kalbijim

(I did not follow the recipe below exactly. I didn't have shitake mushrooms, doubled the turnips, and forgot the green onion garnish. It was delish.)

ingredients

• 1.25 lbs. short ribs
  
• 2 Tablespoons soy sauce
  
• 4 cloves minced garlic
  
• 1/2 onion, sliced
• 1-1/2 teaspoons rice wine
• 1-1/2 teaspoons brown sugar
• medium carrot, cut into bite-sized chunks
• equal amount of turnip, cut into bite-sized chunks
• 2 or 3 shitake mushrooms, sliced
• 1 Tablespoon light corn syrup
• 1-1/2 teaspoons sesame oil
• freshly ground pepper
• green onions slice on the bias as a garnish

instructions

1. Cover short ribs with water. Let soak for 20-30 minutes, replacing the water a few times.
   
2. Bring a few cups of water to a boil in a medium pot. Add short ribs, and boil for 5-10 minutes.
   
3. Drain short ribs and rinse with cold water. Put back in the pot after cleaning the pot.
   
4. Add soy sauce, garlic, onion, rice wine and brown sugar to the pot. Add enough water to almost cover. Boil over medium heat, uncovered, for 20 minutes.
5. Add carrot, turnip and mushrooms, lower to a simmer and cover. Simmer for 1 hour or until the meat is fall-off-the-bone tender.
6. Add corn syrup, sesame oil and ground pepper. Uncover and boil over high heat until liquid reduces to a sauce.
7. Garnish with green onions and serve.

bibimchard

I made up the name "bibimchard" to describe the quick meal I made for myself.

ingredients

• 1 bunch rainbow chard
  
• neutral cooking oil
  
• crushed red pepper
  
• 2 cloves garlic
  
• generous tablespoon soy sauce
  
• 1-2 tablespoons sesame oil
  
• toasted sesame seeds
  
• 1 egg
  
• bibimjang

instructions

1. Remove and dice thick chard stems; chiffonade chard leaves.
   
2. Heat a tablespoon or two of cooking oil in a pan over medium low, and add a few shakes of crushed red pepper.
   
3. Mince garlic, add to pan and saute for a minute or two.
   
4. Add diced chard stems to the pan, saute and cover for a few minutes.
   
5. Uncover and add chiffonade; saute until reduced and tender.
   
6. Remove from heat; add soy sauce, sesame oil and sesame seeds; mix and transfer to a wide bowl.
   
7. Fry an egg, and place on top of chard.
   
8. Drizzle with bibimjang, and eat with a spoon.

Note: Bibimjang is a sauce made with gochujang, a Korean pepper paste. If you can get gochujang, though, you probably also can buy pre-made bibimjang. But if you somehow have access to gochujang but not bibimjang, it's easy enough to make the sauce. It's 6 parts gochujang; 3 parts each of sesame oil, sugar, water and toasted sesame seeds; 1 part each vinegar and minced garlic. Just mix them all together.

LBJ Chicken

I grew up eating LBJ Chicken. And... the boys like it, too!


(They also like eating like cavemen.)

Barbecued Chicken (recipe courtesy of Lady Bird Johnson)

• 2 broiler-fryer chickens, quartered
  
• 1-1/2 tsp. salt
  
• 1/4 tsp. pepper
  
• 1/4 c. each butter, vinegar, ketchup, lemon juice and Worcestershire sauce
  
• 1/2 tsp. Tabasco

1. Sprinkle chicken with salt and pepper.
   
2. Broil about 5 inches from the heat, turning as necessary, for about 10 minutes, until the chicken is nicely browned.
   
3. Meanwhile, melt the butter in saucepan, and then mix in the other ingredients.
   
4. Pour sauce over the chicken and bake at 350°F for about an hour, basting frequently.

(We skip the Tabasco, to keep it kid friendly. And we just use drumsticks instead of quartered chickens.)

sardine snack

• 1 tin 2-layer brisling sardines, in olive oil (plus an empty tin)
• a few sprigs of rosemary
• 1 clove garlic, thinly sliced
• 1 green onion, thinly sliced on the bias
• crushed red pepper
• scant teaspoon capers

1. Split sardines (including oil) across two tins.
2. Add remaining ingredients, arranging so the sardines are on top.
3. Broil for 4 minutes.

