Monday, November 20, 2006

bagels (part 3) and grains, grains, grains

I tried making bagels again today. This time with a little more success. I increased the amount of flour, yeast, sugar and water and also increased the amount of time to let the dough rise. The dough got bigger, though it was hard to roll to form the bagel, which resulted in all of them falling apart as I "kettled" the bagels in hot water. Still, it was crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside (I had one, fresh out of the oven with dinner--a veggie soup).

On another note--I don't know about you, but I love grains, in breads and in my rice. I wanted to show you what I add to my rice before cooking it. In Japan, there are all sorts of grains called zakkoku to add to your rice like corn, amaranth, quinoa, sesame seeds, barley, adzuki beans, black soy beans and assorted millet.

This is the 16-grain mixture by a company called HakuBaku. By adding grains to your rice, you can add more fiber and minerals to it. They also have a 5-grain mixture which I've also tried.

I put about a tablespoon or two of the grains into a fine sieve and run water over it, to rinse it. Caution: If you wash the grains with your regular rice, you will lose most of the millet, since they are VERY tiny. Then I add the grains to the rice, add the water and cook.

4 comments:

Brilynn said...

I tried making bagels a while back and was surprisingly pleased with the results. I had the same problem with rolling and then the bagels coming apart while poaching them. I ended up with some 'horseshoes' as a result, but over all they were really good.

K and S said...

Hi Brilynn,

I'm wondering if using a donut cutter might solve the problem. My "horseshoes" were good too.

Take care.

Kat

Anonymous said...

There's nothing quite like eating a piece of fresh, just out of the oven, bread with a hot bowl of soup.

I've never made bagels, but it's on my list of things to do. :)

Ari (Baking and Books)

K and S said...

Hi Ari,

Would love to see the bagels you come up with.

Take care!

Kat