Montreal Style French Bagels

Not Exactly Southern

Not only is this recipe not Southern, it is only half North American–but it is still very tasty. As usual, it involves a transatlantic dispersal of culture and food.

This is essentially the Canadian version of a Parisian Jewish recipe for water bagels, which means the bagels take a swim in boiling water before baking. Here’s my method for making these.

Recipe

This makes six extra large bagels, or ten-twelve normal sized ones.

For the Dough:

1 1/2 cup “00” style flour

1 tablespoon Olive Oil

1 teaspoon Sea Salt

1/2 Cup warm Water

Mix these in a stand mixer, or use whatever you have.

Combine

2 tablespoons warm Water

1 teaspoons dry Yeast

1 tablespoon Maple Syrup

Let the yeast mixture rise until it increases by a factor of three, and then mix with the dough. Let the dough rise until doubled.

This step is where the French and Montreal styles diverge. The traditional French additive is Malt syrup, which was not widely available in Canada. Maple syrup was, and still is. I should learn how to make Poplar syrup one year, and turn this into a Southern bagel.

Forming and Boiling

The home baker’s method of forming bagels is simple. For monster bagels, divide the dough into six pieces. Roll each piece into a ball, and then flatten with your palms. I use my thumb to poke a hole in the middle, and then widen out the hole to the desired size. Jo Goldenberg of Jo Rosenberg Restaurant in Paris makes the hole large enough for her palm to fit through. Place the finished bagel on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, and let rise while the water heats up to boiling.

Two things are important about the boil: the pan needs to be large enough so the bagels are not crowded, and the bagels need to boil long enough so they will not collapse while baking. I use an enormous fourteen inch skillet for the boil, which is still barely large enough.

For the Boil

Enough water to float the bagels

1 tablespoon Brown Sugar

Here is the most important step in the whole process, for which eternal vigilance is needed. As the bagels boil and expand, they will crowd against each other, and one side of a bagel will try and submerge. If you let this happen, that part of the bagel will become inedible soggy pasta bagel. With that said, the bagels should boil at least two minutes on each side. After that, remove the bagels with a slotted spoon, place them back on the parchment paper, and bake at 400 degrees F until light brown. Cool on a rack, and decide if you want cream cheese or a bagel sandwich.

It takes some practice to get this right, but when you do, it’s goodbye supermarket bagel, or even deli bagel. I make these about every two weeks, and they improve just a little with every batch. It’s a stretch to eat just half of one of these, but the dogs love the leftovers as much as we do.

Monaco Italian Bread

Grab the Butter

This bread is definitely Southern, although more Southern France than Southern US. Strangely enough, it is only a couple of ingredients away from being identical to Creole French bread, which, as I have noted, is more Italian than French.

Ingredients

1 tablespoon Olive Oil

1/2 teaspoon Salt

1 1/2 cup Flour

1 tablespoon non-fat dry Milk

3/4 cup warm Water

Mix these by hand or with a stand mixer. Also mix together in a measuring cup-

2 teaspoons dry Yeast

1 tablespoon warm Water

1 tablespoon Maple Syrup (this is a substitute for Malt Syrup)

Let the yeast mixture rise in a measuring cup, until it reaches a volume of about one cup , then mix thoroughly with the flour mixture. Knead by hand or with a stand mixer. When the dough stops sticking to your oiled fingers, transfer to a bowl to rise–a wooden dough bowl is traditional in the South. After an hour or more of rising, form the loaves into the shape of your choosing–I like baguettes. Lately I have been cooking mine at 450 degrees F.

The recipe comes from the The Breads af France by Bernard Clayton Jr, and it has replaced the Picayune Creole Cookbook on my kitchen cookbook stand. It’s that good. As Clayton notes, Monaco, all 400+ acres of it, is highly influenced by its proximity to Italy, and thus we have the addition of oil to the bread, which fortifies it. Take away that and the milk powder, and you have Creole bread. However, when it comes to this style of French/Italian/New Orleans bread, there is only one thing to say about it–it’s all good.

Masonry Stove, aka Potager, Stew Stove

New, but not Improved

The old school outdoor kitchen just got even-older-school, as I just finished this potager, or French style masonry oven. It’s a simple enough device, with two fire chambers with holes at the far end, through which the heat escapes, and the food gets cooked. I call this French style because it most resembles existing ovens from the Continent. Check out the parody of the French cook in the English cartoon below.

English Satirical Cartoon, 1772

It is good to know that the severe case of cooking envy that afflicts the Brits is centuries old, but this cartoon’s claim to fame is the potager stove that the snuff snorting dandy is cooking on. The most efficient way to use one of these stoves is to shovel in hot coals from a fire, say, from a brick oven or fireplace. Snuff and a sword hanging on the wall are optional.

