Bialy

The combination of writing blog posts and having a CSA has encouraged me to be more adventurous in my food making and these bialy are a good example of that.  When we got a large red onion last week I was a little unsure of what to do with it.  It sat in the refrigerator for a few days while I contemplated my options.  Finally on Sunday I remembered that red onions are excellent for caramalizing.  At that point I decided I finally needed to try my hand at making bialy.

I was first exposed to bialy at a fine little bakery that we use to live across the street from.  I knew that they were basically a bagel without the hole and instead stuffed with caramelized onions.  For this reason I decided to only use the recipe from Smitten Kitchen as a guide and use my standby bagel recipe for the dough.

After I had caramelized the onion and the dough was rising our phone rang.  It was a friend who was in town and he was looking to go for bike ride.  Since I don't get out on my bike nearly as much as I'd like to now that I am working I figured I couldn't pass up this opportunity so I showed Laura the Smitten Kitchen recipe, wished her luck, and took off on my bike.

Two hours, and a near heart attack later from being so out of shape, I returned home famished.  Laura had just pulled the finished bialy out of the oven so I grabbed one and a giant glass of water.

Though I was having difficulty speaking coherently because of my fatigue I did manage to tell LJ that I thought these were the best thing I'd ever eaten.  She thought I might be exagerating a bit since I was so hungry, but truly they were delicious.

We ate them with some summer squash dip (which will be featured in a future post).  Traditionally they are served with cream cheese.  Next time I make a batch I'm going to pick up some smoked salmon to mix it in with cream cheese.  That might be all I eat for a week.