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Kugel Cooks Prepare for ?Kookoff': Blintzapalooza to Feature New Competition

Posted on: Wednesday, 22 March 2006, 12:00 CST

By Lisa Pemberton, The Olympian, Olympia, Wash.

Mar. 22--OLYMPIA -- The sweet and spicy aroma of baked apples, cinnamon and pecans filled the air as Edie Bean pulled a casserole dish out of her oven. Under the aluminum foil was a "lokshen kugel," also known as a noodle or sweet kugel. Bean carefully garnished the traditional Jewish side dish with some store-bought candied pecans, maraschino cherries and apple slices that she had sauteed earlier with sugar and butter. She apologized. She didn't really have a recipe, per se. After 50-plus years, kugels are something she tends to create on auto-pilot. "Kugel just means to bake," explained Susan Trinin, 53, of Olympia, who also had prepared a noodle kugel for their get- together with several friends. "A kugel is a casserole.""It's a special dish," added Linda Blustein, 51. "It's our grandma's dish. It's our mama's dish." Bean, 75, is considered an expert kugel maker by many at Temple Beth Hatfiloh, which will hold a "Kugel Kookoff" during its annual Blintzapalooza charity book, bagel and blintz sale Sunday. The event, which is open to the community, usually raises several thousand dollars for South Sound nonprofit organizations. Proceeds from this year's sale will go to CHOICE Regional Health Network, Garden-Raised Bounty (GRuB) and Interfaith Works. Organizers added the kugel-making contest this year in an effort to honor the traditional side dish that's well-loved but isn't widely known outside the Jewish community. "It isn't something everybody makes anymore," said Bean, who learned how to make it from her mother. "It's kind of an old-fashioned dish." As of last week, she hadn't decided if she was going to enter the kugel contest, which is open to expert and novice kugel cooks alike. But the competition is still expected to be a doozy: Rabbi Seth Goldstein said he's baking a lokshen kugel for the contest -- using his mother's recipe. "Everybody has their favorite kugel," Goldstein said.

To prepare for the contest, organizer Oscar Soule, 65, spent some time researching the history of the pudding/casserole/quiche-like dish on the Internet. The kugel-loving, retired professor from The Evergreen State College said he learned that the bundt pan was originally designed for kugel, and that the word kugel comes from the Yiddish word for ball, perhaps because the first kugels were made from bread and were more salty than sweet. "The kugel is Jewish comfort food," he said. "Its history stretches back more than 800 years, but its form has changed dramatically in the past century and exploded in the past decade. Kugel has gone from something your grandmother made to a mirror of contemporary society." These days, kugels seem to have become one of those "kitchen sink" types of casseroles -- popular ingredients include sweet potatoes, zucchini, pumpkin and carrots. Some contain raisins, apples, rhubarb or cherry pie filling. "Essentially, anything that can be grated can be put in a kugel," Soule said. And like most casseroles, kugels probably wouldn't get a stamp of approval from the American Heart Association: Most recipes call for six to eight whole eggs, and usually contain milk, cottage cheese or sour cream, which give the dishes a custardlike consistency. Soule said kugels are filling, and joked that most are as "light as a fender." Bean usually bakes kugels for holidays and other special occasions. Her husband Ben's favorite is the potato kugel.

"My mother made noodle kugels, but the potato kugel has always been my favorite," he said. "Not all of us are lokshen eaters. I'm a potato eater, what can I say? I like potatoes, french fries, hash browns." After pulling a potato kugel out of her oven, Bean spent several minutes decorating it with a hand-carved tomato rose, grape tomatoes and slices of zucchini that she had sauteed in butter. For her, kugel isn't just about taste. It's about presentation. It's about the wow factor. "That's the part I like most," Bean said. Try your hand at making kugel with these recipes Noodle Kugel 1 cup cottage cheese 1 cup sour cream 1 cup cream cheese 5 eggs (beaten) 1/2 cup melted butter 1/2 cup honey 1 teaspoon cinnamon 1/2 teaspoon salt 7 cups egg noodles (cooked, drained) 2 cups chopped apples 1/2 cup raisins Mix together, spoon into a 13x9 greased baking dish. Sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar. Bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes to an hour. Makes 12 servings. Potato Kugel 3 potatoes 2 zucchini 2 carrots 1 large onion 1/4 cup Matzo meal 6 eggs 1/4 cup oil Salt and pepper to taste 1/2 teaspoon baking powder Grind vegetables in a food processor. Mix ingredients together, spoon into a 13x9 greased baking dish. Bake at 350 degrees for about an hour. Makes 12 servings. From Edie Bean Sweet Potato Kugel (eggless) Kugel: 8-10 sweet potatoes 4 tablespoons margarine (or 4 tablespoons cottonseed oil, frozen) 1/4 cup wine 1/2 cup orange juice 3/4 teaspoon salt Topping: 1-2 apples lemon juice Place unpeeled sweet potatoes in a pot with water to cover. Bring to a boil and cook until soft. Remove the potato peels and place potatoes in a bowl. Add the rest of the kugel ingredients to the warm potatoes. Mash ingredients together and spoon into a pan (loaf, square, round, whichever you prefer). Peel the apples and cut into eighths. Slice thinly (dip slices in lemon juice so that they will not oxidize) and arrange in an attractive pattern on top of kugel. Bake at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes. Makes two 9-inch round pans. Variation: For a sweeter kugel, in step 2, add 1/2 cup sugar and 3 to 4 tablespoons potato starch to the mixture. (The sugar will loosen the mixture, and the starch will thicken it again.) In step 3, after you slice the apples, do not dip them in lemon juice. Layer them attractively on top of the sweet potatoes and sprinkle top with sugar or sugar/cinnamon mixture. From "A Taste of Nostalgia: Tales and Recipes to Nourish Body and Soul" by Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski, M.D., and Judi Dick (Artscroll; March 2005) Lisa Pemberton writes for The Olympian. She can be reached at 360-704-6871 or lpemberton@theolympian.com.

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Olympian, Olympia, Wash.

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Source: The Olympian, Olympia, Wash.

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