Serves one (especially so in this household, since there's only one of us who would touch this).

Have you seen the muffin man?

It turns out he looks a lot like me.



If you want to make these at home, you need to collect some rings. I had two rings, and that was so not enough. If you're cooking on a decent sized griddle, six rings would be good. I used 3-inch rings, but next time I'll try 4-inch rings. Alton Brown says you can use tuna cans with tops and bottoms removed, but make sure they are at least 3 inches wide (and ideally wider). Also, keep in mind that a lot of canned food uses BPA-lined cans; heating up some bread inside a BPA-lined tin is probably not a great idea. Ideally, I'd aim for rings that are about 1-inch tall. Taller ones will work, but if you're like me, you'll have a tendency to overfill them.

Adapted from Alton Brown's English Muffin Recipe

• dry milk mixture
  • 1 Tbsp. shortening (15 g.)—apparently you can substitute a neutral vegetable oil
  • 1/2 c. non-fat powdered milk (35 g.)
  • 1 Tbsp. sugar (15 g.)
  • 1/2 tsp. salt (2 g.)
  • 1 c. hot water (235 g.)—hot from the tap is fine, but make it hot
• yeast mixture
  • 1 envelope active dry yeast (2-1/4 tsp. or 7 g.)
  • 1/8 tsp. sugar
  • 1/3 cup warm water (110° F)
• 2 cups all-purpose flour, sifted (250 g.)
• 1/2 tsp. salt (2 g.)
• 1 tsp. baking soda (2 g.)

1. Melt the shortening in a medium mixing bowl. (I did not melt the shortening, but it seems like a good idea.)
2. Add the remaining dry milk mixture ingredients and stir to dissolve the salt and sugar. Set aside.
3. In a separate small bowl, mix the yeast mixture ingredients until the yeast dissolves. 
4. Add yeast mixture and sifted flour to dry milk mixture and beat thoroughly with a wood spoon.
5. Cover bowl in plastic wrap and let rise for 30 minutes.
6. Pre-heat griddle to 300° F. (On our gas griddle, this is about 1 notch above "low." If you have a heavy griddle, like a cast iron one, you'll want to let it pre-heat for a while.)
7. Add remaining salt and the baking soda and mix thoroughly. (Alton Brown's recipe does not call for baking soda, but apparently adding it will improve the nooks and crannies. I did not use soda, but will try it next time.)
8. Place several 4" metal rings on the griddle. Spray with vegetable oil. 
9. Add a scant 1/4 c. of batter to each ring. Cover the rings with a cookie sheet, and let cook for 5 minutes.
10. Flip the rings using a spatula and tongs, and cook covered for 5 more minutes.
11. Cool muffins on a rack. Split open with a fork. (You can also just slice them open with a bread knife, but you'll get a more interesting surface if you split with a fork.)

Makes about a dozen muffins.

Penicillin

Post-concert cocktail at Eureka! Berkeley.


The E!B recipe might be different, but here's one way to make a penicillin:

1. Muddle 3 slices of fresh ginger at the bottom of a shaker until thoroughly mashed up.
2. Add 2 oz. blended scotch, 3/4 oz. fresh lemon juice, 3/4 oz of honey syrup, and ice.
3. Shake vigorously for 8-12 seconds.
4. Pour into a rocks glass with fresh ice, using a fine mesh strainer (e.g. a tea strainer).
5. Gently pour 1/4 oz of a smoky single malt into the glass over the back of a spoon.
6. Garnish with candied ginger.

"Honey syrup" is 1:1 honey and hot water, mixed and cooled. If you have nice ice (like a 2" clear cube), save it for step 4—you can use any old ice for step 2.

soft pretzels

When I was a kid, I used to make soft pretzels. It's a great recipe for kids. I saw a soft pretzel recipe recently, and finally got around to trying it with the boys. It was a success.

