whew, if feels like it’s been forever! how are you? i’ve been better. actually, right now i’m feeling pretty healthy, but for the past week i was feeling particularly unhealthy – the kind of unhealthy that makes you not want to go anywhere near the kitchen. the kind of unhealthy that makes you wish you had bought stock in the kleenex corporation a week ago (not to mention nyquil inc). but i have returned, and i did miss you all. i bring you wishes of good health this spring, and this recipe for bialys, because why not have breakfast all day long?
i had never even heard of bialys before (which explains why when i asked the girl about them, i kept calling them “bilays”), but the way she described them – lots of onion and lots of poppy seeds – i had to have one. i love onion bagels, and i love poppy seed bagels, so combining them and getting rid of the hole – essentially adding more bagel – is genius.
i’ve read extensively about this, but i’m pretty sure there is no fool-proof way to keep from crying when cutting onions. i’ve tried cutting next to an open flame and cutting next to a running faucet, which both work for a brief amount of time, but sure enough, 3 minutes later, i’m bawling like i’m watching that aspca commercial with sarah mclaughlin. my method has pretty much become cut, stick head in freezer to stop from tearing up, cut for another few seconds, stick head back in freezer, repeat. oddly enough, it takes me a long time to cut an onion and i always end up with a wicked brain freeze.
since the recipe is from Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day, it’s a cinch to make. the drawback is that the finished bialys are missing that “something” that you get from a good new york bagel dough. this can be traced back, most likely, to the absence of malt syrup, but sometimes the benefits of an easy dough can simply be too great. plus, the sauteed onions and poppy seeds give the bialys a sweet richness that makes you wish the whole thing was coated in the filling (maybe next time…).
this will definitely not be my last experience with bialys. for some reason, when it stays lighter later at night, i’m inspired to have breakfast for dinner, and bialys are a food that just begs to be experimented on and tried with different fillings. what if i cracked an egg in the middle? added bacon? sausage? bacon and sausage? and cheese? this is going to be good.