Danish Dough

My lesson this week was laminated doughs. This includes
croissant, Danish and puff pastry dough. I gave my classes a homework project
to make croissant or Danish dough and bring a sample in. I was making basic whole
wheat bread later that day at home and I had some left over dough that I was
going to make into hot dog rolls. Then I thought, why not do the homework
assignment myself also?

Laminated dough is procedure where the dough is rolled out
and a fat layer is put on the dough and the rest of the dough is folded over it
making a sandwich of dough with a fat filling. Making this type of dough is
easier than it sounds and I think everyone should try to make it. I will go
over how I made it slowly step by step.
We will be creating many layers of dough and fat which is why the dough
is so flaky.

There are many ways of folding the dough to make the layers,
we will keep it simple. Almost any yeast dough will do, Danish will normally
have eggs, butter and sugar; croissants will not have eggs but I have found
that Danish dough makes a great croissant and croissant dough makes great
Danish. The point is that I had some leftover dough which was not either but I
will use to make both. That’s what makes this sport we call cooking so
wonderful. Just a piece of left over dough, a little butter, some cinnamon,
nuts, jelly wunderbar!

OK here we go. My WW dough recipe is 20 oz. water, 2 tsp.
salt, ¼ cup honey, 2 Tbsp. Dry yeast, 4 oz melted butter, 2 eggs, 8 oz WW flour,
1# 8 oz bread flour. Straight mixing and knead for 5 min., ferment 1 hour. This
is a great all purpose dough for bread and rolls. It yields 4# of dough, I made
2 1# 11 oz loaves of bread and I had a 10 oz piece left.

• Take  a 4
  oz stick of butter and placed it between 2 sheets of plastic wrap and pounded
  it with a rolling pin to soften it, then, I rolled it into a 9” square. Freeze
  the butter on a flat surface.
• Roll the
  dough into a rectangle about 10” x 20” (fig 1),
• Place the frozen butter on ½ of the dough
  leaving ½ in. exposed. Brush the edges of the dough with a little water. (fig
  1)
• Fold the other half of the dough over the butter
  and seal the edges together (fig 2). Let the dough rest a few minutes for the
  butter to soften slightly. Lightly flour the dough and roll into a rectangle
  10” x 20” (fig 3)

• Now you want to fold the dough in thirds so make
  2 light marks on the dough about 1/3 in from each side (fig4) then fold 1/3
  over and cover with the other 1/3 (fig5).

• Refrigerate dough for 30 min. then roll dough on
  lightly floured table as in fig 5, turned 90°
  from the last fold and roll and roll to
  10” x 20” again
• Repeat the prior step and the dough is done,
  wrap it in plastic wrap and  refrigerate
  until you are ready to use it. It will keep well for 3-4 days in the frige or
  frozen for up to 3 months.

The dough is ready for shaping and
proofing, I will discuss this next blog tomorrow.

DO THIS PLEASE! This is necessary gem of
baking technique you must learn. Please write and let us know how you made out
and if you have any questions.

God Bless

Chef Ken

Turkey Fry

Fried turkey?  I am a seasoned trained professional chef so I am supposed to have cooked everything and know everything about cooking. Well almost. I have never fried a turkey.  Well this year due to endless pressure by loved ones and against my better judgment I am throwing tradition out the window, biting the bullet and frying my first turkey. I feel like standing on top of my stove throwing my hands up in the air and singing like Tevye “Tradition, Tradition!”

Fried turkey, it goes against every one of my culinary senses.  I have always thought it was a fad, a stupid gimmick to get people to buy the fryer set up or a sharp adman’s scheme to sell more peanut oil. If frying whole raw turkey is so good why haven’t we been frying whole chickens the same way for years or even now for that matter? I have dreams of a 25 pound bird slowly roasted, with stuffing thank you to a golden delicious brown when all those juices soak into the dressing and the breast meat is slightly dry and soaks up the rich gravy, oh boy, tradition! Fried whole turkey, stove top stuffing? Is that what people serve with it? French fries? Canned gravy? Sure I, can make gravy and stuffing without the bird roasting in the oven but I do not think my mother could have and I don’t want to. Why should I? The good Lord gave us the turkey and all of our culinary forefathers who paved the way by trial and error so that we now know the best and right way to roast the succulent sleep aid.