• 3¾ teaspoons dry active yeast (or 3 teaspoons instant)
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 2½ cups lukewarm (105°F) water, divided
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 500 g (4 cups) flour, maybe more
• 1 teaspoon table salt
• kosher salt
• melted butter

1. In a small bowl, mix yeast and sugar with 1½ cups of lukewarm water.
2. In a shallow bowl, mix baking soda with remaining lukewarm water.
3. In a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook, mix flour and table salt.
4. Add yeast mixture to stand mixer bowl, and knead with the dough hook until the dough comes together. If the dough is tacky, add some more flour.
5. Remove dough from bowl, spray bowl down with cooking spray, and return dough to bowl. Cover and let rise for 30 minutes or until doubled in size.
6. Pre-heat oven to 425°F, and line two baking sheets with silicone mats or parchment paper.
7. Divide dough into 8 equal pieces, and roll each into 2+ foot ropes.
8. Shape each rope into a pretzel, dunk into baking-soda water, place on baking sheets, and sprinkle with kosher salt.
9. Bake for about 12 minutes. Remove from oven and brush with melted butter.
10. Enjoy!

baked onion rings

Baked panko-crusted onion rings. Soren likes them. Anders does not.

1. Pre-heat oven to 450°F.
2. Pour 2 tablespoons of vinegar into a measuring cup, and then fill to the 2 cup mark with milk (or, if you have 2 cups of buttermilk, you can use that and skip this step).
3. Mix 2 cups all-purpose flour with a teaspoon each of paprika and chili powder, and 2 teaspoons of kosher salt. Divide flour mixture between two shallow bowls.
4. Whisk 4 eggs into the milk mixture, and then pour into one of the flour bowls and mix well.
5. In a third shallow bowl, mix 2 cups panko breadcrumbs, 4 tablespoons olive oil and 2 teaspoons kosher salt.
6. Cut 2 large yellow onions into ½-inch thick rings. Dredge rings in flour mixture, then buttermilk batter, and finally breadcrumb mixture. Place finished rings on parchment-paper lined baking sheets (you can use a silicone baking mat instead of parchment paper, if you'd like).
7. Bake for 20 minutes, turning the rings over halfway through.

(I made a quarter batch.)

Udon noodles

Anders and I made some udon noodles for dinner tonight.

We started with 250g of bread flour and 30g of corn starch (the recipe I based this on used tapioca starch, but we don't have any of that in the house). I mixed that up, and then separately mixed 5 oz of lukewarm water with 1 teaspoon of table salt.

I added half of the salt water to the dry ingredients, and tried to form a dough ball. I kept adding more of the salt water until I barely had a dough ball. This took most, but not all, of the rest of the water. It really seemed like it wouldn't be enough water, but with some kneading of the dough, I managed to incorporate pretty much all of the dry ingredients. The goal was to get a dough ball while using as little water as possible.

I put the dough ball into a 1 gallon ziplock, squeezing as much air out as possible. Then, I kneaded the dough by stomping on the bag with my feet! Anders helped, though truth be told, it turns out that thirty pounds isn't quite enough to do much with this dough. When the dough mostly filled the bag (so that the dough was somewhere between a quarter and a half inch thick), I opened up the bag, folded the dough in thirds like a letter, and then Anders and I stomped again. We did two more times (four stompings total, separated by three letter-foldings), and then I set the bag aside for a half hour.

After the dough had rested, I took it out of the bag, sliced it in half, and ran each half through the Kitchenaid pasta roller attachment at thickness 1 (as wide as it goes—about an eighth of an inch thick) very slowly several times. Anders and I dusted each side of each piece of dough with flour, and then folded it in half twice length-wise. I then cut each of these into noodles with a sharp knife (aiming for square cross-sectional noodles, but ending up with something a bit wider). I dusted the noodles with a bit more flour, and set them aside.



I brought a gallon of water to a boil, and tossed the noodles in. Shortly after the water returned to a boil, the noodles were happily floating at the top. I gave them another three minutes, and then dumped them into a strainer. I rinsed them with cold water until they were cool to the touch.


