New York or Montreal? While the debate over which city has the best bagels persists, I suggest that you just make your own. Whatever happens it will taste great and if it doesn't live up to your expectations then try again after tweaking your recipe a bit.
A few weeks ago while showing a guest around Montreal we stepped into Fairmount Bagels. It wasn't my first time there, but this was the first time we picked up a bag of freshly baked bagels. Biting into a cinnamon-raisin bagel hot out of a wood fired oven while walking around in 10˚F weather did just the trick to rekindle my interest in bagels. Of course to indulge in a fresh bagel is not always a possibility or convenient, so why not try making them at home?
Like a lot of other types of bread recipes this one involves a two day process or could possibly be condensed into one long day. Peter Reinhart, the author of this recipe, stresses the importance of the delayed fermentation to allow the bread to develop more complex flavors and cannot be recommended enough.