Dropping a 10 pound chick of a turkey into hot peanut oil can’t be a good thing. First the mass of even that small a bird will necessarily drop the temperature too low and that will cause the oil to creep into the meat. People say it’s very juicy, but juicy or oily? When you fry chicken you coat it with flour to protect it from absorbing oil. Chicken is cut up so that it won’t be sitting in hot oil too long and soak up the oil. Well a fried turkey is never floured or cut up. One would think it must then be grease laden.

They say the Cajuns were the first to fry turkeys, I guess they didn’t have proper stoves indoors like plumbing. I read that frying the turkey seals in the juice and keeps the turkey moist, oh yea? Have you ever watched food as it fries? Have you seen all that smoke that rises above the oil? That ain’t smoke folks that’s steam, steam but from where? That’s all those sealed in juices cooking out of the turkey. Sorry to break the bad news to all the turkey fry aficionados. So why all the fuss.  It’s like sundried tomatoes, I never heard of the things and one day out of nowhere sun dried tomatoes are all the rage, why? If I want to eat a musty old tomato that tastes like it fell out of an elephants navel I’ll go pick up droppings at the local zoo. We do not need sun-dried tomatoes any more, once we did have to preserve certain foods out of necessity. Today we have refrigeration and green houses and trucks so that we can have fresh sweet juicy tomatoes anytime we want them. While I’m on the subject where did balsamic vinegar come from and why is it treated like fine wine? I spent two years at the best culinary school in the country and they never mentioned balsamic vinegar. I don’t get all the fuss.

Let’s get back to talking turkey. OK so this year I am succumbing to the pressure and try to fry a turkey. Wish me luck, patience and grace. Don’t tell anybody but I am going to roast a traditional bird, too. May the best bird win! I do have some great tips on gravy and fixin’s I hope to write about next time.

God Bless

Chef Ken

HE’S BACK! …… AKA Grandma’s Bread

Well after a couple of weeks in St. Louis visiting my 8 month old grandson, and his folks I’m back.  I’m wondering if anybody out there missed me. Back and better than ever I hope. This is all to say that I have been preoccupied for the last few weeks.

What to do, what to do? I have also started teaching a baking class and in the first class I talked about what caused me to get interested in cooking. If I had to name one thing it would be my grandmother’s bread which she made often although not often enough. As a young lad I was fascinated by the process of  making yeast dough, breaking fresh yeast into warm water and watching it come to life, opening cardamom pods and muddling the seeds, mixing the dough to the right texture, kneading the dough and watching as it became elastic. Letting the dough rise, punching down the dough (that was my favorite part when I was about8) braiding the dough even fun for a boy. The best part of all though, cutting a warm piece and smearing it with butter and devouring it………….ecstasy! I am sure teaching this class will provide a lot of fodder for this blurb.

