Bagels for Fresh From the Oven – February Challenge

It is Bagels this month for Fresh From the Oven – the incredible bread baking community. This month’s challenge was hosted by Claire of Purely Food. I couldn’t let this opportunity pass. Bagels are my absolute favourite but I keep away from them because it invariably means I will have to slather it with plenty of cream cheese and then chomp-chomp it down with some hot coffee. It is my ideal breakfast, after eggs on toast. Okay, bagels fight for a second position with Granola, fruit and yogurt in my list of favourite breakfasts.

The first time I sampled bagels was in London and it was a close friend who bought my first bagel-cream cheese breakfast for me. From then on I was hooked. I ran an extra mile just so that I could have a bagel with cream cheese. It was like I had found manna. The only other time I felt like that was when I discovered Hummus. Love that thing!

I had a favourite coffee shop in Cambridge ( I was there in 2006 for a company project) and they had the most amazing bagels. I would have them just fresh out of the oven. The cafe owner told me that bagels taste better 5-6 hours after they have been brought out of the oven. I thought, fresh out of the oven they tasted nothing short of divine. The other tiny tidbids he shared with me were – Bagels taste the best when toasted and they have to be golden brown all over to taste the best. If the bagels are  blondish in colour it means they haven’t made the ‘great bagel mark’. I remember all that so well. It didn’t mean much to me as my only concern was how much cream cheese was I getting in my bagel. I guess he must have noticed that my liking for bagels was bordering on obsession and thought I might be interested in such trivia.

Bringing my batch of freshly baked bagels out of my gas -fired oven made me dizzy with nostalgia. They didn’t wear a golden brown that the cafe owner would have approved of but I knew that once toasted they would gain a beautiful colour. I am so happy that Fresh from the Oven made this possible and sent me down a wonderful memory lane.

Recipe for Bagels

Makes 7 

Ingredients

Strong white flour -450g
Fast acting yeast -7g
Salt -2 tsp
Warm water -250ml
Honey -2 tbsp
Vegetable oil -1 tbsp
Egg, beaten – 1
Your choice of topping – I used roasted pumpkin seeds, sesame – black and white, caraway seeds

Preparation

1. In a large bowl add the salt to the flour and then the yeast (I usually put the yeast in a small well in the centre to keep it a way from the salt).

2. Measure the warm water and then stir in the oil and honey.

3. If kneading by hand, make a well in the centre of the flour and pour the liquid in gradually, bringing the dough together with your hands. Turn the dough on to a clean, dry and floured work surface. Start kneading the dough by stretching it away with the palm of one hand and folding it back again with the other. Knead the dough for 10 minutes. You may need to add more flour as you go if the dough is too sticky.

4. Place the dough in a lightly oiled large bowl and turn to coat in the oil. Cover with cling film or a plastic bag to create a draught-free environment and put in a warm place (not hot) for between 1-3 hours or until doubled in size.

5. Lightly oil two baking trays.

6. Remove the dough from the bowl, punch it down to knock the air out and knead briefly.

7. Roll in to a sausage shape and divide into 7 chunks. As you work one, keep the others covered with a clean tea towel.

8. There are two ways to shape the bagels. One is to firmly roll out each chunk in to a long sausage shape, then form a ring and seal the ends together with a tiny splash of water and squeezing. The other method (my prefered method) is to roll each chunk into a ball. Piercing a hole in the centre with your finger, pull the dough open wide by twirling it round your index fingers (wider than you think you need as the hole will shrink when the dough proves, is poached and then baked).Place on the prepared baking tray and repeat with remaining dough.

9. Cover and allow to rise for a further 10-20 minutes.

10. Preheat the oven to 220C  (200C fan), gas 7. Fill a large sauce pan with boiling water (from the kettle) and return to a simmer. Gently lift each bagel into the water to poach (do not try to put too many bagels in at once as they will expand slightly). Poach for about 90 seconds on each side, turning gently with a slotted spoon.

11. Remove the bagels from the water, allowing them to drain first and place on the prepared baking trays spacing them about 3-4cm apart.

12. Brush with beaten egg and sprinkle with your choice of topping. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes, then turn upside down for a further 10 minutes to cook the bases. Cool on a wire rack.

The recipe instructions were so easy to follow and I felt no need to refer to any other source for further explanation. The largest chunk of time went in poaching the bagels. I have to admit I was pretty bored by the time I was on my 3rd bagel. Rest of the steps take no time at all.

Toasted, these bagels were an instant hit with my daughter, my hubby and my friends. With cream cheese they were already addicted. I have only 3  left and I baked them last night.  I know I will be baking these again for sure.

