So last week there was an article in the local paper about a self-styled “Tik Tok Jewish Mom” and some of her recipes, including a Passover Bagel. The author clearly has never seen a Joan Nathan cookbook because she was wildly impressed with the Tik Tok Mom’s brilliant adjustments to whatever recipes this author has used for Passover popovers.
I was laughing as I read the article but decided this morning to try it out myself just for fun, using the recipe from my 1979 Joan Nathan cookbook.
But here’s my briliant touch - I used my forefinger instead of my thumb to create the hole! Husband will try one out with lox and cream cheese.
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I admit it: I was gobsmacked when I came across her Passover Bagels. It wasn’t merely the notion that you could enjoy bagels during Passover, but when I looked at the ingredients, they were the same (with one big exception) as the matzo meal popovers my family has made for generations — just shaped into a bagel. Brilliant. So what’s the ingredient difference? Strauss uses oil. Our nonkosher family uses butter, which Strauss acknowledged was perfectly fine for a dairy meal. The technique is simple but, as Strauss said in the context of all her recipes, you have to read and follow the recipe or it won’t work. You start by boiling water and oil. Then add matzo meal, sugar and salt, turn off the heat, and stir well with a wooden spoon. Then — this is the key direction — wait a good five minutes for the mixture to cool before you add the eggs — again, key — one at a time. You don’t want to scramble the eggs when adding to a hot mixture, and adding one at a time makes the dough fluffier. Here’s where Strauss’s creativity comes through. Instead of placing balls of the dough on a sheet pan to bake into rolls, she takes those balls and pokes a hole in the center with her thumb and shapes the dough into a bagel. Then she bakes them.