Bagels, Schmears, and a Nice Piece of Fish A Whole Brunch

of Recipes to Make at Home

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TO MY M ISH P OCHA
Text copyright © 2022 by Cathy Barrow.

Photographs copyright © 2022 by Linda Xiao.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written

permission from the publisher.

ISBN 9781797210568 (epub, mobi)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Barrow, Cathy, author. | Xiao, Linda, photographer.

Title: Bagels, schmears, and a nice piece of fish / Cathy Barrow ; photographs by Linda Xiao.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021035053 | ISBN 9781797210551

Subjects: LCSH: Bagels. | Cooking (Bagels) | Sandwiches.

Classification: LCC TX770.B35 B344 2022 |

DDC 641.81/5--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021035053

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 OR DE R H E R E

MY BAGEL LIFE 9

A Homemade Bagel Bakery 15

Essential Ingredients 19

Tools of the Trade 23

O
N 1

BAG E LS 26
 A BRIEF BAGEL HISTORY — 31

BAGEL TECHNIQUES 32

CLASSICS 43

THE NEW YORK BAGEL — 43

THE MONTREAL BAGEL — 45

THE PUMPERNICKEL BAGEL — 51

THE MARBLE BAGEL — 55

THE CINNAMON RAISIN BAGEL — 57

THE EGG BAGEL — 61

THE PLETZEL — 63

THE BIALY — 67

BAGELS MY GRANDMOTHERS WOULDN’T RECOGNIZE 71

THE GLUTEN-FREE BAGEL — 71

THE GRANOLA BAGEL — 74

OLIVE OIL MAPLE GRANOLA — 77

THE BLUEBERRY BAGEL — 79

THE HONEY WHEAT AND OAT BAGEL — 81

THE SUN-DRIED TOMATO AND OLIVE BAGEL — 85

THE ASIAGO CHEESE AND PEPPERONI BAGEL — 87

THE HATCH CHILE JACK BAGEL — 91

THE BAGEL DOG — 93

 O
N 2

SCH M EARS 96

FINDING YOUR INNER BALABOOSTA 101

MASTER SCHMEARS 103

SCHMEAR MASTER RECIPE 105

SAVORY 107

CHIVE CHEESE 107

SCALLION CHEESE 108

BACON SCALLION CHEESE 109

LOX CHEESE 111

HOT-SMOKED SALMON CHEESE 112

OLIVE CHEESE 113

VEGGIE CHEESE 115

PIMENTO CHEDDAR CHEESE 116

HOT HONEY AND MARCONA ALMOND CHEESE 119

BALABOOSTA HOT HONEY 120

TRIPLE LEMON CHEESE 121

BALABOOSTA SALT-PRESERVED LEMONS 123

SWEET 125

WALNUT RAISIN CHEESE 125

CARROT CAKE CHEESE 126

CHERRY CHEESECAKE CHEESE 127

 CANNOLI CHEESE 129

DRIED APRICOT, COCONUT, AND THYME CHEESE 130

TAMARI ALMOND CANDIED GINGER CHEESE 132

TAMARI ALMONDS 133

O
N 3
 A N ICE PI ECE OF FISH
& Other Favorites from the Appetizing Store 134

WHAT’S A PARTY WITHOUT A PLATTER? 139

THE FISHES 143

HOME-CURED LOX (CURED SALMON) 143

KIPPERED, OR HOT-SMOKED, SALMON 146

BEET-CURED GRAVLAX 149

THE SALADS 152

BALABOOSTA MAYONNAISE 152

BALABOOSTA SOUR CREAM 153

EGG SALAD 154

CHICKEN SALAD 157

TUNA SALAD 158

DEBONING A WHOLE FISH 160

SMOKED WHITEFISH SALAD 162

SMOKED TROUT SPREAD 163

CARROT PINEAPPLE SALAD 165

PICKLES AND FERMENTS 166

QUICK PICKLED ONIONS 166

QUICK PICKLED CARROTS 168

HALF AND FULL SOUR PICKLES 169

SPICY MARINATED OLIVES 172

FAMILY FAVORITES 173

SUMMER BEET BORSCHT 173

 COLD SPINACH BORSCHT (SCHAV) 176

ALLAN KADETSKY’S ONIONS AND EGGS 177

BAGEL SANDWICHES & SALADS 178

SECRETS FOR BETTER SANDWICHING 183

SANDWICHES 185

THE BACON EGG CHEESE (BEC) BAGEL 185

WAKE ME UP WITH A NECTARINE, BACON, AND JALAPEÑO BAGEL 186

NOSHING WITH THE FISHES 186

IF A BAGEL WERE A BURRITO 187

PUTTANESCIZZA BAGEL 188

BACK IN THE DAY BRIE AND APPLE BAGEL 189

PAN BAGELNAT 190

THANKSGIVING ANY DAY 191

COLD STEAK, BIALY, AND BLUE 191

AN ITALIAN HERO BAGEL 192

SALADS 193

FATTOUSH MY BAGEL 193

PANZABAGELLA 195
Bagel-Centric Menus 198

Bibliography 200

Acknowledgments 201

Index 203

HAVE A LITTLE NOSH, BUBBALA

MY BAGEL LIFE

I grew up Jewish—gastronomically, culturally, and only marginally

observant. My Boston-born mother, Jan, was not built for Toledo, Ohio,

bemoaning a world without a seashore, an international airport, nor a

single freshly baked bagel.

