When I make it back to New Jersey, I always have a list of spots that I have to visit. Chief among them is our local New Jersey bagel place/deli. I took a break from the big city (I’m currently interning in NYC) and headed back home to the peace and quiet of suburbia last weekend. I went for a lox + cream cheese + everything bagel, and it was epic, as always. I know that NYC has a ton of good bagel delis, but somehow the one in your hometown is always the best.
I sincerely hope that you have authentic bagels near wherever you are reading this post from, because I know living in Philadelphia that there is not a single good bagel in the whole city. This unfortunately is not an exaggeration; bagels in Philadelphia are all terrible mass-produced hockey pucks masquerading as the real thing. It gave me a whole new appreciation for a good bagel. I grabbed a couple from the deli last weekend for breakfast.
Here’s my little impromptu guide to putting together an extra special bagel.
First, toasted bagel—flavor of your choice. (Preferably a savory bagel–no room for blueberry or cinnamon raisin in this particular application. And no egg bagels. Egg bagels are a ridiculous abomination upon this earth. I just don’t get it. It tastes the same…it’s just yellower and higher in cholesterol. WHY?!)
Then ya shmear on the good stuff—don’t be stingy with the cream cheese. Neufchatel is just fine, too.
Then you lay on your red onion—sliced thinly and broken up into rings. You technically could use white onions in a pinch, but the red onion is actually sweeter. Plus it looks purdy.
Then a sprinkling of wonderfully briny capers, amount adjusted to your liking.
Thirdly a generous and luscious layer of smoked salmon. Keeping those slices intact is key for even coverage.
An optional step is adding cream cheese to the top half of the bagel to glue everything together.
And that is a bagel with the fixins’, friends.
Hope everyone had a great weekend!