Maple Fry Fork

Maple and Walnut

I wasn’t familiar with the Swedish term “fry fork” until this year (Google translate says that the Swedish is “stek gaffel,” for what that’s worth). I ran across it in the new English edition of Carving Kitchen Tools, by Moa Brännström Ott. I was so intrigued by this book that I made sure that it arrived on the first day of publication, 2/1/2022.

Spoons, Fry Fork, Butter Knife

I made my fry fork before I knew there was such a thing. It excels at flipping bacon, and most of all, making soft scrambled eggs. Here’s how to make them, from a French farmhouse, to the great writer Elizabeth David, who learned the technique there, to her student Jane Grigson. That’s how cooking works.

Soft Scrambled Eggs

Eggs (One per person)

Sea Salt

Olive oil

That’s it. The trick is in the cooking. I like carbon steel pans for this, as they heat up fast, and cool off quickly.

Give the eggs a thorough beating, and heat up the olive oil in the pan at high heat. As soon as the oil begins to spread out, starts moving around and forming thin layers at the point of the heated surface, and thicker layers elsewhere, turn the heat to the lowest possible setting, and take a break. When the oil has returned to an even surface, pour in the beaten eggs. Then do nothing.

What, no running around like in a cooking competition? This is more Zen than that. When the eggs begin to set, slowly separate and turn the curds to the desired size. Serve the eggs while they are still moist–no rubber eggs here.

The fry fork is just the tool for this dish. Carved from green Maple, I call mine the trident style for obvious reasons. If Neptune wants to banish me to ten years of roaming the eastern Mediterranean in an Odyssey, eating great seafood, kicking butt and taking names, and generally playing ancient Greek James Bond, I’m down with that-especially if I get to slaughter all the local scumbags, who are eating my food and drinking my wine, when I finally get back to my home city. No wonder that poem is still so popular.

Chicken Liver and Oyster Mushroom Pate

The second flush of basement grown Oyster mushrooms is here, with a couple of whopper specimens. The smaller one went into this pate, and the larger one is going into mushroom gravy for our roast chicken tonight. Another species has already started eating coffee grounds in a new one gallon glass canister we bought. My plan is to have five or six different varieties of Oyster mushrooms started by the end of the summer.

Ingredients

1 tablespoon Bacon Fat (rendered from Lard de Poitrine, fatty Bacon)

1 tablespoon Butter

1 medium Oyster Mushroom, chopped

1/4 pound Chicken Livers

1 crushed clove of Garlic

Salt

2 tablespoons Brandy (or more)

Melt the butter and bacon fat, and briefly saute the chopped mushrooms. Add the chicken livers and cook until they are done to your liking–four or five minutes. cook the garlic for about a minute, and then set the whole thing on fire with the brandy. Whoosh! It’s as much fun as the Leo DiCaprio character had at the end of the movie Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood.

The finished product, before it heads for the refrigernator for an overnight visit:

Big Oyster with Pate

I must have used more livers than I thought, as that looks like about seven ounces of pate. It was zapped in a food processor with a few drops of cream, and will be covered in plastic wrap so it will be ready to be devoured beginning tomorrow.That big Oyster mushroom next to it? Not so lucky. It’s on the chopping block for tonight.

Hop Hornbeam Knife Block

Live Edge or Free Edge?

After this piece of Hop Hornbeam log rolled around on the floor of my shop for a good couple of years, I had had enough. Then we began buying these French made Laguiole utensils, and the answer appeared. Make a knife block out of it.

A few vertical cuts with the miter saw, and some walnut spacers, and the job was done. I had just bought a Swiss-designed Bessey web clamp, and it will hold practically any shaped object tight while the glue dries. The Swiss, they are so clever.

Hop Hornbeam grows on our property, and this is from one specimen that expired during a two month drought. It’s incredibly strong and heavy as a sea anchor, so this is not likely to tip over. Those are steak knives and cheese knives, and one sliced my finger open while making this. That’ll learn me.

Thomas Jefferson, Mary Randolph, James Hemings, and Curly Fries

That’s right, a founding Father, a founding Mother and Father of American cooking, and the venerable curly fries. Venerable? The recipe goes back to 1824, and helps to answer the vexing question that many parents with small children face–“Mommy, Daddy, where did curly fries come from?”

As usual, there is an easy answer, and a complicated one, which is partly an exercise in probability. The easy answer is that the first printed recipe for curly fries is from Mary Randolph, and her 1824 bestseller The Virginia Housewife. From the section, “To Fry Sliced Potatos.”