Ok I guess you’re all ready to make grandma’s Swedish Cardamom Braid. It’s just a simple sweet dough with cardamom. Start by warming about a cup and a half of milk and ½ to ¾ cup of sugar until the sugar dissolves. You can do this in the microwave or on the stove top. Add a stick (4 oz) or so of butter and 1 to 2 teaspoons of ground cardamom to the milk. This should cool the milk down enough to add a tablespoon of yeast and a teaspoon of salt. Be sure it is cool enough if it is too hot the yeast will die, just above body temperature is perfect. Let the yeast bloom for a few minutes and add 2 eggs and enough flour to make a medium stiff dough, it should pull away from the sides of the bowl but not be too sticky.  Knead the dough for 3 to 4 minutes to develop the gluten which makes the dough elastic. Cover the dough with lightly greased parchment paper or plastic wrap and let rise for 30 to 40 minutes. This will make 2 small or 1 large braided loaf. Let the loaves raise and brush with beaten egg and bake in a medium oven (350°) until done. Then I brush the bread while still warm with honey glaze. Add a teaspoon of granulated gelatin to 2 tablespoons of water and heat to about 170°  dissolve the gelatin then add enough confectioners’ sugar to make a glaze that is not too thick. It should be like thick paint. Brush the bread twice letting it dry slightly in between. Please let the bread cool slightly before cutting but do cut it while it is still slightly warm for the ultimate taste experience. If by some chance the bread is not gone immediately use it for French toast, you will thank me if you do. The best French toast you ever had I guarantee it.

This dough also makes great, Danishes, coffee cakes, cinnamon rolls, sticky buns, kolaches and hot cross buns. I will talk about these preparations  next time.

God Bless

Chef Ken

Cookies, a household favorite

I got a sudden urge for some cookies last night. It doesn’t happen like that too often but too often for my endocrinologist. Anyway I thought I would take you through a true CookingNaked venture or adventure as my daughter Katie would say. What kind of cookies? What do we have? I want my cookies now!

Basic chocolate chip cookies are so simple, butter/shortening, sugar, egg, self rising flour, vanilla. Like muffins you need to know the basic proportions. I had butter but it was cold so I microwaved it. Melted butter works just fine if you are in a hurry trust me. All the butter I had was about 2/3 of a stick or about 1/3 cup so I added about the same amount of shortening. Remember I am not measuring so everything is “about.” I only had a small amount of brown sugar about 2/3 cup and no granulated sugar. I used a total of about 2/3 cup and I know I need to have more sugar than fat so I added about ½ cup honey and beat it all together smooth. I then added an egg and some pure vanilla extract, please never use imitation. Now all that’s left is flour. I just add enough flour to make a stiff dough. Do it a few times and you will know the right consistency. Try to always make a test cookie just in case. For some reason before I added the flour I decided to make chocolate cookies so I added some Herseys “special dark cocoa”, about 2-3 tablespoons. I highly recommend this cocoa it is a fantastic product and not too expensive.  Cocoa is dry by nature and has some fat so I added another egg to compensate. I then added the self rising flour. I had chocolate chips, coconut and some almonds that I chopped so I threw it all in too. I tested a cookie and it did not spread much which is fine with me I knew that then I would need to flatten them. If you like a softer cookie, add less flour and more fat. Since you cannot take out flour you could simply have added some more melted butter or even oil to this batch to do that.  Nakedcooking just me, my ideas, my common sense, my knowledge and an apron. Do it, you will learn so much. Never, never by a mix again please. I think it took me less than twenty minutes from inception to eating hot awesome cookies.

You can see from this adventure the versatility of a basic cookie recipe. Less fat and more flour makes cookies you can refrigerate and slice or roll and cut and decorate or bag out as a spritz cookie or cookie press cookie. Substitute some of the flour with quick oat meal and add raisins and you have oatmeal raisin cookies. How about substituting a little of the fat for peanut butter, easy enough. Again endless options only limited by your own imagination. Have fun and know that you can do it.

God Bless

Chef Ken

Sauerbraten, why the hell not?

Sitting in an airport waiting to board a plane to St. Louis to see my new grandson and I’m thinking of Sauerbraten. I love Sauerbraten, it is true German comfort food, but I’m the only one at home that does so outside of restaurants so I have never made it. For those of you that love it or those who have never tried it and would like to, here it goes. This is easy, believe me nothing to fear.

Sauerbraten is most often described as German pot roast, well maybe. It is braised. I love anything braised. If you are not familiar with braising, it is meat (usually) that is browned first then has liquid added and is slow cooked until tender. I plan to blog many times about braising. It is a real earthy, peasant-style home cooking, yet it has a gourmet attitude.