To remedy the situation, my grandmother Bea would fly to us regularly

with provisions. As she exited the plane looking elegant in a trim suit,

heels, and a chic hat, as if off the pages of a magazine, our eyes would

be trained on the round, striped hatbox tied together with wide, white

ribbon, stuffed to the brim with bagels from my mother’s favorite

Brookline bakery.

On the way home in the car, my mother, oblivious to the rest of us,

would pry open the box, and the mountain of bagels would fill the car

with a wonderful yeasty aroma. I gazed at the tiny poppy seeds,

sesame seeds, flakes of onion, beads of garlic. Pumpernickel bagels,

dark and sweet, contrasted with the sunny yellow egg bagels. Always,

there were bialys, but only a couple. My mother worked to ferret out

and take the first bite of the lone salt bagel. My mother loved bagels.

For my entire life, those have been the bagels by which I evaluate any

others. Until very recently, finding a good bagel in much of the country

was nearly impossible. The sad, spongy, pale, presliced offerings,

usually frozen and steamed back to life, were downright unacceptable.

A determined DIY-er, I struggled to make a bagel at home, one that

could live up to my bagel standards. Time after time, recipe after

recipe, they were doughy, they lacked the proper structure, and the

flavor was dull. They were just rolls with holes. I began to wonder if

maybe bagels were just one of those things that couldn’t be made

successfully in the home kitchen. But I persisted, fueled by the belief

that there’s nothing like freshly baked homemade bread—surely the

same was true for bagels.

In 2016, the Washington Post printed a recipe for bagels that

changed all that. I discovered the power of high-gluten flour, and from

that recipe, I went on to find more than a dozen additional bagel

recipes that led me to months of experimenting in the kitchen.

Eventually, I had a bagel with the chew, the density, the tang, the

consistency, and the yield that I wanted.

Once I conquered a solid basic bagel recipe, it was time to work bagel

making into real life. After a few bakes, I gained competency, as one

does with any skill, and my bagels consistently came out smooth and

round with defined center holes. Soon, my experiments in the kitchen

branched out into the deli offerings that accompany a great bagel.

Naturally, the New York–style bagels began a kitchen journey that

continued to seed-covered Montreal bagels, bialys, and oniony

pletzels. I craved creamy schmears, sweet cured fish, and briny

pickles, and before long, set out to produce the entire deli experience

of my youth, right in my own kitchen. As I created different bagel flavor

combinations, breakfast sandwiches and midnight bagel snacks

became part of my bagel zeitgeist. Bagels, Schmears, and a Nice

Piece of Fish distills the essence of these deli favorites into simple,

easy-to-recreate recipes for a perfect bagel breakfast or an overstuffed

bagel sandwich at any time of day.

 MY MOTHER, JAN KADETSKY COHN

Whether you bake the bagels yourself or buy them and fill platters with

homemade accompaniments, whether you dress up grocery store

cream cheese or make it from scratch, I’ll guide you through it all—

including curing and smoking salmon, even if it’s your very first time.

Deli salads will evoke old memories or create new ones. And we will

make half sours together, because when a bagel sandwich is lunch, a

pickle spear belongs on the plate.

Throughout these pages you’ll find that, in addition to the recipes,

there are stories and asides, history and fables, and tales of my

childhood. Because growing up, mine was a bagel-loving family in

which every member could make a party from a bagel breakfast.

I did not start this project with the idea that writing and cooking my

way through it would conjure memories of my grandparents, that I

would again taste foods that we ate regularly when I was very young,

or that I would suddenly start dreaming about those days. But that is

precisely what happened. And because my world is larger now than it

was when I was a child, I know that Jewish cuisine is defined not only

in the Ashkenazi tradition, but also in Sephardic and other cuisines of

which I have no direct experience. I leave that to other writers.

Mishpocha

My family encouraged a love of food and cooking, and found joy

watching company delight in something homemade. I learned in

kitchens that I can still see in my mind’s eye—the big, white enamel

stove with two ovens and a warming drawer, the Sunbeam mixer, the

small paring knives with wooden handles I was allowed to use. I know

you came for a cookbook, but you’re going to get some family stories

too. It’s impossible for me to write about these foods and not see and

hear my grandmothers in my ear. Mishpocha is Yiddish for family. It’s a

word filled with warmth. Meet the mishpocha.

My mother went to graduate school when I was three years old,

teaching classes while she studied. My father was occupied with his

work. So after school, during summer vacations, and on weekends, my

brother, David, and I spent time with my paternal grandparents, Mary

and Ben Solomon.

Until I was eleven years old, we lived near them. So near, in fact, that

my brother and I could walk from our house—through a cornfield,

across railroad tracks, winding through neighborhoods—and arrive at

Grandma Mary’s about twenty minutes later for a cold ice cream float

or a cookie or hot cocoa. She spoiled us rotten in the very best way.

