We were craving authentic Montreal style bagels and thought they were coming in the grocery delivery. We got these bagels instead.
Visually interesting. Like a cross between the Montreal style bagel and the New York style bagel, only longer and leaner. Time for a bagel brunch!
I’m making a bagel platter, which gives people the option to build their own according to their own tastes. It starts with a prized ingredient: a homegrown cucumber that came out of Craig’s terrace cucumber patch.
Who says you can’t grow vegetables on the sixth floor of a condo? Of course, those leaves are pretty beaten up by the winds that rip along our terrace. Fortunately, those cucumbers are hardy. I’ve picked one for our bagel platter. It’ll get peeled and thinly sliced.
The other star of this bagel show is a fillet of smoked trout. I’ll break a quarter of that filet into bite sized chunks for the bagel platter.
I’m serving the bagels with cream cheese and with homemade whipped feta, which is super easy to make. Put a tub of cream cheese and 1/4 cup feta into a food processor.
Whip that together until the feta is fully incorporated into the cream cheese and is light and airy (about a minute).
For the platter, I’m chopping a handful of fresh dill, quartering lemons, creating a pile of flaky salt and pepper, and rinsing a small bowl of salt-packed capers.
Time to toast the bagels. They’re a little too long for my toaster, but eventually I get the job done.
Ready to assemble the platter and take it on the terrace for a help yourself brunch. How tempting is that?
First, I build the cucumber bagel: I smear a healthy dose of cream cheese on a toasted bagel, layer on the thin cucumber slices and top that with dill and salt.
For the smoked trout bagel, I smear on the whipped feta, which is bold enough to stand up to that smoked fish. Then layer on the chunks of trout and decorate it with dill and capers. Add a squeeze of lemon and it’s good to go.
Craig and I cut each bagel in half and sample. The cucumber bagel is light and refreshing, a perfect contrast with the rich, smokey trout bagel. Perfect partners.
— Trish Hennessy
A Year in Sandwiches 