The main difference with Sauerbraten is that the meat is marinated for 3-7 days. After moving to Texas I realized that Sauerbraten is very close to Barbecue Beef. Although it is not smoked, it is marinated; barbecued brisket is often brined before cooking. The sauce is sweet and sour in both cases but there is no tomato product in the Sauerbraten. There are many similarities between the two.

For the beef bottom, round roast is recommended but I have used top round roast, chuck roast and short ribs as well. The meat should not be too fatty but do leave some fat on it. For the marinade you will need enough liquid to cover the meat. Use equal parts red wine, red wine vinegar and water or beef stock. Next add brown sugar about ½ to 1 cup per half gallon of liquid and a tablespoon of salt. Add some rough cut meri-poix*, several crushed pepper corns, some rough chopped garlic and a few slices of fresh ginger. Juniper berries are another traditional ingredient but you can leave them out if you can’t find them or add a few ounces of good gin. Cover the meat in the marinade and refrigerate for 3 to 7 days turning daily. As with most braised dished it is best to prepare them a day ahead of time especially if it is a roast that you are going to slice, this is a true professional tip. Remove the meat from the marinade and pat it dry with paper towels. In a hot heavy pot place the meat fat side down and brown well on all sides. No oil is necessary since you have one side of the roast with fat on it to create oil for the other sides. I see many chefs on TV putting oil in the pan regardless of what they are cooking. More often than not when you are cooking meat adding oil is superfluous and may make a dish that is too greasy in the end. The worst to me is when they brown ground meat, completely unnecessary since there is 15% to 20% fat in the meat already that you may need to pour off. It’s just stupid. I really hate when they use olive oil and then drain it off when the meat is brown. Sticking should not be a problem in most pots especially cast iron. I like a cast iron Dutch oven for braising best.

OK enough pontificating; when the meat is well browned add the marinade as is with all the vegetables etc .and let it come to a boil on the stove top. When it has reached a boil cover and place the pot in a slow oven (250° ) until the meat is fork tender. This may vary from 2 to 8 hours depending on the oven and the size of the roast. Fork tender is a way of testing if the meat is ready. Stick a two pronged frill fork with fairly thin prongs into the meat and lift straight up. If the meat holds onto the fork until it is almost out of the liquid it is not ready. If the meat holds on a bit and falls off it is perfect. If the meat gets to the point where it does not hold to the fork as you lift straight up it may be over cooked. When you are sure the meat is done remove it and wrap it in plastic wrap, let it cool and refrigerate it.

Now to make the sauce, this really makes the dish. You may find a lot of different recipes with varied ingredients for the sauce but this is by far the best. Now the marinade needs to be thickened, Germans thicken sauces most often with stale baked goods or finely grated potatoes. In the case of Sauerbraten I use two things, ginger snaps cookies and rye bread. Add the two a little by little and watch for a slight thickening, just a little bit you do not want a thick sauce. Remember you can always add more but you can never take anything out. Continue to simmer the sauce on the stove top uncovered and let it reduce and thicken a bit more. Strain the sauce through a fine strainer or cheesecloth. Now is time to check the sauce for flavor. It should be rich and full of spirit, never too sweet or sour. You can add red wine, vinegar, brown sugar, salt or pepper as you see fit. Now wasn’t that too easy? People ask me if I know how to make it because they think it is so hard, now you know just how easy it really is. Cooking is such a cinch.

For service slice the meat cold, it will be firm and slice much easier than when it is hot. Place the meat in a Pyrex or Corning ware dish, heat the sauce and pour it over the meat. Cover the dish and heat in a slow oven as long as necessary to bring the meat to 165% or hotter. A probe thermometer is a must have in the kitchen.  Serve with Kartoffel Klosse or spätzels and Braised Red Cabbage, recipes to follow.

God Bless

Chef Ken

* Meri-poix; carrots, onion and celery.

