Bagels and chicken soup and matzo balls, oh my!

Did the full-on ethnic thing today - not kosher, but deli-inspired.

First, consome de pollo con albondigas de matzo



I tried a kneidl recipe that called for both baking soda and seltzer water. Way too fluffy at this altitude. The soup from a NYT article (2/22/2006) though was pretty good, not great.

Then came home-made bagels, home cured/smoked salmon, and homemade cultured cream cheese:





Nice lunch for a snowy day.

Bill/SFNM

Bill,

Today, you are my hero. Thank you for the pics.

Best,
Michael

Bill,

Then came home-made bagels, home cured/smoked salmon, and homemade cultured cream cheese...

Hot damn, that lunch looks fantastic. Could you be talked into posting more on the making of the bagels and the curing of the salmon and the making of the cream cheese? Especially the bagels...

...and the salmon... and the cream cheese...

The bagels really are gorgeous.



Antonius

At the risk of being branded an epigone of Bertie Wooster, I aver you stand alone, Bill.

eatchicago wrote:Bill,

Today, you are my hero. Thank you for the pics.

Best,
Michael

My philosophy: "When Bill writes, I read"

Beautiful Bagels. I didn't know you could buy bottled "NYC East River Water" in Santa Fe though.

Antonius wrote:Could you be talked into posting more on the making of the bagels and the curing of the salmon and the making of the cream cheese? Especially the bagels...

Antonius,

You could easily talk me into posting more, but you might have trouble getting me to stop!

On bagels:
I originally set out to reproduce the authentic, traditional New York City bagel, but I think I have deliberately drifted off course. The bagel is a great bread for sandwiches, the ultimate expression being the plain bagel with lox, cream cheese, and fixings. My salmon is, by design, somewhat less salty than belly and even nova lox, so I ended up seeking a bagel with a deeper flavor that would complement the lox rather than sit in the background to contrast with the saltiness.

The deeper flavor comes the use of natural yeast cultures rather than commercial yeast. I use a starter culture that originated from a Paris bakery that I also use for baguettes with a slow, cold fermentation to build the flavor.

The chewy texture of bagels comes from the high-gluten flour that most recipes call for. I've got a bunch of different flours and didn't want to keep around high-gluten just for bagels, so I simply add some vital wheat gluten to my bread flour to make it stronger. This dough could likely burn out the motor of the standard household mixer; I use a small commercial fork mixer.

After fermenting, the bagels are very briefly boiled (20 sec.)and then baked. These bagels develop more flavor over the next hour or two.

On Lox:
This is the hardest of the three since one has little control over the characteristics of the main ingredient. I use a dry cure with nitrites since the fish spends more than a little time in the danger zone for food-born illnesses. A weight is placed on top of the fish during curing helping the salt to draw out moisture to concentrate the flavors.

I cold smoke the salmon with a combination of apple and oak wood for about 8 hours. It then rests for a few days.

On Cream Cheese:
During a meal in which I had nailed both the bagel and the lox, it occurred to me that the Philly Cream Cheese, the only brand I had ever used, was adding nothing to the experience - little flavor, gummy texture. So I ended up making my own cultured cream cheese from light cream. This added another layer of flavor and a superior texture that melded perfectly with the bagel and lox.

I could go on forever, but hope this is of interest.

Bill/SFNM

Bill/SFNM wrote:I could go on forever, but hope this is of interest.

It is of immense interest! Could you please elaborate on the cream cheese... and the lox... and those gorgeous bagels...
Thanks!

HI,

As I thought, cream cheese is pretty easy to make. While the recipe I linked to has whole milk and buttermilk. For a creamier texture, I would use a portion of cream as well. How does your method of making cream cheese differ? I would imagine you may have refined the portions of milk to cream.

I found a nice index of cream cheese and their variants on a cheese making website.

On epicurious.com, I also found a homemade ricotta recipe, which is pretty much simplicity. You do get an appreciation for the cost of these cheeses when a half gallon of milk yields 2 cups.