Anders thought the noodles were perfect as is.


For Sigrid and me, however, I took things a bit further. I sauteed some beet greens in garlic, tossed in some spicy tofu from First Korean Market, added some kochujang and some cooking sake, and then added the noodles.


And we even have some noodles to spare.

Ginger Ale

I watched the "ginger" episode of Good Eats the other night, and Alton Brown made his own ginger ale. Here's my version.



Ingredients

• 2 oz. ginger (by weight, no need to peel)
  
• 7½ c. cold water
• 6 oz. sugar (by weight)
  
• ⅛ t. active dry yeast
• 2 T. lemon juice

Instructions

1. Place ginger and ½ cup of the water in a mini-chopper (a blender might work), and puree.
2. Combine ginger/water and sugar in a small saucepan. Stir over medium-high heat until sugar has dissolved. Remove from the heat, cover and let rest for 1 hour.
3. Strain syrup into a measuring cup. It should be relatively cool by now.
   
4. Funnel the syrup into a clean 2-liter bottle, followed by 4 cups of the remaining cold water (this should be enough to bring the combined temperature of the syrup and the water to or below room temperature). Now add the yeast (you probably want to do this without the funnel, so that the yeast doesn't get stuck), followed by the remaining 3 cups of cold water. Cap tightly, shake, and leave at room temperature for 48 hours.
5. Store in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks. Make sure to open at least once or twice a day to release excess carbonation.

떡만두국 (ddeok mandu guk)—rice cake and Korean dumpling soup

On New Year's Day, Koreans traditionally eat 떡국 (ddeok guk)—rice cake soup. This year, my mom didn't serve rice cake soup, but she did send some frozen rice cakes home with whoever wanted them.

Today, I made 떡만두국 (ddeok mandu guk)—rice cake and Korean dumpling soup. I planned on just using store-bought wonton wrappers, but the store I went to was out. So I made wrappers from scratch, which worked out great! The recipe I used was just flour and water, and I love the way it turned out.

There are a bazillion recipes on the 'net for mandu, and they don't seem to agree on what should be in there. My version is adapted from a recipe that used pork, tofu, onions and mung bean sprouts (the wrapper recipe was from there, too).

And there are a bazillion recipes for ddeok guk, with no concensus on the broth. Some say to use beef broth, others an anchovy broth. I nixed both ideas, and used a kombu and bonito flake broth (pretty much the recipe on the back of my bag of bonito flakes).

With no further ado, here's the recipes I used. This is pretty much exactly what I did, so the portions don't actually work out quite right. I ended up freezing about half of the mandu uncooked; we'll see how that works out when I try to heat them up later.

Ingredients

Wrappers (makes about 25)

• 375 g. (3 c.) all purpose flour
  
• 1 c. luke warm water

Mandu filling (enough for 25 huge dumplings; next time I'm either halving this, or doubling the wrappers)

• 5 oz. pork
  
• 275 g. extra firm tofu (about ¾ of a typical package)
  
• 200 g. (2 c.) mung bean sprouts
  
• 1⅔ c. kimchi, chopped fine
  
• ½ med. white onion, chopped fine
  
• 1 clove garlic, minced
  
• 1 t. salt
  
• 1 t. sesame oil
  
• a few grinds of fresh black pepper
  
• 1 egg, beaten (oops! I forgot this!)
  

Soup

• 1 c. frozen rice cakes (there are many different types of rice cakes, and you need to get these from a Korean grocery store; tell them you're making rice cake soup)
  
• 4 oz. beef (I think I used skirt steak; it was in my freezer)
  
• 1 t. soy sauce
  
• ½ t. sesame oil
  
• ½ t. sugar
  
• a few grinds of fresh black pepper
  
• 1 clove garlic, minced
  
• 6 c. water (I might use 8 c. next time)
  
• 4-5 in. kombu (this is type of kelp, sold dried in health or Asian food stores)—that's the Japanese name; in Korean, this apparently is 다시마 (dashima)
• ½ c. bonito flakes (again, try health or Asian food stores)—don't pack the bonito while measuring
  
