Noodle Kugel

Just a day after the latkes, M got another Jewish dish to try. This time it was noodle kugel.

Kugel is an odd mixture of a dish. It has noodles, so it seems like a heavy main course. And yet it’s often quite sweet and could be more like a dessert. I served it as our main course, but it also works as a side dish. You can cut the sweetness a bit by serving it with vegetables. Of course there are variations on kugel, so you can replace the noodles with apples or carrots if you want.

I remember my maternal grandma making noodle kugel quite regularly. She always made me one when I came back to visit from university and even today she often makes me one when I come to visit. I appreciate that she goes to so much trouble for me, even as she’s in her late 80s.

M can’t know how my grandma’s kugel tastes, but hopefully she got a glimpse of Ashkenazi Jewish home cooking the night I made the noodle kugel.

Ingredients:
butter to grease the casserole dish
½ cup crème fraiche or sour cream
1 cup cottage cheese
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
3 tbsp apricot jam
2 eggs
200 g egg noodles
1 cup corn flakes
more sugar and cinnamon

Instructions:
1. Grease the dish. Mix the crème fraiche or sour cream, cottage cheese, vanilla, sugar, cinnamon, and jam together.
2. Beat the eggs and add them to the rest of the mixture. Mix all this well with the noodles, coating them.
3. Put the mixture in the dish and bake for 15 minutes at 180 C. Meanwhile, crush the corn flakes and mix them with more sugar and cinnamon.
4. Stir the noodles and then sprinkle with the corn flakes. Bake for another 20 or so minutes, checking and stirring as necessary.