Many of the foods that evoke nostalgia are simple pleasures with uncomplicated ingredients. Flour + water + yeast + onions + salt = bialys. Moosewood’s David Hirsch’s childhood love of a toasted bialy was fostered by his father’s weekly Saturday-morning trips to a bialy factory in Bayside, Queens, for the best, freshest bialys. Most others were frozen, because even freshly baked, they have a short shelf life.
David’s maternal grandmother came from Volkovysk, a town in Belarus not far from Bialystok—maybe that fresh warm chewy onion bread evoked an ancestral memory? If you go to Bialystok today, there are no longer any bialys baked there. The food writer Mimi Sheraton wrote The Bialy Eaters about her worldwide search in New York, Poland, Paris, and Argentina to learn what she could. Guess David’s not alone in his quest!
Yields 9 bialys
Prep time: 15 minutes
First rising time: about 2 hours
Second rising time, after punch-down: about 2 hours more
Baking time: about 10 minutes
3 cups unbleached white bread flour*
1 teaspoon active dry yeast
1½ teaspoons salt
1 cup plus 2 or 3 tablespoons room temperature water
1 tablespoon vegetable oil, plus more for the bowl
¾ cup chopped onions
Cornmeal (optional)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
*Use 1 cup whole wheat bread flour and 2 cups white flour for a more whole-grain, but less traditional, bialy.
You can mix this dough with a food processor or an electric mixer. Combine the flour, yeast, and salt. Gradually add 1 cup of the water while mixing. Process or mix at medium speed for a couple of minutes. If the dough seems dry and isn’t forming a ball, add 2 or 3 tablespoons more water. Continue to process or mix for about 3 minutes to knead the dough. Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl and turn it over to coat all sides. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and put in a warm place until the dough has doubled in volume, 1½ to 2 hours.
Punch down the dough and cut it into 9 equal pieces. Sprinkle cornmeal or flour on a baking sheet for the next rising of the bialys. Form each piece into a disk 2 to 3 inches in diameter and place on the baking sheet. Lightly sprinkle with flour and cover loosely with plastic wrap. Put in a warm place to rise for 1½ to 2 hours until the dough doesn’t bounce back when pressed with a finger.
Meanwhile, sauté the onions in the oil until lightly golden. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and set aside.
About 20 minutes before baking, preheat the oven to 475°F. To enhance crustiness, consider putting a baking stone or upside-down skillet in the oven. Since it’s a fairly short baking time, if you have only one stone or skillet, you can bake the bialys in batches. Or just bake them on baking sheets.
Line two baking sheets with parchment paper for the formed bialys. Using both hands, gently stretch each disk of risen dough to a larger round 4½ to 5 inches in diameter. With your thumb, make a depression in the center of each disk. Put a teaspoon or so of the cooked onions in each depression. Bake the sheet on the baking stone or skillet for 8 to 10 minutes until the bialys are firm with lightly browned bottoms. If you don’t use a stone or skillet, add a couple of minutes to the baking time. Using a spatula, transfer the cooked bialys to a cooling rack. Freeze any you won’t eat that day.
Bialys warm from the oven are tasty, but they’re at their best when toasted to a crisp, butter- or cream cheese–melting goodness, kind of like an English muffin. Slice them in half crosswise before toasting, and eat over a plate to retrieve any falling onions!
Traditionalists would never do this, but onion bialys are delicious. Sauté 1½ cups onions, and work half the sautéed onions into the dough. Use the rest of the sautéed onions to fill the little indentations. Ochen vkusno! (“Very tasty!” in Russian).
Usually bialys are for breakfast with butter or cream cheese and coffee or tea. But if you were to toast one to serve beside Smoky Split Pea Soup or Mushroom Barley Salad, what could be wrong?