The smiley face of my cinnamon raisin bagel rolled in brown sugar
When I accepted the Workaway gig in Cambodia’s Otres Beach, the last thing I thought I’d be learning how to bake was a New York bagels. I’ve lived on both US coasts, and the doughy bagels on sale in California can’t hold a candle to the classic chewy NY bagel that are boiled before they’re baked.
I have vivid memories of my first New York egg bagel on 23rd Street and 8th Avenue. It was overly toasted and dripping with butter—and just what the doctor ordered after a night out on the town. The bagel shop wrapped the bagels in grease proof paper before cutting the bagel in half, and I loved the feel of the hot bagels in my brown paper bag, and preyed the butter didn’t seep onto my clothes before I completed the short walk to our brownstone walk-up on 22nd Street.
Our Otres Kitchen
A few decades later, and here I am, learning how to create the classic NY bagel in our Otres Beach test kitchen.
An outdoor kitchen may seem like a great idea, but when it’s 100 degrees and 100% humidity it doesn’t matter that your kitchen has 360 degrees of ventilation, it’s still as hot as hell in there.
I’ve worked in professional kitchens before, but it had been a while since I’d used a industrial mixer and oven. Having the right equipment and lots of space sure make baking enjoyable—despite the heat.
We tried a couple of different techniques for forming the bagels. One way was to create a dough circle and punch a hole in the middle with your thumb and prize the dough apart. The other was to create a sausage shape and join the two ends to make a circle. I preferred the look of the first method, but the other method is more traditional.
We were able to buy cream cheese in Otres, but no sign of smoked salmon, so I had to make do with a couple of slices of tomato.
This sesame bagel above was the one I was most proud of! Perfectly round, and bronzed to perfection. It looked too good to eat—but eat it I did.
It isn’t a speedy process to make bagels. You have to let the dough rise, beat it down, and then let it rise again. But it was so worth the effort. I lost count of the number of batches I made. And when we sold them on Saturdays at the Otres Market, they flew off the shelves.
Recipe for how to make the perfect NY style bagel
Now, no matter where I am living in the world, I know I can just get my baking head on and whip up a few bagels to get that New York feeling, and trigger Cambodian memories.
Read about my pastry challenges while making quiche in Cambodia.
[bctt tweet=”Volunteering through @Workaway helped me to build my cooking skills. I can now make bagels.” username=”rovingjay”]
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What an amazing adventure you experienced. Those bagels look delicious and that kitchen is stellar.
Yes it was an amazing adventure … last thing I expected to be learning how to cook in Cambodia. But glad I’ve got bagels licked!
Love New York bagels and would have loved to have got hold of some when I was living in SEASia. Smoked salmon was always a bit tricky to find in Cambodia, you need to cross over to Thailand for that! That sesame bagel looks amazing – very impressed!
Yes I was very proud of that sesame bagel … it was a picture of perfection. Almost too good to eat…almost!
I simply love the idea of an outdoor kitchen, even though Im from Sweden 😉 But we actually use our grill to barbacue all year around 😀
Love the whole concept of making bagels in Cambodia. When you mentioned the heat in the kitchen I felt for you! I know what that Cambodian heat and humidity is like.
The last thing you want to be doing is cooking in that heat, especially when it’s a big industrial size oven. But any weight I might have put on with eating too many bagels was lost in blood sweat and tears!
Yes, when you really love baking, the heat and humidity don’t matter. What a wonderful experience you had! Those sesame bagels look delicious! Cambodia is in my bucket list. 🙂
We got used to cooking in that heat eventually. The humidity ruined my pastry making skills, but didn’t seem to have an adverse affect on the bagel dough.
I haven’t tried new york bagels but those bagels really looked delicious! I hope I can visit Cambodia someday
New York Bagels are the best … they’re more chewy and less doughy than regular bagel. Definitely a winner in bagel terms.
What an amazing adventure! Sesame bagels are one of my favourite and these look amazingly delicious.
They’ve always been my favourite … although I was really pleased with how the cinnamon and raisin ones turned out.
This looks like such an amazing adventure and I cannot get over the bagles and that open air kitchen – what a treat to cook in there!
These look so yummy! I have never tried to bake bagels. If you can manage in a makeshift outdoor kitchen, maybe I should try to bake some in my regular kitchen 🙂 Cooking outside looks like a lot of fun 🙂
There is really something incredible about cooking in an outside kitchen. Except for the rats and snakes and dogs… but other than that, all good!!