A Guest Post for Gayathri Ramdas – Taking Sides with a Couscous Side

Today I have been given this wonderful opportunity to write a Guest Post ( a rare honour as far as I am concerned) for my friend Gayathri. I have known Gayathri for some time now and we are constantly in touch over Facebook and bbm. During one such random conversations she asked me to do guest post for her blog.  I love visiting her blog because her posts not only talk about the wonderful food that she makes for her family,  but also about the latest trends in music, books and life as such. She always makes sure that there is a conversation going on rather than a monologue.

In this post I talk about how a brief meeting with Gayathri made such a huge impact on my confidence and how her sweet words will always resonate whenever I feel under valued in life.

Today’s guest post for Gayathri also features a very tempting, flavoursome Couscous side which is so easy to put together. I found this recipe from the BBC GoodFood Magazine that I am so hopelessly addicted to. To read the rest of the entry hop on to Gayathri’s blog .

 

Happy 2nd Blog Anniversary

This comes 2 days too late. I was so disappointed about why I didn’t plan it better. I flipped through many a books to see if I could do something spectacular for this day or run a giveaway but nothing materialized. I ranted on twitter and to all my friends who listened.

But ultimately I felt I could do a post without any food in it. It is allowed,isn’t it? My blog wouldn’t mind either, I am sure.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BLOG

2 whole years of blogging, eating, feeding, baking, cooking, thinking, photographing and writing has been a mean adventure. I feel like my toddler of 29 months and this blog were the sole reasons why I maintained my sanity all this time. I realized so many new things about myself and met so many wonderful people – bloggers and non-bloggers alike.

On my blog anniversary when I was worrying about how I completely missed baking something incredible, I was actually walking a Walkathon for Cancer Awareness, here in Bahrain. It was so much fun and at the same time important. It meant this fantastic cause was supported by so many individuals and Corporate alike to fund treatment and research for Cancer. The walk happened early evening when there was a nip in the air but that did nothing to quell the excitement of the huge crowd that generously donated and walked their way to finish the 3.5 km mark.

This was the first time I had participated and I enjoyed it a lot.

I hope the next time there is a run so that would really help me start preparing for my long haul (half marathon) end of this year.

For now I have photos of the walk which appeared in the newspaper today. The hunk in the black tshirt is my dear hubby.

Ahmedabad Memoirs

I am back from my short trip to India. In 10 days I have traveled plenty and hogged on more food than my system could take. It was an opportunity I wasn’t ready to miss. I feel sad that it ended so quickly but that is how vacations are. They end so that you can think about them and feel good later. I also feel sad that in my gluttonous avataar, I forgot to capture a lot of pictures that I could share over here. Midst all the hogging, my dearest hubby managed to click a few which I am going to share here.  For the uninitiated, I was in Ahmedabad for my lil brother’s ( not so little anymore) wedding to a Gujarati girl. I couldn’t be happier. I love Gujarat, its culture, the food, the people, the shopping and everything about it. I was brought up in Gujarat and had most of my education in Mithapur & Ahmedabad. I was so eager to go back atleast once to see my favourite city and re-live the wonderful college memories. Engineering, unlike other courses demands 4 years out a student’s life. I have had the most amazing time at college with my gang of friends. I am so sure when they read this post, they are gonna do that walk-down-the-memory-lane bit for quite some time.

Thats my Engineering Institute

My friend and now a professor, Poonam Modi. Bumped into her and it was such a pleasant surprise.

We landed in Ahmedabad after an entire night of no sleep on a very uncomfortable flight. My parent’s reached Ahmedabad the same day and the first thing we did was to transfer our luggage along with Mimi to my mother so they could carry on to their destination ( To the wedding place – Bhavanagar).  From then on, my hubby and I were free birds to do what we wanted to. Not having tonnes of luggage to lug around and a baby to run after can be liberating. We walked, hand in hand ( after two whole years), breathing in the crisp and very polluted Ahmedabad air. I was so eager to show my hubby all my favourite hot spots and I wishfully desired that the city wouldn’t have changed in 10 years.

The "Boys' canteen at our engg. institute

The "girls" Canteen

I quickly made some phone calls to my Engineering friends to see if anybody was free or in town. I planned the day with a few friends who were in the city and boy! what fun we had. It was certain that it was going to be mostly about food. Correction- It was all about food with a little shopping thrown in between. But I am sure my husband would think otherwise. I met up with one of my best friends from college, Dhara and one of my room mates from my hostel, Nandini. We had the giggliest time together that annoyed my hubby so much. He pretended he wasn’t with us. It was refreshing to talk about old times with my old buddies. They told me stuff about me that I never actually knew but I am not going to write about it here.