* Rough cut; not peeled and just chopped in 1” pieces.

Kooking Korner Knowledge

Back in the old days, in 1970, I was working in a Country Club in Connecticut and every Sunday we had a very extensive buffet. I was responsible for Garde Mange (cold foods chef).  I had to make a great number of salads on large platters and shape them and decorate them. One salad I had trouble shaping was tuna salad. We made our own mayonnaise back then so we made it super thick for these salads but the tuna still did not want to stand up and stay in the shape I made, usually a fish. So if your tuna salad is always a little wet no matter how well you drain it do what I did and add a pinch or two of bread crumbs. It will do the trick and never be noticed. I hope anyone who reads this blog does not use Miracle Whip. I never could stand the taste of it and I looked on the jar the other day in the super market and saw that the first ingredient was water, what a surprise. It’s a miracle anyone eats it. Mayonnaise, oh so good;  Miracle Whip, not so much. If you have never made mayonnaise before and want to learn let me know and I will give you some tips. Please let me know how you like the blog, good, bad, all comments and criticism greatly appreciated.

Summer sauce

I once was involved as executive chef in a mall food court. My partners and I had a couple of restaurants and we took a contract to manage and redesign eight fast food operations that were poorly managed and failing. I coined the name for the corporation “Quick Quisine.” It gave me an idea for a new category for the blog. Today is the first entry into it. Our idea was to take fast food to a gourmet level. Fast food does not necessarily have to be bad nor must it be made with lesser quality ingredients. Sadly though, it is most of the time today. We took fresh ingredients, cooked from scratch and to order. We had a bagel/coffee shop, burger hut, fish and chips. Baked potato store, sandwich shop and ice cream shop. Quite an undertaking but we did a great job and served real quality food. It comes back to the nakedcooking trinity, imagination, common sense and basic cooking knowledge. If you use your head you can make excellent meal in minutes using what you have on hand.

Today’s quick special is a great example of a really top notch gourmet meal from nothing. In that immigrant Italian corridor on the east coast there is a very popular peasant sauce they call “Summer Sauce.” I just happen to make this sauce last night. Summer sauce is simple and it’s another very versatile base sauce, it is also my personal favorite pasta sauce. I had a few over ripe tomatoes so I sautéed a lot of roughly chopped garlic, maybe 8 or 10 cloves in a generous amount of oil. I then added the tomatoes roughly chopped as well. Chop several large fresh basil leaves chiffonade style (in thin strips) and add them. Bring it to a boil and simmer for a minute or two. Add salt and pepper and make sure you have enough oil to coat the amount of pasta you have. That’s it except for the grated fresh parmesan. A guaranteed hit, I promise. What I did was add sliced mushrooms and onion to the garlic. I also had some smoked chicken left over so I sliced that and added it at the end. I also added some small cauliflower flowerettes at the end and tossed it with tri-color tortellini. This was one of the best Italian meals I had ever had, easily worth $24.95 in a fine restaurant. The easiest sauce ever combined with leftovers. Obviously the options are again endless. Zucchini, broccoli, artichokes, peppers, eggplant and olives are a few easy additions to Summer Sauce. Use your imagination and have fun in about five minutes.

God Bless

Chef Ken

More Pasta!

Last week we made some fresh pasta and talked about how it differs from dry pasta. We made true marinara sauce and meat balls basic Italian 101.  So where do we go from here? Pasta is so versatile and so fun to experiment with to get your cooking chops up.

Let’s start with some basic pasta salad. I do not see good Italian pasta salad out west or outside of the Philly to Boston corridor.  If you haven’t had pasta salad (not macaroni salad) before, you are in for a treat and will probably make this recipe or some form of it every week.