Regards,

Cathy2 wrote:How does your method of making cream cheese differ? I would imagine you may have refined the portions of milk to cream.

Cathy2,

No, my method (from Ricki Carrol) is different. I use 2 quarts light cream or half-and-half, mesophilic starter, and rennet. The curds are cooked to produce a firm cheese. I've found other methods produce a cheese that is too soft - it squeezes out when you bite down on the bagel.

Bill/SFNM

sazerac wrote:Could you please elaborate on the cream cheese... and the lox... and those gorgeous bagels...

Sazerac,

Thanks!

Your question caught me totally off guard - I didn't figure anyone would want me to rant on . See response to Cathy2 above regarding cream cheese. Next time I make any of these things, I'll take pictures of the process and post them here. Happy to answer any questions in the meantime.

Bill/SFNM

Bruce wrote:I didn't know you could buy bottled "NYC East River Water" in Santa Fe though.

Thanks, Bruce.

The water thing is a myth. Or maybe my well water from an ancient aquifer 900 feet down fed by underground streams from the mountains is similar to NYC tap water which is renowned for its quality.

Bill/SFNM

Cathy2 wrote:As I thought, cream cheese is pretty easy to make.

I've made cream cheese at home (and gravlax) - these are easy, but reading Bill's posts, I suspect I may not have really made cream cheese (or whatever else). Bill, I hope you will elaborate (further)*.
The Caroll book you mention - is it "Home Cheese Making : Recipes for 75 Delicious Cheeses" ? I have an old book, "Cheese making at home: The complete illustrated guide" by Don Radke that I've not used from save a couple of recipes - mainly because of practical issues. I hope to take up cheese making soon once I move out of where I am now.

*what starter do you use? Also is this with "Trader Joes Unhomogenized Creamline" (;)I pay attention) milk/cream? etc.

Bill/SFNM wrote:Next time I make any of these things, I'll take pictures of the process and post them here. Happy to answer any questions in the meantime.
Bill/SFNM

Bill,

Yes! Please do! And many thanks for the elaboration so far...

***

Sazerac,

Little did I know that you were also a cheese-maker! But with that name, it makes sense...

A

Bill/SFNM wrote:Then came home-made bagels, home cured/smoked salmon, and homemade cultured cream cheese:

Bill,

You're lucky you live in SF,NM or I'd be knocking at your kitchen door three times a week.

Enjoy,
Gary

Antonius wrote:Sazerac,

Little did I know that you were also a cheese-maker! But with that name, it makes sense...

It does? And I don't know that I am, more like hope to be... I've only made some basic stuff queso fresco / paneer, cream cheese, mozzarella (of sorts).
Anyways, it's just that all these books pile up at home and they all scream - do this, make that etc. (On top of that for the past year I've been infected with LTH.) I just try to keep the voices in my head* a little quiet...

*post infection they're speaking in a myriad strange tongues

sazerac wrote:The Caroll book you mention - is it "Home Cheese Making : Recipes for 75 Delicious Cheeses" ? what starter do you use? Also is this with "Trader Joes Unhomogenized Creamline" (;)I pay attention) milk/cream? etc.

Yes, that is the book. For this cheese I use direct-set mesophillic starter from Ricki's site: http://www.cheesemaking.com/.
TJ's Creamline doesn't have enough fat for cream cheese the way I like it. For the latest batch, I used some WFM half-and-half and tossed in a slash of heavy cream.

Happy to answer any more questions you might have.

Bill/SFNM

Bill/SFNM wrote:On Lox:
This is the hardest of the three since one has little control over the characteristics of the main ingredient. I use a dry cure with nitrites since the fish spends more than a little time in the danger zone for food-born illnesses. A weight is placed on top of the fish during curing helping the salt to draw out moisture to concentrate the flavors.

I cold smoke the salmon with a combination of apple and oak wood for about 8 hours. It then rests for a few days.

Your product looks fabulous, but just to nitpick a little on nomenclature, this is smoked salmon, not real lox.

Real lox is salt- and oil-cured and unsmoked.

LAZ wrote:Real lox is salt- and oil-cured and unsmoked.

