Doesn’t this bagel look strikingly beautiful? I can assure you it’s also very tasty 🙂 We have been eating a lot of bagels lately, and this is no surprise: every year, the arrival of the fall and the drop in outside temperature makes us crave this delicious and enticing treat. Nowadays, a freshly toasted bagel with cream cheese and a hot cup of aromatic herb tea is my husband’s favorite dinner combo. It is not too heavy and he can eat it late at night when he gets back from work, and then go straight to bed without the discomfort of an overly full stomach.
I like to experiment with bagels whenever I get the chance, and this is when I usually go back in time and pay homage to my mom’s or my aunt’s recipes. To fill this particular bagel I decided to use a combination of crumbled feta cheese, sour cream and fresh dill. This is a dip my mom used to make a lot when I was growing up, and its flavor is unique and full of meaning to me. I remember eating it often during the summer, with sliced heirloom tomatoes from the abundant garden or on freshly torn bread. I also decided to use a roasted red pepper in my bagel. I wrote about roasting peppers on several occasions, and as you may know by now, roasted peppers are among my favorite things to eat. I think their smoky flavor is nothing short of amazing – and, sadly, it is also very underrated. Last but not least, I used red onion for an extra boost of taste and crunchiness.
Ingredients
1 bagel
1/4 lb feta cheese
1 8oz container sour cream
1 small roasted red pepper, peeled and with the seeds removed
3-4 fresh red onion rings
1 handful fresh parsley
Salt and pepper (to taste)
Smash the feta cheese using a fork. Add the sour cream and mix well. Wash and chop the dill and then add it to the cheese and sour cream mixture. Season to taste. Spread a generous layer of this mixture on each half of the bagel using a knife. Place the onion rings on the bottom half of the bagel, then add the roasted red pepper. Place the other half of the bagel on top. Grill the bagel briefly (for about 30 seconds) – you want a crispy texture and nice grill marks.
This is how the preparation process looks like:
Serve the bagel when it’s still warm with a beverage of your choice. As I mentioned earlier, we like to have ours with a hot cup of tea.
I was happy with how the bagel turned out: the smoky roasted pepper and the fresh dill were perfect flavor partners, and both of them elevated the dish. Moreover, the crunchiness of the red onion added a welcome finishing touch in terms of texture. I will definitely make this bagel again: after all, the fall season is upon us, and I’ve got plenty of time to experiment. Fall days are definitely bagel days in our family 🙂
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