Born in Vilnius, Lithuania, Mary emigrated to Chicago with her seven

siblings and grandmother just before the First World War. She learned

to speak English without a trace of an accent, but peppered her

sentences with Yiddish—the only one of my grandparents who did so.

She never spoke of her life in Lithuania, which I fear might have been

terrible. She came from a family of rabbis and leaders in the

community, none of whom made the journey to America.

In the early 1920s, after completing eighth grade, Mary went to work

for a stockbroker. She told me she “made a man’s salary”—a point of

pride her entire life. Her ambitions were cut short when her older sister

Doris died shortly after giving birth to my father. Mary, in typical Old-

World tradition, married her brother-in-law, my grandfather Ben, and

left Chicago for Toledo, Ohio, to live as a housewife, volunteer, and

savvy (but never acknowledged) finance manager for the family.

My Grandma Mary was a natural in the kitchen, comfortable with all

kinds of cooking. She taught me to bake, to make chicken soup, and to

remove the bones from a smoked whitefish. I still remember every

corner of her kitchen, what was in each drawer, where she hid the

licorice. Even well into my thirties, whenever I visited, she pushed a tin

of brownies into my hand “for the trip home,” an hour by airplane. What

she called Aunt Sophie’s Yum Yum Coffee Cake was so frequently on
her kitchen counter that when I first saw a cinnamon swirl coffee cake

in a bakery, I assumed somehow the store had my grandmother’s

recipe.

Every week growing up, we gathered at Mary and Ben’s house with

our family and their singleton friends for the Sabbath. Mary’s Sabbath

dinners were magnificent feasts of meats and vegetable-rich side

dishes, homemade noodles or potatoes, and pickle plates. She spent

Fridays setting the table with china and crystal and polishing the silver

candlesticks. She served a first course of herring or smoked fish sitting

atop cucumber slices or chopped liver spread across thin slices of

challah. And after the meal, we watched The Wild Wild West and Star

Trek with Grandpa Ben, an avid fan of both.

 MY PATERNAL GRANDPARENTS, BEN AND MARY SOLOMON

I began research for this book by opening an army-green, dented metal

box and thumbing through Mary’s yellowed recipe cards. Her cramped

writing, so familiar, listed ingredients and steps for favorite salads and

luncheon casseroles, cakes and cookies, long-simmered stews, and

thick soups. Apple cakes for Rosh Hashanah and matzo meal cakes

for Passover. The origins of the recipe were noted in the upper-right

corners, and here I found reminders of her Aunt Sophie, her sisters

Mae and Rose, and her best friend, Faye Edelstein. The cards detailed
adjustments she made to favorites, such as swapping in skim milk for

cream and egg whites for whole eggs in a futile attempt to keep Ben’s

weight down.

My Grandpa Ben was a gourmand. Born in Chicago and raised in

California, he liked to tell me about a childhood spent selling gleaned

fruit on the Los Angeles streets. He did anything to survive. At the age

of eighteen, he moved to the Michigan-Ohio border, where he started

a business selling off the parts of a truck that he continued to sleep in

until he could afford to buy another.

By the 1960s, he was traveling the world selling truck parts. While

jetting around, Ben never met a cuisine he wouldn’t try. He had an

argumentative digestive system but blithely ignored the pain and

indulged whenever he could. He returned from Europe with cheeses

and wine, cured meats, and fancy chocolate. His trips to the Middle

East yielded spice blends, pistachios (a rare treat), dried fruits, halvah,

and Turkish delight. From Japan, he brought sakes, teas, rice crackers,

and sesame snacks. He was generous and burly and made friends

easily.

My strongest memories of Ben have him at the head of the Sabbath

dinner table, wielding a carving knife and declaring the roast or leg of

lamb or brisket a “nice piece of meat,” the nugget that begat the title of

this book. He lost his eyesight as he aged and depended on others to

get him places, but his wanderlust and curiosity never dampened.

On my mother’s side, my grandparents Bea and Allan Kadetsky were

first-generation Jews descended from Russians. They were, in the

middle of the American Century, working very hard to assimilate. They

did not attend Temple. They ate shellfish and pork. They had a

Christmas tree. Yet they hung on to certain gustatory traditions.

Elegant Grandma Bea knew how to set out a proper bagel-and-lox

brunch. Her chopped liver and chicken soup were magnificent. I didn’t

learn the family secret until I was in my thirties; she flavored her matzo

balls with bacon fat. Shanda!

In my mind, my Grandpa Allan will forever be Mr. Martini: He smelled

like Old Spice, tobacco, and gin. He taught me to crack a lobster, to

dig in the sand for clams, and (at age six) to slurp oysters and beer at

Boston’s Old Oyster House. After retirement, he learned Szechuan

cooking by watching PBS television shows. There’s something

distinctly Northern European about his Onions and Eggs (page 177),

and I suspect it is something his Russian-born mother, Rebecca

Wallockstein Kadetsky, may have made.