A go to brunch dish - gravlax (cured salmon), cream cheese and fresh homemade bagels. You can't get much better than that. Here I will be showing you how to make the salmon and bagels from scratch. Recipe Below...
Ingredients:
Serves 4-6
Salmon:
1 large beetroot
Shot of gin
2 juniper berries
1 tsp fennel seeds
100g sugar
250g salt
15g fresh tarragon
Bagels:
6 g active dry yeast
20g granulated white sugar
300 ml warm water
500 g bread flour
6 g salt
Method:
Salmon:
1. Add all of the ingredients, except for the salmon of course, into the food processor. Blitz until a paste forms.
2. Place the salmon in a wide dish, tip the cure over the top and make sure it covers both the top and bottom of the fish. Cover and cure for at least 48 hours before eating.
3. When ready to eat, remove the fish from the beetroot cure, thoroughly rinse off any excess and cut into thin slices.
Bagels:
1. Mix the yeast sugar and warm water and leave for 10 minuets to let the yeast bloom. Once this is done, add the mixture into another bowl with the bread flour.
2. Mix together until the water has been incorporated and leave to rest for 10 minutes to allow the flour to fully hydrate.
3. Knead the dough for 10 minutes until smooth. Place into a lightly oiled bowl and leave to rest until doubled in size (around 2 hours).
5. Once rested, punch the air out of the dough and split into 7 pieces of roughly 110g. Roll into balls, place onto a lightly oiled baking sheet and rest for 20 minutes.
6. Once rested, poke a hole though the middle of each ball with your thumb. Gradually widen with both index fingers until a small hole appears in the middle and then place onto a lightly oiled baking sheet.
7. Preheat an oven to 190°C. Bring a large pan of water to a boil and add 1 tbsp of bicarbonate of soda and 1 tbsp of sugar. Boil each bagel for a total of 2 minutes - 1 minute on each side. Do this in batches as you don’t want to overcrowd the pan. Once boiled, place on a cooling rack and sprinkle with bagel seasoning of your choice (I use a simple mix of sesame seeds, poppy seeds, flaky salt and garlic granules).
9. Place the boiled and seasoned bagels back onto a lightly oiled baking tray and place into the oven. Bake for roughly 13 minutes until golden brown on top. If browning too quickly, cover the bagels to ensure they do not burn but are cooked through.
10. Remove from the oven and leave cool for 10 minutes before cutting open.
To Serve:
Spread some cream cheese onto a freshly baked bagel, add a few slices of tomato, top with some of the gravlax and garnish with some capers and red onions (I like to use pickled red onions here). Enjoy!