mac ‘n’ cheese, collard greens, jalapeno corn bread, delicious. 
But the big star? Slow Roasted Beef Brisket! Oh my, it was amazing. Crunchy “bark”, tender meat, sticky sauce. But the best part? This tasted BEEFY. Thanks to my butcher’s ethical, hormone free, beautiful, and delicious meat I feel good about buying and eating. Especially eating… I may not have a smoker (or even outdoor grill) at home, but I make a MEAN slow roasted brisket :D

Brisket comes from the breast of the cow. It is a thin sheet of muscle that has a lot of fat on one side. For the most part the whole cut of meat follows one grain, so that when you slice it thinly you don’t have to worry about which way to cut. You cook it low and slow to ensure the collagen in the meat breaks down and turns into gelatin resulting in tender meat that practically melts in your mouth. And the best part of this kind of cooking? Brisket is so cheap! Feed up to 8 people for $25? Yes thank you.

Slow Roasted Beef Brisket

Go to your local (ethical) butcher and ask for a beef brisket. They will show you the piece and you get to choose how big you want them to cut it!

Dry Rub:

½ c brown sugar

¼ c paprika

2 tbsp salt

2 tbsp celery salt

1 ½ tbsp. onion powder

1 ½ tbsp. chili powder

1 tsp cumin

1 tbsp black pepper

1 tsp dry mustard

½ tsp cayenne

PLUS: One bottle of your favourite BBQ sauce. Or use your own recipe! Mine is kinda special and I’m not ready to share it on the internet just yet :D

Combine all the ingredients in a bowl. Sprinkle liberally over the brisket, making sure you coat everywhere. Place the brisket on a rack over a roasting pan and cover with plastic wrap. 

Refrigerate the brisket at least 4 hours or overnight. This process initially draws moisture out of the meat. But let it sit long enough and the seasoning as well as the moisture will work it’s way back into the meat leaving you with a perfectly seasoned piece of meat all the way through. If you don’t have time to do this, skip the step all together. Salting the meat for any time less than 4 hours will only serve to draw moisture out of the meat.

Now time to cook. Bring your brisket out to room temperature for 30 minutes. Preheat your oven to 100C. Pour one bottle of beer into the bottom of your roasting pan (you want the beef to sit on the rack without touching the beer). Seal the pan with aluminum foil and place in the oven. Don’t move the brisket, or open the door for the first 4 hours. After 4 hours, take the brisket out of the oven and baste it with a thick layer of BBQ sauce. Cover with foil again and cook for 30 minutes. Repeat this process until the brisket has had 6 hours of cook time. At 6 hours, depending on the size of your brisket, you have to judge if it needs more time (up to 8 hours total). You want to be able to put a fork in the middle of the brisket and for it to break apart without much force. Not as “fall apart” as a pulled pork, but definitely tender and soft.

So, after 4 hours baste every 30 minutes with BBQ sauce keeping the brisket covered with foil until the last 20 minutes of cooking which is done uncovered to ensure the BBQ sauce caramelizes nicely.

Once cooked, remove the rack and brisket to a board to rest covered in a foil tent. Pour all those delicious drippings into a pot with a little more BBQ sauce. Stir together and bring to the boil to serve alongside the brisket.

Once the brisket has rested 20 minutes, thinly slice against the grain. Move your knife in as few long, and fluid cuts as you can manage so as not to damage the now delicate and tender beef. Transfer to a platter, pour over any juices that may have come out during resting and cutting, and serve! AH-MAZE-ING. 

I hope I inspired you to at least look into investing your dollar in ethically produced meat. It just tastes better, and you’ll definitely feel better about eating it too!