Boil any dry pasta you like. Penne, bow ties, rotini or shells all work well. Cool pasta when done and drain well. Coat pasta generously with oil, I prefer canola. I am an odd ball because I do not like olive oil. I find it greasy, almost waxy, and I don’t much care for its flavor. Not to mention it’s expensive and tends to get gummy and thick when refrigerated. Not for me I don’t want the strong oil flavor to interfere with my ingredients. If you like it, go for it. Trust me I have tried all grades and brands, never liked it or the Chap Stick lips I get after eating it. I really disagree with using it to cook with like when you sauté chicken it’s a waste. I go with JPOO (just plain old oil). Blame it on my over abundance of common sense and my distain for status??? If I drove a Beemer I guess I would necessarily need to use the best olive oil. OK now add chopped or pressed garlic. I add a lot, about 15 cloves for a pound of pasta. Now add some roughly cut fresh basil, only fresh! Please try growing your own, I have a lot in the garden and use it almost daily. This year I have four kinds of basil, I really like lemon basil. Next cut some ripe tomatoes in half and gently squeeze the juice into the pasta. Chop the tomatoes and add them. S&PTT that’s all there is to it. This salad is best served at room temperature especially if you do use olive oil. So simple, yet oh so good you will not be able to stop eating it. If you are making this a day ahead you will need to adjust the consistence as it will absorb some of the oil. When salads are made ahead of time they will also lose flavor so always check the seasoning too. One great thing about this salad is that you can heat it up in a sauté pan and put some fresh grated parmesan on top and you have a great hot pasta meal too. If I have some tomato juice on hand I like to add a little more than just the juice from the tomato.

Now just let your imagination run wild. Add a little fresh oregano, lemon pepper, balsamic vinegar or wine vinegar. Vegetables galore, artichoke hearts, onion, broccoli, cauliflower, bell peppers, roasted peppers, cherry peppers, ripe olives, grilled eggplant or zucchini and on and on. How about an entrée salad with grilled chicken or shrimp, fresh mozzarella, diced salami, pepperoni or prosciutto served on a bed of arugula. Caesar Pasta Salad, add grilled chicken and chopped anchovies and served over romaine and topped with freshly grated parmesan. As always all you need is your imagination, common sense and basic knowledge. Easy professional hot pasta dishes tomorrow, 30 minute meals indeed how about 5 minute meals.

God Bless

Chef Ken

KA, KA, KA, KATIE

I grew up in a house full of cooking and music. I can clearly and fondly remember sitting at the piano when I was all but about seven years old and my dad was playing and singing “Ka, Ka, Ka, Katie.” I cooked with my mother and grandmother every day when I was young. I would go shopping with my mom and she would plan the meals for the week as well as what she was going to have for company, we always had company. Entertaining was a  part of life at the Benson home. We would make bread prepare the day’s meals, decorate birthday cakes. Little did I know back then that I would have a Katie of my own one day. I have three children all of whom are great cooks in their own right. Katie is my baby and we had a chance to plan a party, go shopping and spend the day cooking recently. We made meatballs, deviled eggs, BBQ ribs, cream cheese log rolled in pistachios with a raspberry chipotle sauce and cookies. Katie made her special artichoke spinach dip. No recipes or measuring of course just feel and taste. We also made mini chicken teriyaki skewers. Katie had never made teriyaki before. We took some soy sauce, honey, fresh grated ginger, chopped garlic, crushed pineapple, pineapple juice and red chili paste and brought it to a boil. Before boiling, we saved some to marinate the chicken in. When it boiled we added a little corn starch and water to thicken the sauce. Voila! How easy was that NO recipe, NO measuring. Well when Katie prepared the skewers the next day she call to say “wow these are so freakin good” that made me smile, a special moment. I hope everyone gets the chance to cook with their kids, if you haven’t just do it. It’s special. When my kids were young we had a little song we would sing “cooking with daddy can be fun” and it still is. My baby Katie just turned 24. Now I’m looking forward to cooking with my 7 month old grandson. I remember on one of Katie’s birthdays we gave all her friends their own cake to decorate, what fun for all of us. Cook with your kids, its family, it’s getting back to basics. Anywhere, any culture, cooking with the family is part of life; sadly we have lost part of family life today. Cooking together brings a family together. As Waylon Jennings says “let’s get back to the basics of  life.”