• soy sauce and salt to taste ("to taste" might involve skipping these all together)
  
• a few scallions (I used two), cut on the bias
  
• 1 egg, beaten
  
• 1 sheet seasoned nori (I skipped this, as I didn't have any in the house)

Preparation

1. Combine the flour and water in the bowl of a stand mixer, and kneed with a dough hook for 15 minutes (I let it go for 25 minutes, at speed 2 on my Kitchenaid).
2. The dough should be silky smooth, and as you remove it from the dough hook it will be a bit tacky. Wrap in plastic wrap and let rest at room temperature as you work on the filling.
3. Mince the pork (I suppose you could grind it, or start with ground pork, but I just minced it), and place it in a large bowl.
4. Squeeze the tofu, a fistful at a time, crumbling it and also removing as much water as possible. Add the dry, crumbled tofu to the bowl.
   
5. Boil the bean sprouts for a few minutes, and then cool down under cold water. Chop the sprouts fairly finely, and squeeze by the fistful, as with the tofu, to remove water before adding to the bowl.
6. Squeeze the kimchi to remove as much liquid as possible, and add to the bowl. Same thing with the onion.
7. Add the garlic, salt, sesame oil, and pepper. Mix thoroughly. If the filling seems to have any excess water, squeeze it out. The goal is to have a barely moist filling. It should look something like this:
   
8. Mix in the egg. I forgot this step entirely, and my mandu turned out fine, but presumably the insides would have been a bit less crumbly if I had included the egg.
9. Ok, now back to the wrappers. Flour your hands well, and remove the wrapper dough from the plastic wrap. It will probably stick a bit, but do your best to get all of it out. If it starts sticking to your hands, reflour them.
   
10. Put the pasta rolling attachment onto your stand mixer (you could do this by hand with a rolling pin, but the dough is quite "bouncy" and you want the wrappers quite thin, so it will be much, much easier with a motorized pasta rolling station).
    
11. Set up a small plate, or even better a small shallow bowl, that you can use as a flouring station:
    
12. Pull off a chunk of the dough about 20-25 grams—about the size of a ping pong ball. Flour well in your flouring station, while pressing the dough into a flat disk shape about 2 inches in diameter.
13. With the stand mixer on low (on my Kitchenaid, I used speed 2), run the wrapper through the pasta rolling attachment, starting with the thickest setting (on my Kitchenaid pasta roller, 1). If the wrapper sticks to your roller, you didn't flour it well enough; reflour before continuing on. Move to the next thinner setting, turning the wrapper ninety degrees when you run it through (this is to try to keep the wrapper roughly round). Continue on with thinner settings, until you have a round wrapper that is 3-4 inches across. On my Kitchenaid pasta attachment, I stopped at setting 4. Too thick, and you will have doughy mandu. Too thin, and the wrapper will rip when you fill it. My wrappers looked something like this:
    
    
14. Spoon a heaping teaspoonful of filling into the center of the wrapper (I was aiming for about 25 g., though as I noted at the beginning, this made really large dumplings). Fold the wrapper over the filling, and seal the edges firmly. Try to keep as much air out as possible. If you'd like, you can now bring the two "corners" of your dumpling together and press, forming a tortellini-like shape. Place on a wax paper lined plate (I used unlined plates, and when I later picked them up, they stuck a bit).
    
15. Repeat the three previous steps until all your mandu are prepared. You should have a nice collection that looks something like this:
    
    
    
16. Ok, onto the soup. Soak the rice cakes in cold water, and set aside.
    
17. Cut the beef into thin strips, and mix well in a bowl with the soy sauce, sesame oil, garlic, sugar, salt and black pepper (you might want to do this ahead of time; if not, let the bowl sit for at least ten minutes).
    
18. Saute the beef in a large pan with a bit of oil until well cooked. Set aside.
    
19. Bring six cups (again, I might go with eight cups next time) of water plus the kombu to a boil in a large stock pot. Remove from heat, add the bonito flakes, and then strain, returning the liquid back to the stock pot.
    