Peel large potatos, slice them about a quarter inch thick, or cut them in shavings round and round, as you would peel a lemon; dry them well in a clean cloth, and fry them in lard or drippings. Take care that your fat and frying-pan are quite clean. . .

Mary Randolph

Cooked in lard over a wood fire! Possibly the best of all time. I’ll try these in the event that our high temps ever drop below ninety.

Here’s a list of probable sources–Mary Randolph herself. She was a real business woman, and nothing creates more business than novelty. Alas, she was not a chef, but an owner and a writer. Probability–moderate.

Next source–Thomas Jefferson. He is regularly given credit for introducing French Fries to America, which at the time were widely known as “pommes de terre frites à cru en petites tranches.” Translation: small potato slices fried raw. In short, exactly like Mary Randolph’s first version of fried potatoes. Alas, Jefferson was no cook. One of his servants said that the only thing Jefferson could do in the kitchen was wind the clock. Probability–low.

The next candidate–James Hemings, the man who actually did the cooking for Jefferson. He studied with two French chefs while in Paris, served as Jefferson’s chef, and undoubtedly ran across pommes frites, as the potato was making its magnificent debut in French cuisine. James taught his brother Peter French cooking, and Peter moved to Richmond, which happened to be where Mary Randolph set up business, as he, like his enslaved brother, were freed by Mr. Jefferson. Probability James or Peter introduced the curly fries–high.

Let’s head to left field and the capital of Nerdlandia. Here’s a possible method of transmission. Jefferson and Franklin both attended elaborate potato themed dinners thrown by the guru of French potato cultivation, Monsieur Parmentier, of Potage Parmentier fame, aka, Leek and Potato soup. Parmentier was like the original potato apostle, and would serve seven consecutive courses, all of which featured potatoes. Did his chef invent curly fries, or even Parmentier himself? Probability–total speculation.

I’ll leave you with Mary Randolph’s final suggestion, which is a must–when you take the curly fries out of the lard, don’t forget the salt.

A Great French Style Salad Dressing

I bought a bottle of Walnut Oil to use as a food safe wood finish. The wonderful smell got to me, and I had to splurge and make some salad dressing with it. It will be difficult to use any other dressing, after tasting this.

Recipe

3 tablespoons Walnut Oil

1 tablespoon Red Wine Vinegar

1 tablespoon Dijon Mustard

Honey to taste

Salt and Pepper

Fresh Herbs–Basil, Parsley, and/or Oregano

Simply whisk all of these together, taste it, try not to salivate, and you’re done. This is plenty for two salads.

If you spill some Walnut oil on your cutting board, no worries–it’s the finest food safe finish around, and it will just make your kitchen small better. It is a bit pricey, and imagine this moocher’s reaction when he found the same amount of oil for $1 cheaper at–audible gasp–Whole Foods.

Crudité Dipping Sauce

World’s Smallest Crudite Platter

My lunches are minimal, as I can prove by this dish. I load up on the other two meals, and this is a chance to eat healthy. However, I still like a sauce that has a good amount of fat in it.

Sweet Sour Hot Dipping Sauce

1/3 cup Mayonnaise

1 tablespoon whole grain Mustard

1 tablespoon Honey

1 teaspoon white wine Vinegar

Pinch of Salt

Sriracha, or other hot sauce, to taste

You can up the quantities as much as you like. I make my own mustard, and should also make my own mayo, as I finally learned how. Creole mustard would be an excellent substitute for homemade, though the basic recipe for making it is readily available. This is also a choose your own veg deal.

MJ has been known to yell “vegetarian” at me when she sees this spread. Not likely–I’m the one who grinds the meat, and makes the burgers.

Four French Hens

Proper Eggs need a Proper Basket

I don’t know the name of the sadist who wrote that never-ending Christmas song, “Twelve Days of Christmas,” but I fixed it by buying four French hens. To be precise, four ISA Browns. They could easily bury any of us in an avalanche of eggs.

Ethel the Brown Guards the Mail

These birds are hybrids, and bred to lay more eggs than a large family can eat. We are currently supplying five families with eggs, with only eight chicks, four Browns and four Barred Rocks. Do the math.

Ethel: “This is my Best Side.”

They are also remarkably handsome birds. There must be a passage in the French constitution, after all that stuff about liberty and equality ( thank Mr. Jefferson and Monsieur Lafayette for that,) that all French exports must look great. I don’t have a problem with that.

Christmas advice: Buy American Cast Iron! Buy German Tools! Buy French anything that has to do with Food! Have a Joyous Noel!