Smoked salmon bagels with cream cheese, cucumber and dill
The bagel and lox of New York's Jewish delis, now an Israeli café classic: cream cheese with lemon zest and dill, smoked salmon, crisp cucumber, capers and red onion.
Method
- If using salt-packed capers, rinse and soak in a bowl of cold water for 10 minutes; simply rinse capers in vinegar. Slice the red onion very finely and soak in a bowl of iced water for at least 5 minutes, keeping it crisp while mellowing its bite. Rinse and thoroughly dry the cucumber and dill, then thinly slice the cucumber. Keep the salmon refrigerated until assembly.
- Finely grate the zest from the quarter-lemon, then squeeze the juice. Mix the cream cheese with the zest, 1 tsp juice, 5 g, the pepper and chopped dill, reserving a few fronds for the top. The mixture should stay firm and hold on a spatula without running. Drain the onion and capers, pat dry with kitchen paper and roughly chop the capers.
- Lay each bagel flat on the board, hold it with a flat hand on top and slice horizontally with a bread knife. If eating immediately, or if the bagel is not fresh that day, toast the cut sides for 2 minutes until just golden and crisp on the surface, then cool for 2 minutes: warm bread would melt the cheese. Spread the lemon cream cheese over both cut sides, edge to edge, for flavour in every bite.
- Arrange cucumber slices on the bases, then divide the salmon between them in loose folds without pressing down. Sprinkle with a few drops of lemon juice and arrange the onion on top. Press the chopped capers into the cheese on the top halves so they stay in place, then scatter with dill fronds. Do not add salt: the salmon, capers and cheese provide it.
- Close, press very lightly and halve with a bread knife if desired. Serve one bagel per person immediately, or seal in an airtight container and refrigerate at once.
Variants and their steps remain below the recipe.
Fish-free
- Sliced smoked salmon → Eggs 220 g (4 medium eggs, weighed without the shells; 2 per fish-free bagel)
- add Fine salt 2 g (2 pinches, or 1 g per fish-free bagel, for the eggs only)
- Start with the eggs, 2 per fish-free bagel. Bring water to the boil in the small saucepan, lower in the eggs with a spoon and cook at a gentle boil for 9 minutes. Meanwhile, complete steps 1 and 2. Plunge the eggs into a bowl of very cold water, with ice if possible, for 5 minutes. During this time, split the bagels and, if toasting, toast then cool as in step 3. Peel the eggs under a trickle of water; the yolks should be set and bright yellow, without a grey ring.
- For each fish-free bagel, roughly mash 2 eggs with a fork, 1 tbsp lemon cream cheese, 15 g, half its chopped capers, 2 pinches of salt, 1 g, one turn of pepper and a few drops of lemon juice. The dill egg salad should remain chunky and hold together inside the bread. Unlike salmon, eggs need salt: taste and adjust before spreading. At step 3, spread the bagel with the remaining 35 g lemon cream cheese.
- At step 4, spread the egg salad over the cucumber instead of salmon, then add the onion. Press the remaining capers into the cream cheese on the top half.
- For one serving of each, make one bagel with 70 g salmon and the other with 2 eggs, 110 g. Divide all other ingredients equally and assemble the egg bagel before handling the salmon.
A dairy variation without meat: dill egg salad is the other great Jewish deli bagel classic. Allow 28 minutes in total, including 15 minutes active time, or 16 minutes if the eggs were cooked the day before and refrigerated in their shells.
On your plate
Recipe
532 kcal · protein 29 g · carbs 51 g · fat 22 g
Quantities per person
- 100 g Plain pareve bagels
- 70 g Sliced smoked salmon
- 50 g Plain cream cheese, 20% fat
- 60 g Cucumbers
- 7.5 g Capers
- 3 g Fresh dill
- 15 g Lemon
- 10 g Red onions
- 0.25 g Ground black pepper
Fish-free version
561 kcal · protein 28 g · carbs 51 g · fat 26 g
Quantities per person
- 100 g Plain pareve bagels
- 50 g Plain cream cheese, 20% fat
- 60 g Cucumbers
- 7.5 g Capers
- 3 g Fresh dill
- 15 g Lemon
- 10 g Red onions
- 0.25 g Ground black pepper
- 110 g Eggs
- 1 g Fine salt
Cooking tips
Choose fresh bakery bagels, plain or sesame, preferably baked that day; packaged industrial bagels have a sliced-bread crumb. For taking away, do not toast a same-day bagel, as it would soften in its container; only a day-old bagel benefits from toasting. Carry cold, using kosher ready-to-eat smoked salmon within its use-by date. Keep the sandwich refrigerated, then in an insulated bag with an ice pack, and eat the same day. Thoroughly drying the cucumber, onion and capers prevents soggy bread. Salt-packed capers soaked for 10 minutes taste more delicate and lose most of their salt; the salmon already provides plenty.
Bagel and lox from New York's Ashkenazi Jewish delis, served throughout Israel's cafés; a cucumber and dill version.
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