Pizza Bagel – How To Make The Absolute Best Ever!
It’s not uncommon for me to eat the same thing every day. For the past 2.5 years, I have eaten 3 fried eggs and 2 pieces of sourdough toast with strawberry preserves for breakfast seven days a week. What can I say? When I find something I like I stick with it. My daily pizza bagel habit began due to a confluence of circumstances. There was a global pandemic and we were abiding by the state’s stay-at-home order. That meant limited trips to the grocery store and eating what we had on hand. That also meant we weren’t going out to eat at all. Bonnie had just made a batch of her amazing homemade pizza sauce. And because I wasn’t working, I was home during the day with plenty of time to perfect my pizza bagel technique. And perfect it I did.
The Ingredients Make The Pizza Bagel!
As with any recipe, the right ingredients are everything. I learned early on in the process that all bagels are not the same. I would imagine that making my own bagels from scratch would make the very best pizza bagel but that wasn’t an option as there was a run on flour during the lockdown and the 50-pound bag that we buy every two months had just run out. One of the great phenomenons of human nature that confounds me is everyone deciding they’re bakers during this pandemic.
How to Make The Absolute Best Pizza Bagel
- Select Your Bagel
Since making my own bagels wasn’t an option and since the selection was scarce during this time I went with whatever bagels were available. Some weeks the bread aisle at our local grocery store would be totally bare. Some weeks we would get there just in the nick of time to get a package of bagels before they totally sold out. I found that the fresh bagels in the bakery section of the supermarket made the best pizza bagels and the bagels made by that joker Thomas made the worst.
- Slice Your Bagel
It’s important that you get this step right. If you fuck it up you’re going to ruin your pizza bagel. So pay attention to what you’re doing and take your time. The whole thing hinges on this step.
Remember it should look like a little pizza when you’re done so you want to cut your bagel in half lengthwise. Do not cut it in half across its width. You won’t be able to do anything with it like that.
- Apply the Sauce
The sauce was, of course, my wife’s amazing homemade pizza sauce. I used a store-bought pizza sauce once and that pizza bagel was a total loss. Pizza sauce is food for the soul rather than food for the body. Mass-produced sauce is so objectively awful because venture capitalists dabble in things of which they know nothing – like soul.
You’ll have to use whatever sauce you have available to you and you’ll just have to deal with it.
Spread it around on each half of your bagel. Not too much, just enough to cover the bread.
- Cheese
Cheese is cheese. I’ll admit that I’m not the biggest fan that mozzarella ever had. I’ve never tried one that I could differentiate from another. I don’t enjoy fighting with my food. When the ass-end of my burrito falls open, spilling the goodness with which it was lately stuffed, onto my plate, I get annoyed. When my ice cream cone drips onto my hand I get downright indignant. (I have thrown a cone or two out the window of a moving car.)
The dance we do with a slice of pizza where you take a bite and then pull it away from your face only to bring it back to take another bite in an attempt to break the cheese in your mouth free from the cheese on the slice is silly and most unflattering. Besides the fact that it hasn’t learned how to behave like a proper cheese, it also hasn’t learned how to taste like a proper cheese either. For these reasons, I use it rather sparingly on my pizza bagel and I suggest you do the same.
But I know you’re not going to. Just keep piling it on gluttonous piggy. Maybe you’d rather substitute ketchup for the pizza sauce too. Wouldn’t you? Philistine.
- An Optional Step To Class Up Your Pizza Bagel
You can add other, better cheeses to your pizza bagel too. (Don’t worry it’s not gay to want to taste your food.)
Unlike its white trash cousin, mozzarella, Feta is a noble cheese, worthy of its place on the perfect pizza bagel. Again, though, I use it sparingly. The pepperoni, bagel, and my wife’s amazing homemade pizza sauce are the stars of the show here. The cheese is playing a supporting role. Plus, we’re not in Houston. - Pepperoni
Pepperoni is another very important component of the perfect pizza bagel. At the start of the stay-at-home order, we still had some of the pepperonis from the deli counter at our local grocery store but that soon ran out and they closed the deli counter during the quarantine. Reluctantly, I bought pre-packaged pepperoni which, surprisingly, I liked better than the deli pepperoni. It was smaller and thicker, (everyone knows it’s all about the girth) and it got crispier on the edges which I like.
I use about 5 pieces of pepperoni because that’s how many it takes to cover the whole bagel. Then when they cook they shrink and allow the cheese to melt.
- Other toppings
I would not consider the perfect pizza bagel complete without pepperoncini or banana peppers for the soft-minded philistines. They add a tangy spice that compliments the feta while laughing at the miserable existence of that other shit cheese.
You can add whatever you like. Sausage, pineapple, smores-flavored Pop-Tarts; whatever you think would taste good. Look at you. You’re disgusting. - Time to Cook
With all of our ingredients assembled it’s time for the oven. I use the broiler because it cooks the pizza bagel from the top down ensuring that the god-awful mozzarella melts, the pepperoni gets crisp but the bagel itself doesn’t burn on the bottom. Of course, you’ll need to remove the Tupperware and tinfoil that you’ve been storing in there before you light the broiler.
It only takes a few minutes to cook so stick around and watch it. You don’t need to hustle back to the couch to see what shenanigans Honey Boo Boo is up to, she’ll be there when you’re done cooking. If your simple mind gets too distracted your pizza bagel will burn up like your last 3 marriages. I know, I know, you’re not even married yet. That was a prophecy.
- Get Your Pizza Bagel Out Of The Oven!
When the pepperoni is crispy and the white tar is golden brown it’s time to remove it from the oven. But calm down glutton! It needs to cool a little before you eat it.
So now you know how to make the absolute best pizza bagel. I’m sorry that you’re not a better person for it. There’s nothing I can do about that. Maybe try getting out of the house once in a while, and get some sun on that pallid face. Do something with your life. Even the roaches that live under your mattress are judging you. They want a break from you too.