Really? I thought that was gravlax (includes sugar in cure). Lox I thought could be salt cured and (but not necessarily) cold smoked.

Gravlax is cured in salt, sugar and aquavit.

The cold-smoked product is nova. Real lox is much saltier and oilier.

Gourmet Retailer wrote:In his wonderfully informative book, Zingerman's Guide to Good Eating (Houghton Mifflin), author and retailer Ari Weinzweig correctly points out that when most people call for lox, what they really want is nova. The word lox comes from the German word lachs and/or the Swedish word lax, both of which mean salmon. Lox is made from Pacific salmon and is never smoked, but rather is cured in a heavily salted brine solution. This is due to its history of being shipped from the West Coast to the East in the days before refrigeration. The fish was packed in barrels full of brine and would be cured and salty upon its arrival on the East Coast.

At the Fishmonger, in Cambridge, MA, we used to make gravlax with salt and sugar in equal proportions and dill. Aquavit is unnecessary for a proper cure.

We weighted it, refrigerated it for two to three days and voila! Ready to slice and sell.

Just for fun I checked out a few recipes online and found our formula consistent with recipes from Finland and Sweden.

You're using that oven again, aren't you? That oven you made, the one that any single one of us would kill for, right? That's the oven you used to make those glorious bagels, right?

I think I hate you, right?

But, in any case, thanks so much for the vicarious delights.... : )

Geo

Geo wrote:You're using that oven again, aren't you? That oven you made, the one that any single one of us would kill for, right? That's the oven you used to make those glorious bagels, right?

Geo,

Wrong. These were baked in a standard kitchen oven. Baking them in the brick oven would give a hint of smoke flavor, but I already get that from the smoked, dry-cured, oily, dead, orange-colored swimming thingy.

Bill/SFNM

Antonius wrote:Could you be talked into posting more on the making of the bagels and the curing of the salmon and the making of the cream cheese? Especially the bagels... ...and the salmon... and the cream cheese...

A,

I'm making bagels with the fixings for Saturday. So, as requested, I am posting here photos of the process. I started the cream cheese yesterday and finished it today. The bagels will be started today and baked on Saturday. I won't be making smoked salmon this round because I froze the leftovers from last time.

This cream cheese is absurdly simple. lapse time was about 16 hours, but hand-on time was maybe 15 minutes. Note the use of pasteurized dairy products, NOT "ultrapasteurized"



Cream was heated, starter and rennet added, and allowed to set to a solid curd overnight:


Hot water added to the curd and drained in colander with butter muslin:


Butter muslin hung to drain out excess moisture:


Final product nice and firm. A little cheese salt is added:



This cream cheese is great for bagels, but is sensational for blintzes!

Will post bagel photos tomorrow.

Bill/SFNM

What recipe did you use for the bagels? Mr.Paris and I tried very, very hard to replicate bagels when we were living in France and it was impossible to buy them but nothing we ever made ever looked so good!

I will post photos and details for the bagels on Saturday. I just fed the starter which happens to be a wild yeast culture from a bakery outside of Paris! Stay tuned.

Bill/SFNM

Bill,

Thanks so much for that! Very interesting and quite cool -- I'd like to try that sometime soon.

And I'm really looking forward to the bagel posts too!

A

Bill,

From the look of some of your items, you've got a commercial source--is that right? I'd like to get some of the butter muslin, which looks different (and better!) than the simple muslin TODG found me at a fabric store.

And the mesophillic starter and rennet?

I'm thinking about trying some of these cheezy things, and I'd like to do it right, i.e., by using best-available commercial ingredients & parts.

Geo

Geo wrote:I'm thinking about trying some of these cheezy things, and I'd like to do it right, i.e., by using best-available commercial ingredients & parts.

... ditto here... And, scuse my ignorance, but what's 'cheese salt'?

A

A: cheese salt is simply coarse, non-iodzed flake salt.

Geo: I get most of my supplies from the New England Cheesemaking Supply Co.

Bill/SFNM

Tnx Bill, that looks like exactly what I need.

Geo