The Bread Circle met last Monday evening. The venue was Nova in Heswall. It is closed on a Monday but Moyo had generously agreed to our being able to make use of the space and had also volunteered to make some food to go with the bagels.

The bagels were made over the course of the day. Sadly not all of us could be there to assist.

For me, perhaps inevitably, there was some confusion as to exactly how a bagel came to be made. Somehow I had got it into my head that the process involved the dunking of suitably shaped dough in boiling water and like magic they would puff up and be sieved up all correct and bagel like. Someone then pointed out that some of the  specimens that had arrived for the evening had the look of an oven about them and anyway how did you get the poppy seeds to stick. Opinions were revised and I learnt that whilst some hot water was involved time was also spent baking in the oven.

When the bagels arrived there was some discussion around the size of the holes in the middle and whether or not they were too big. There was consensus over the need to stuff a bagel but debate to be had as to whether a bagel could be considered properly stuffed if all the stuffing doing the hard work was left to fall through the too big hole in the middle.

In the event it didn’t matter too much. The food Moyo had made could be spread liberally  over the available surfaces of the bagel and the odd piece of ham or salmon was kept in place by being clamped firmly between the two available halves. Not too much was lost through the middle.

The highlight was an aiolli made with fermented garlic. Although I asked I couldn’t quite get to the bottom of how the fermentation was achieved. What I did learn that it took a total of 12 days and produced and deep dark paste that lasted at the back of the tongue until late in the evening.