So to Katie as the song goes;

Ka, Ka, Ka, Katie

Beautiful Katie

I’ll be waiting by the ka, ka, ka kitchen door.

 

God Bless

Chef Kenny

Bagels, are not rolls with holes…

Today I made bagels and croissants; I made one dough and then split it. Lets about talk about bagels. Real bagels are boiled first then baked. I am from the New York area originally and since moving to Texas I have discovered that west of say Philadelphia they have what is described as Midwest bagels which are baked, never boiled. Well that ain’t no bagel that is a roll with a hole in it. Real bagels are very easy to make. For the life of me I don’t understand why so many people are afraid to try their hand at making them. They take less time than most breads, too. Basic yeast dough is what I made first. I do not follow a recipe, but I know that a cup of liquid will rise well with about ½ to 1 Tbs dry yeast and it needs about 1 tsp salt. You need to use high gluten flour or bread flour to make the dough elastic as it needs to be for bagels. I put 2 cups of warm water in the machine added 2 tablespoons of yeast and 2 teaspoons of salt. Add enough flour to make a stiff, but slightly sticky dough. I let the machine knead or hand-knead it for about 5 minutes. After splitting the dough I put half back in the machine for the bagels. I added some whole wheat flour with a little honey and some more water. I added enough flour to make a stiff dough, not too sticky, which works better for bagels. If you want plain bagels just add some more white flour and omit the whole wheat and honey.  I then let it mix or knead it for another 5-7 minutes as bagels need to have the gluten well developed to give them their chewy texture. Let the dough rise as any other dough, covered until double in size. When the dough has risen, punch it down and let it rest for 10 minutes covered. Divide the dough to desired size. Normally about 4 to 5 oz. but almost any size will work. Shape the dough balls into smooth rounds. Flatten the rounds slightly and poke a hole in the middle with your thumb and forefinger. Now pull out from the center with your fingers until you have at least a 1” size hole and even dough around.  This takes some practice but even if they look odd they will still cook and taste great. Now place the bagels on a greased pan sprinkled with corn meal. Cover and let rise. Bring a pan with about 2 in. of water and a little baking soda in it to boil.  Bagels need to rise for only 10-15 minutes depending on how the dough is acting. Dough will rise differently depending on temperature and humidity. Do not let them get double in size, only about ½ again as big as they start.  The less they raise the denser the bagel. Some New York bakeries hardly let them rise at all, those you have to fight with when you bite into them. I like them. Do NOT let them rise too much they will rise more in the water. Now gently lift the bagels with thumb and forefinger into the boiling water top side down. After about a minute turn them over using wooden spoons one on each side to flip them. One spoon to push down and one spoon to flip over. After 1 minute or less remove them with a slotted spatula and place back on the baking pan and bake in a hot oven, 400 to 425 degrees until done. You can wash them (brush them with liquid) if you wish. Plain egg wash, egg white wash honey egg wash or flour and water wash all work. The wash will help if you are going to add seeds on top.

If you have never had an oven fresh boiled bagel before you will be amazed at how good they are and easy too. You do not need a recipe for any bread like this just do it and get to know the texture. Did you know that flour can vary as to its graininess and will be absorbed differently and pack differently from bag to bag? So as bakers you do have to know how the dough should look and feel more than just how much to add. Using a recipe exactly could result in a dough too soft or too stiff. Nearly all yeast dough’s are different textures and wetness. Coffee cake and Danish dough will be soft and sticky with little gluten development while artesian breads are stiff, dry and grainy and English muffins are soft, sticky but grainy. You can’t teach this, this comes from trial and error and hands on practice. So make some bagels and give it a big schmear of cream cheese. Croissants for another day. God Bless

Chef Ken