The first stop from the airport had to be the University area where I had to visit by Alma Matar – L. D. College of Engineering. It felt surreal to be there after 10 long years. But it doesn’t feel that long. Time can make you fuzzy and make you feel it was just yesterday. To see a new batch of students clambering down the institute’s stairs with a sense of purpose and books in tow, I felt nostalgic to the point of shedding a few tears. I didn’t , else my hubby would have completely given up on me. Loitering aimlessly in the corridors I had the most fantastic moment when I bumped into another classmate, Poonam,who’s now a professor at the institute. I was overwhelmed and there are no words to describe how amazing it felt to meet her. It was probably the best- est day after the birth of my daughter. No I am not exaggerating. I mean it. I was truly happy.

Now the University area is inundated with food stalls and hawkers selling all kinds of heavenly delights. Famished from our night long journey, it was only just to fill our rumbling bellies with all the goodies. It was so difficult to stop at a particular food stall and greed got better of us. We scanned the whole row before settling for some steaming hot, laden – with- goodies, Poha. The guy even scraped a tonne of cheese on it. I did not stop him. I knew my soul needed that cheese.  The poha was spiced just right and garnished with sparkling pomegranate seeds, plenty of sev, boondi, peanuts and other spices, I couldn’t identify. My pictures do not do any justice to the fantastic dish. I was too busy gobbling it down when my hubby suggested that I  may like to click a picture for the blog. This is one of the reasons why I married my man.

Poha with cheese at the University

Boondi "spice bomb" chat

My hubby had his Poha plate without the frills then realized mine was the one to go for. We also had a boondi chat which was such a spice-bomb. I enjoyed it but could not finish it. My hubby then scavenged for some tea with Maska ( buttered) buns. He wasn’t too happy with both. Morever he felt the tea cost too much. I needed to save some space for other goodies I wanted devour later during the day so I gave the buttered bun a skip after a single bite. My friend, hubby and me made our way to our college canteen. Back in those days, we had a weird system where girls and boys sections were separate. We, girls, were made to sit under a make shift roof with no fans and the boys under the cool concrete with fans in the hot summers. It wasn’t fair at all but we didn’t care. We stuffed our faces with as much food the canteen wala could possibly make. Personally my favourites were Vada pav, samosa and maggi. I am slurping as I type this

For now, we were content sipping on some hot tea, talking and reliving some of the past again. From there we took off to the famous Janta Cold Coco with Ice cream seller, right behind the boys hostel. I noticed so many boys peeping out to see the visitors walking down the road and it was flashback once again. Sigh!

Janta was closed because they were renovating. I was heart broken. We moved out of the University circle talking about what other food joints we had to hit before my day ended.

For all who have never been to Ahmedabad, there is one thing that you shouldn’t miss doing while you are here. SHOPPING. It is cheap and the variety is staggering. I wanted to go and shop at all my favourite joints on Ashram Road, Satellite and C G Road but time was a constraint. I managed to go to my favourite store called ASOPALAV which is wonderful for ethnic wear and jewellery. Since I was heading for a wedding, some jazzy jewellery was in order. It was way cheaper than I would ever hope to pay in Delhi.

my loot from my shopping escapades

After a generous stint of shopping where all my hubby did was snooze, only to wake up when it was time to foot the bill, we headed to have a sumptuous Gujarati thali at a restaurant named DadiMa ( meaning Grandmother). The sight of the huge Thali ( plate) with numerous katoris ( small bowls) was so heartening that we impatiently waited for the servers to begin their job. With every passing second our heavenly plate was being filled with divine tasting Gujarati food. There was no time to take pictures or conversation. Each one of us was in the world of our own  savouring the delicacies. Puris, tiny rotis, with potatoes in gravy, dal, kadhi, black gram gravy, dhokla, basket chats, all kinds of salad, gulab jamun, khichdi, and so much more. After finishing the meal, I was certain that if I tried moving even an inch, I was going to explode. We sat outside the restaurant because we couldn’t lift ourselves up.

My hostel room mate, Nandini came along to see me and I felt I had  new found energy and appetite. We headed for some more shopping and by early evening decided to finish of the expedition by having some coffee at a barista. That was the day I understood why westerners drink coffee after their meal. I had some hot black coffee and instantly felt revived, ready for some more scrummy food. My hubby, who knows how completely ruthless I can be when it comes to food, dragged me out of the coffee shop and I found myself saying my goodbyes to my friends from the cab windows.

It was such a wonderful day spent in the company of food and friends. There couldn’t be a better combination. We made our way to Bhavnagar which was the wedding venue. There we were greeted with more fabulous food and hospitality. I have to say this- The hospitality that Gujarati’s show their guests is incomparable. They go beyond and above to see that their guests are treated like nothing less than Gods. With that kind of treatment, one can only have fond and fonder memories of wonderful food and courteous people.

My Hostel Room mate Nandini

My dearest friend Dhara

I hope to re create the poha or the dhokla on my blog to relive the superb time in Ahmedabad.

Here are some photos from the wedding.

The Bride and the Groom

Mimi @ Sangeet night

The Ganesh Puja

The Band , Baja & Baarat just starting out

The mandap being set