Our Brooklyn bagel board is better than a butter board! (Yea.. I said it!)
Images: Chris Filcidor
I have been following the butter board trend on TikTok, Instagram and all the social media outlets. Though I think it’s a great trend - what can I say, I LOVE BUTTER- I felt it lacked the imagination and creativity of a true charcuterie board. Now hear me out: The best thing about a charcuterie board is that you get a mix of different flavors and textures on one board. You graze throughout the board, nibbling on different tastes and texture, bringing excitement to every bite. The limitations of the butter board trend as it currently stands is that you have one flavor profile throughout the board. How much chili crisp and fig over butter can you really eat?
So it literally came to me in a dream to create not just a cream cheese board but a true Brooklyn bagel board. As a native Brooklynite, bagels are basically life! You are not going to get better bagels than those in Brooklyn! We take bagels so seriously in Brooklyn that we replace baby teethers with day old bagels (not really but maybe)! Drawing inspo from my fave Brooklyn borough charcuterie board, I thought what better than to have a cream cheese board that mimics that of some iconic New York bagel flavors.
With a base of plain whipped cream cheese, I decided to build the board on these classic bagel flavors:
1. Everything bagel seasoning: How can you go wrong with everything bagel seasoning? Its mix of flavors and textures from the different seasonings and spices used is a classic bagel flavor profile.
2. Spicy jalapeno cheddar bacon: Perhaps not a classic bagel flavor, but how can you go wrong with bacon? The spice of the jalapeno is a great companion to the sharpness of the cheddar that gives a nod to a classic charcuterie board. But the fatty, smoky, crumbled bacon is waving you right into brunch!
3. Salmon Lox: Last but certainly not least, the illustrious lox bagel is classic Brooklyn breakfast fare. With its origins from the Jewish immigrants of the mid-1900s, this flavor profile is so complex with the freshness of dill, brininess of capers, sharpness of sliced red onions but also the luxuriousness of lox, or gravlax, which is a smoked/cured salmon.
The beauty of my bagel board is that you can just let the creativity run through you as it would with any charcuterie board. Place items that would complement the flavors you are adding to the cream cheese. I placed seedless cucumbers near both the lox bagel and everything bagel flavors as the freshness would be a great addition to each flavor profile. The bacon and spicy jalapenos would be a great addition to the everything bagel seasoning. And of course, avocado goes with everything! I even took nods from classic charcuterie boards and used grape tomatoes to mimic grape bundles and sprigs of dill and chive as herbaceous garnishes. I added a few crackers to my board but to really enjoy this board you of course need some mini bagels! Feel free to dip the mini bagel right into the cream cheese or break out those charcuterie tools to smear, spread, and hook up your bagel however you like. This board, paired with a mimosa (or three), will be a hit at your next brunch!
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