Easy Homemade Bagels

I love bagels, pretty much anytime.  I'm a bit of a bagel purist, though.  They're not donuts.  Bagels should not be flavored with berries, cinnamon, fruit or breakfast fare, nor should the cream cheese that goes on them.  If you want a donut, go get one.  If you want Bagels, you've come to the right place!

Yeast Starter is ready to add.

These are easy to make, especially if you have a stand mixer with a dough hook.  But you can do it fairly easily with a little muscle if you don't have one.  There's no really special ingredients that you probably don't already have on hand and, though there are several steps, it doesn't take more than 90 minutes to have them ready for munching.  And no grocery store bagels will taste anywhere near this good!

Ingredients for 8 bagels:

4 cups of bread flour (or regular flour with 1 T of wheat gluten added...you can save a lot of money by using regular flour and adding the gluten yourself...which is all bread flour is, anyway)
1 T Sugar
1 T Yeast
1 1/2 Cups Water, about 100 degrees (warm to the touch, not burning)

1 1/2 tsp Salt

1 T Olive Oil

Begin by making a yeast starter with the warm water, the yeast and sugar.  Put in a 2 or more cup vessel or measuring cup and stir well.  Wait about 10 minutes for it to foam up and make a nice head (see pic).  This will insure that the yeast rises well.

Cut into 8 sections

Mix the dry ingredients well in a large bowl by stirring with a stiff fork or with a stand mixer and dough hook.  I suppose you could do this in a bread machine as well.  Add the oil, then add the yeast/water mixture.  Mix well, then if doing it by hand, knead for about 10 minutes.  If doing it by stand mixer, just let the dough hook do the work for you for about 10 minutes.  The dough should be very stiff, but take on a nice sort of sheen, indicating it's ready for the next step.

Hand-rolling a bagel.

Which is...to let it rest for about 20 minutes.  After 20 minutes, gently roll the dough out into a nice, even log and cut it into 8 sections.  Working with one section at a time, roll it out into a 'snake, making the ends thicker than the middle.  Now lay your upturned palm in the center of the snake, about where your fingers meet your palm, then flip the outer ends over your palm, overlapping them.  Flip your hand and the dough over and roll the two overlapping ends together vigorously to seal them together.  This part takes a bit of practice, don't get discouraged if your bagels come apart in the next step, practice makes perfect and I still mess up a bagel or two once in a while.   Once you've formed the bagel, set it aside and go on to the next dough chunk until you have 8 bagels.

Bagels rising while oven preheats and water boils.

Boil bagels 1 minute, then flip and boil 1 more minute.

Wait 20 minutes for the bagels to rise, while you preheat your oven to 425 and set a large pot of water on your stove and bring it to a vigorous boil.  When the bagels have risen for 20 minutes, drop 2 bagels at a time into the boiling water.  Boil for one minute, flip, then boil for another minute.  Then remove to cool.

If you want toppings on your bagels, now is the time to add them.  Spread sesame seeds, poppy seeds, crushed red pepper, minced onion, sea salt or whatever toppings you want thinly on a plate, take one of the boiled bagels and flip upside down into the toppings and remove.   When all of the bagels have been boiled and optionally topped, lay them out on a greased cookie sheet and bake them for 10 minutes.  Remove from the oven, flip, then bake for 10 more minutes.  That's it!!!

Topping a bagel with minced onion.

Plain, poppy seed, minced onion and sesame bagels!

Steak and Ale Pie

Kathy and I in Queen's Park

Kathy and I spent a week in London this past April and let me tell you, all that talk about British food being bland and dull is complete horsehockey.   Although it helped that our stay was in a 5 star hotel, my every attempt at sampling local and indigenous cuisine was met with absolute success!

One of the many bright spots of our visit was to the Allsop Arms in Marylebone, just a couple blocks from our hotel, The Landmark London.  This wonderful and traditional pub offered an "Abbot Ale Pie" on the menu that was absolutely to die for.  Despite my best efforts to wrestle the recipe out of the courteous and prompt waitstaff, I had to rely on my own sleuthing and the close examination of numerous recipes on the 'Net once I found myself stateside to come up with a close approximation.  After a few tries,  I've come very close.   Well, the folks at the Allsop may not think so, but it's delicious and as true to my memory of the dish as I can recall.  Regardless, it's wonderful and relatively easy to make.

The Allsop Arms

It's a fairly forgiving recipe, only some simple basic ingredients and methods are involved.  As for the vegetables, you can pretty much go wild with whatever you want to add.  The dish I had at the Allsop Arms had mushrooms, carrots and peas, if I recall correctly.  For the recipe pictured and listed here, I used celery, carrots and parsnips as I was out of mushrooms.  Potatoes, turnips or rutabaga could also be added, or any combination thereof.

UPDATE 09/2018   Instant Pot version!!!   See below.

Ingredients:

2lb. Beef Roast, trimmed of all fat and cut into small 1/2" to 3/4" cubes (I used a chuck roast)

16 oz. of British Ale (most liquor stores of large size that have a lot of import beer will have something suitable.  "Abbot" was the brand of ale that the Allsop uses, but I have been unable to locate it in my area.  I used Murphy's Stout)

1 large onion

1 T minced garlic

1/2 tsp chili powder

3-4 sprigs of Thyme or 1 tsp Thyme

1 tsp Olive Oil

1 T Beef Bouillon powder

2 stalks Celery

1 Carrot

1 Parsnip

1 T flour

8 oz. fresh Mushrooms

Salt and Pepper to taste

Pie crust (2 frozen ones or see recipe for pie crust to follow)

Instructions:

Add olive oil to a large skillet on medium-high heat.  Coarsely chop the onion and add to the skillet along with the garlic, heat for about a minute or until the onion starts to turn clear.  Add the beef and brown thoroughly, there should be no pink showing anywhere.  Add 8 oz. of the Ale and simmer for a minute, then add the rest of the ale, the vegetables, thyme, chili powder, beef bouillon and salt and pepper to taste.  Simmer for 10 minutes.

(INSTANT POT:  Instead of simmering for 10 min/baking, add the browned beef and all ingredients listed above to the Instant Pot.  Pressure cook on HIGH for 30 minutes.  Quick-release steam.  With slotted spoon, take all the goodies out and put in pie crust.  Save off a little of the juice, stir in some flour to make gravy, and add about a half cup to the pie.  Skip ahead to the 'bake the pie' part below.)

Transfer to a 9x12 Pyrex casserole dish and bake in a 350 oven for 1.5 hours.  Remove from oven, add 1 T of flour and stir to thicken the juices into a gravy.  You may want to pop open another can or bottle of ale to make a tad more gravy at this point if it seems a little dry.  Plus, you can drink the rest of the ale.  Pour into a pie crust, cover with a top crust, slit to vent and bake at 350 for about 45 minutes.  

Crust:

This is my quick and easy pie crust that I use for most things requiring a pie crust.  

2.5 cups of Flour

1/2 cup Olive Oil

1 tsp Salt

Up to 1/2 cup of Buttermilk

Catch it right between "crumbly" and "dough".

Stir dry ingredients well.   You can use a fork, I use a mixmaster.  Add oil and stir.  Slowly add Buttermilk and stir...it will become crumbly at first, then start to turn more into a dough.  You want to catch it right between 'crumbly' and 'dough', which is why you want to add the buttermilk slowly, a little at a time.  See picture, the dough should look like that.   Divide in half, roll out one half for the bottom of the pie crust.  Fold half of it over, pick up and lay half over one half of the pie tin, then unfold.  Add the filling.  Do the same with the other half of the dough and pinch edges, trim with a sharp knife so there's no dough hanging over the sides.