20. Once the stock has come back to a boil, drain the rice cakes and add them to the pot. Simmer for about two minutes.
    
21. Add the scallions, and about eight to twenty dumplings, depending on how big you made them. Simmer for eight minutes.
    
22. Correct seasoning, if necessary, with soy sauce and/or salt.
    
23. Slowly dribble the egg into the pot in swirling circles. Let simmer for a minute, and then stir. Remove from heat.
    
24. Ladle soup into four bowls, topping with beef and slivered nori (as I mentioned above, I skipped the nori). Serve hot.
    
    
25. Freeze any leftover (uncooked) dumplings, after thoroughly flouring them to keep them from sticking. I divided mine into one serving per small ziplock, and then put those ziplocks into a large freezer bag.
    

This was not a quick meal. I started at around 3:30, and we ate around 7:30. But it was tasty!

Teething biscuits

Sigrid bought some Earth's Best Organic Teething Biscuits for Anders, and he just loves them. We're not so sure it has anything to do with teething, but if it makes him sit quietly in his high chair as a parent prepares food for him, who cares why it works.

The problem is that they sometimes crumble in pretty large bits, and Anders still only has two teeth, with neither in opposition to the other. So those large bits can cause him to cough. They also end up mashed all over his shirt and the floor.

That gave me the idea to try making my own teething biscuits.


Here's my recipe, adapted from the iVillage recipe I linked to above, which in turn is adapted from Vicki Lansky's recipe in Feed Me I'm Yours. I chose that recipe because it seems quite healthy, and in particular doesn't call for any refined sugar.

Ingredients

• 1 egg yolk (egg whites are not recommended for infants, so separate well)
  
• 3 T malt syrup (or molasses or maple syrup—but don't substitute honey, because that's another no-no for infants)
  
• 1 t vanilla extract
  
• 1½ T oil
  
• 2 oz water
  
• dry formula for 4 oz water
  
• 1 T uncooked oatmeal
  
• 1½ c or so whole wheat flour (the recipe I started with said 1 c, but that was no where near enough; I may have used as much as 2 c)
  
• 2 T wheat germ
  

Preparation

1. Blend wet ingredients in a mixing bowl.
   
2. Add dry ingredients and mix well. I used a stand mixer with the dough hook attachment. The dough should be stiff and form a ball. If it is tacky, add a bit more flour. If it falls apart, add a bit more water.
   
3. Roll the dough thin (I was aiming for graham cracker thickness, but a bit thicker might be better).
   
4. Cut into cracker shapes, around 1" by 2". I used a pizza cutter.
   
5. Bake at 350 for 15 minutes on ungreased cookie sheet.
   
6. Cool on a rack, and then store in an airtight container.

Teething biscuit goodness!

Bagels

We had some folks over today for brunch. The menu included homemade bagels.


Bagels in the Bay Area typically aren't actually bagels. They're bread cooked into a donut shape. My understanding is that this is due to a shortcut taken in the bagel-making process, whereby rather than boiling the dough before baking, the bagels are baked in an oven into which steam is injected.

This is, apparently, a really bad idea, because it results in bagels that aren't chewy. If you make your own bagels, you can avoid this travesty. Here's the recipe I use, which is based on Peter Reinhart's recipe in The Bread Baker's Apprentice.

For planning purposes, note that this is the sort of recipe you start in the evening (at, say, 6 p.m.), and finish in the morning. And you really need a stand mixer. And space in your fridge for two baking sheets. Note that the recipe calls for malt syrup (but apparently you can substitute honey, though I haven't tried that), and bread flour (though my twist is to use all purpose flour and vital gluten flour, both of which I measure by weight).

