This Is the Best Way to Stack Bagels.
As a lifelong New Yorker, I know what the perfect bagel is. (This is a bagel for everything.) I know how to cook it. (Lightly toasted, but not hot; you don’t want the cream cheese to melt, that’s disgusting.) And I know what to do with it: (plain) cream cheese, thinly sliced salmon, tomato slice, if it’s in season. , and capers. Always capers. (Red onions are fine if you like it and I don’t.) Yes, and a little lemon on top. You will eat it with your face open, lightly spreading the ingredients on each half. I will not tolerate disputes!
As perfect as that donut formula was, there was one part that always annoyed me: my capers, my favorite salty bois (whatever Claire calls them ), they rolled right off the sucker onto my plate. Sometimes right on the floor, and does the five second rule apply when it comes to capers? Is not.
Every lost caper makes me sad. In case you couldn’t tell, capers are my favorite part of the donut. I love these babies with umami. (A term Claire isn’t using yet, but coming soon.)
But now I no longer have to mourn the loss of even one caper, because I have found the perfect solution: I simply press them directly into the cream cheese and then apply lotion on them. The capers stay in place, and since you can’t see them, they are the perfect surprise bursting in your mouth with this perfect mixture of scent and salt. (I really love capers.) It got me thinking, why don’t we put all the fillings under the sucker? Tomato. Red onion. … Anything else. Dill? Not mine, but if necessary. Cucumbers? Get out of here.
Either way, the bottom line is this: press the ingredients into the cheese-cheese matrix and apply the lotion all over the cheese. Loch is slippery. Loch wants to be the roof of your bagel. Give the sucker what he wants.