January 25, 2010 - 4:38pm
Iron Chef Bagels
In this week's episode Morimoto's sous chef made bagels. It appeared that he mixed the dough and immediately formed, boiled and baked. I don't think there is any trickery involved on this show with time shifting and the like. The bagels could have been rested or allowed to rise briefly but I believe the format of the show required them to be made in less than an hour.
The judges proclaimed them good.
Comments?
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Which method did he use to form them. The rope or the poke?
Just curious. Maybe I'll look it up and catch a replay.
Looks like it will be replayed several times starting this Thursday.
Morimoto vs Wadi, if that is the correct episode.
He used the rope method and rolled them around three fingers.
The boiling activates the yeast - I'll have to watch the show to see if there's any indication of how long they were boiled.
I bake Hamelman's bagel formula exclusively because it's simply the best. Nothing fancy, no sponges or float testing. Just mix, bulk ferment for an hour, divide, shape (using the log around the hand style), retard overnight, then boil for 45 seconds (while still cold) and bake.
Always get beautiful, chewy, fantastic bagels.
LindyD:
If I were to pick a Hamelman book that contained the great bagel recipe, which book would you suggest?
Dorothy, shuttervector@gmail.com
Hi Dorothy,
There's only one book by Mr. Hamelman: Bread, a Baker's Book of Techniques and Recipes.
Available at Amazon for $25. Will be the best $25 you've spent on a bread book.
Sorry your post got hijacked with endorsements for Hamelma's book.
I too was amazed at the "instant" bagel technique. Glad you brought it up here, Ken. Masaharu Morimoto is, IMO, one if not the single the most talented chefs in the world. Even though he didn't prepare the bagel himself, he surely understood the unique principal involved. If the dough rested at all, it could not have rested longer than about 30 - 35 minutes. Because we can't view each of the processes in their entirety there is no way we can estimated the rest time or the boiling/baking times. I recall that onen of the judges, a New Yorker, described the bagel as being comparable (perhaps better) than the bagels she had enjoyed in New York City. Now that's a compliment.
I'm going to try to make it happen and I hope you will too. If you try it, please post your results - whether successful or not - and perhaps we can all learn something new.
While it can be frustrating; "thread drift" seems to be inescapable on internet BBs.
When I get home this afternoon; I intend to set my timer for 60 minutes and make four bagels in that amount of time. I will report the results.
Although that does happen when one asks for comments.
My point simply was that good bagels can be made without using a sponge or float test as has been described in all of the recent postings on bagels.
While I've not seen the show, I hope it was specific about the ingredients used, including the type of flour, so that you can be precise in your duplication.
Looking forward to seeing photos of your results.
Exactly sixty minutes from the time I started scaling ingredients to taking them out of the oven. I wish it had been fifty eight so they wouldn't have gotten scorched on the bottom. I got distracted by something else. They look kind of odd compared to my normal bagels. We will eat one later this evening.
Good shine. How to they look compared to Morimoto's?
What recipe did you use? What adjustments did you make, considering the 1 hour time limit; warmer water, etc?
Morimoto's were fuller, kind of "chubby", with a smaller center hole. Nevertheless, this is a good start, IMO. Ditto - what recipe was used here?
6 1/2 ounces KA bread flour
4 ounces warm water
3/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon instant yeast
3/4 teaspoon non-diastatic malt
Kneaded by hand, boiled one minute per side with a little non-diastatic malt in the water.
So I imagined he probably used a little more yeast, and very warm water.
Although not bagel dough, I have had some doughs rise extremely rapidly under very warm conditions. Of course, that was before I knew better.
I don't find it so amazing, I use the same method for baking bread and it always comes great! Mix ingradients to make a dough shape and let rise and bake.
10 min rest after kneading, shape, 20 min proof, boil, 10-12 min bake at 550 and you've got them.
Stan Ginsberg
www.nybakers.com
I guess I have close to Montreal bagels then because that is pretty much what I did. Plus or minus a few minutes here and there.
These tasted good but not as good as the way I normally make them; which is by prefermenting half the flour overnight in a biga and then letting the final dough proof for an hour or so before shaping. I have not tried retarding after shaping.
It was an interesting excercise and it's useful to know I can make a decent bagel if needed in a short time.
Morimoto's bagels were heavily seeded on top so I can't really compare the appearance to mine.
You got me to thinking, Ken. Iron Chef America has a "secret" ingredient but there is always a lot of other complimentary pantry ingredients that just seem to show up on the set and, without advance notcie, adapt perfectly with the menu. I wonder if there's a supply of fermenting dough someplace on the premises that is available to the chef's just in case they decide to make use of it.
No matter, I'm gonna try to make a 55 minute bagel; cuz I need 5 minutes for plating.
I believe that the chefs are all given a list of possible secret ingedients, so they can have everything they need ahead of time. If you notice, they don't ever discuss who should make what on camera.
The 1 hour limit is the limit, so everything has to be plated within the 1 hour limit.
(I didn't see thw whole show, but was surprised that murimoto made bagels) Perhaps the dough was mixed (by chefs team) and rested a bit before the show in case they wanted to use the bagel recipe. I doubt the show would "stock" fermenting dough - if it did, that isn't the chef's (team) work.
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Do they use high gluten flour, Stan?
they also omit salt, which is a yeast inhibitor, and add sugar or honey to the dough, which gives the yeast a kick.
Food Network did a behind the scene special about Iron Chef. The chefs are told what the secret ingredient is 15 minutes ahead of time so they can prepare strategy. There studio is located directly above one of the most amazing markets in the world. If they need something I am sure they dispatch a kitchen helper/intern to run downstairs and get it.
See here
Some more info
back when I was still the cookie company. I got a lot of flack about the one hour thing, but if you read to the end the coments do get better.
Karen
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/17090/bagels-about-hour