Ingredients

Sponge:

• 1 t. instant yeast
  
• 525 g. all purpose flour
  
• 15 g. vital gluten flour; I use Red Mill Vital Wheat Gluten Flour, which I believe is about 75% gluten by weight (you can use 4 c. bread flour in place of the AP and gluten)
  
• 2½ c. lukewarm (110° F) water
  

Dough:

• ½ t. instant yeast
  
• 495 g. all purpose flour
  
• 10 g. vital gluten flour (or 3¾ c. bread flour in place of the AP and gluten)
  
• 1 T. salt
  
• 1 T. barley malt syrup (honey is apparently an acceptable substitute)
• Cooking spray
  

Cooking:

• 1 T. baking soda
  
• Semolina flour (cornmeal is ok)
  
• Toppings (I use sesame seeds and poppy seeds)
  

Instructions

Sponge:

1. Combine the yeast and flour in your stand mixer's bowl.
   
2. Add the water and mix together with a spoon (i.e. you don't need to use the stand mixer). You'll have a sticky batter.
   
3. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and leave at room temperature until it nearly doubles in size and is bubbly. This will probably take two hours or more.
   

Dough:

1. Using the dough hook attachment with your stand mixer on low, add the yeast, about ¾ of the flour, the salt, and the malt syrup. Mix until the dough forms a ball (this won't take long).
   
2. Slowly add the remaining flour. The dough will be quite stiff, so you may need to up the power on the mixer a bit as things go along. You may also need to pause the mixer periodically to push the dough down if it rides up over the top of the dough hook.
   
3. Let the mixer knead the dough for about 6 minutes. For my stand mixer, at least, this is quite a workout. You're aiming for a smooth, satiny dough. It shouldn't be tacky. Add a splash of water or a bit of flour as needed.
   
4. Clean your counter, and wipe it with a damp cloth. Place the dough on the counter, and divide into 24 equal pieces (I use a scale for this to keep the pieces equal in weight; usually I end up with about 70 g. per bagel). This will result in slightly smaller than average bagels, but I find that this gives you a great surface-to-weight ratio, for an ideal chewiness. It's also a good size when the bagels are just part of the meal rather than the main event.
   
5. Ball up the pieces, individually, and let them rest under a damp towel for 20 minutes. Don't skimp on the time here.
   
6. While the dough rests, prepare two baking sheets by lining them each with parchment paper, and misting the parchment paper with cooking spray.
   
7. Once the dough has rested, shape each piece by pushing one thumb through the center, working your other thumb in from the other side, and enlarging the hole by rotating around your two thumbs until the hole is 1 to 2 inches wide. Keep the bagel evenly shaped while you do this.
   
8. Arrange the bagels on the baking sheets, mist the tops with cooking spray, and loosely cover with plastic wrap. The bagels should have an inch or two between them, as they will get larger when you boil them. Let rest for another 20 minutes. Again, don't cheat on the time here. If you don't let them rest long enough, your bagels will be dense and won't float when you boil them.
   
9. After this second rest, store the bagels overnight in the fridge. (Apparently two days, or even three or four, is ok, but unless you have a lot more space in your fridge than I do, you'll stick with overnight).
   

Cooking:

1. Set your oven racks toward the middle and preheat to 500° F. I use GE "TruTemp" convection bake, which means my oven is not really at 500° F, but some temperature that GE has decided is the convection-bake equivalent of 500° F when using conventional bake.
   
2. Bring a large pot of water to a boil, with the baking soda. You want to use as wide a pot as you have.
   
3. Remove the bagels from the fridge and place as many as you can comfortably fit in your pot (for me, this is 6 bagels; your mileage may vary). I stick them in upside down (so that they'll be right side up after I flip them). They should float immediately. If they don't, I'm guessing you cheated on one or both of the 20 minute resting times the night before.
   
4. After 2 minutes, flip the bagels with a slotted spoon. Meanwhile, dust the empty part of the baking pan (i.e the space where the bagels that are now boiling used to be) with semolina flour. After the bagels have boiled for another 2 minutes, return them to the baking pan.
   
5. Top the just-boiled bagels with your choice of toppings, and then continue on with your next batch of bagel boiling, until all the bagels have been boiled and topped.
   
6. Bake for 10 minutes. If you are not using convection baking, midway through rotate the pans 180 degrees and switch shelves. Your bagels should be a light golden brown at the end.
   
7. Cool on a rack for 15 minutes.

I've taste tested this recipe on a variety of New Yorkers, and they all seem to agree that these bagels are far more authentic than the typical so-called bagels you find in the Bay Area.